Enforcing the Right to Adult Education: What UNESCO and Member States Need to Commit

An abridged version of: An ASPBAE Briefing Paper for the CONFINTEA VI Preparatory Conference in Asia and the Pacific Region, Seoul, Republic of Korea, October 6-8, 2008.

‘Review of the worldwide situation of adult education and learning ….. has, in fact, revealed a disturbing regression in the field; a decline in public funding for adult education and learning, even as the minimal adult literacy goal set in Dakar is achievable. Support by various international agencies and national governments alike has concentrated on formal basic education for children to the detriment and neglect of adult education and learning.’

- Midterm Review Document of CONFINTEA V

A. Adults’ Right to Learn

Since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the right to education has been endorsed and ratified at least once every decade. A specific focus on literacy and adult learning emerged some time later. In 1975, The Persepolis Declaration unequivocally recognized Literacy as a right and in 1981, CEDAW reaffirmed the rights of adults to literacy. The gradual recognition of adult education and learning, as a right continued to be strengthened in the Paris Declaration of 1985 (CONFINTEA 4) which underscored the “right to learn”, upon which the Hamburg Declaration on Adult Learning of 1997 built on it’s the assertion that adult education is ‘more than a human right, as key to 21st century’ (CONFINTEA 5).

The Dakar Framework for Action in 2000 which affirmed the 1990 Jomtien Goal of “Education for All” defined specific goals on adult literacy and adult education: Goal 3 and 4 address the learning needs of youths and adults and commit to 50% improvement in adult literacy by 2015.

These commitments notwithstanding, the gap between rhetoric and action, between lofty promises and actual achievements in ensuring education for all and the right of all to learn throughout life, remains vast.

B. Asia and South Pacific: The Case for Adult Education

In developing countries in the region, tens of millions of adults still struggle just to acquire literacy skills, the basic foundation of learning. The EFA Global Monitoring Report (GMR) 2008 describes the staggering extent of illiteracy, the first barrier to learning:

• Adult illiteracy is receiving minimal political attention and remains a global disgrace, keeping one in five adults; one in four women, on the margins of society.
• Worldwide, 774 million adults lack basic literacy skills, as measured by conventional methods (self-reporting). Almost half of that number resides in South and West Asia. Direct measurement of literacy skills would significantly increase the estimate of the number of adults denied the right to literacy.
• Of the 101 countries still far from achieving “universal literacy”, 72 will not succeed in halving their adult illiteracy rates by 2015.
• Most countries have made little progress during the past decade in reducing the absolute number of adult illiterates (in South and West Asia, the number of illiterates declined by a meager 0.3% from 1990).
• More than three-quarters of the world’s illiterates live in only fifteen countries, including eight of the nine high population countries (E-9), five of which are in Asia. South and West Asia have the lowest adult literacy rates in the world (59%). In most of the fifteen countries, adult literacy rates have improved since 1985–1994, although continuing population growth translates into increases in absolute numbers of illiterates in several countries.

These numbers, appalling as they may be, fail to fully capture the massive loss of human potential brought on by illiteracy or the contribution to the world that could be unlocked by securing learning as a basic human right.

Even from a purely economic viewpoint, the benefits of adult education justify the investment. Rates of return on investment in literacy education were analysed in World Bank projects. In Indonesia in 1986, the individual rate of return to investment was about 25 per cent. In Bangladesh in 2001, the private rate of return was estimated at 37 per cent. Add to this, the social returns associated with enhanced political awareness, critical reflection and responsible citizenship, the case for promoting adult education becomes unassailable.

Education in general, and adult education in particular can provide people with the necessary faculties, skills, awareness and creative competencies to cope and as well as to transform their conditions. It enables people to best exercise and advance their other rights. Adult education is a tool for empowerment – a powerful means to beat poverty. This takes particular meaning when set against the overwhelming development challenges in the Asia Pacific region.

Climate change, as manifested in erratic and gradually more devastating natural disasters like tsunami, floods, droughts impact more heavily on the poor.

Ethnic strife, wars and communal and religious fundamentalism continued to characterise the nature of conflict and violence in the region, claiming lives and deeply damaging the social fabric in a large number of countries in the Asia Pacific.

Women bear a disproportionately higher burden of the region’s poverty, with globalization widening the gap, and women losing jobs, benefits and rights. War and the growing violence have also particularly impacted women and girls. Rapes multiply even as the women and girl children become the ultimate and most intimate of war conquests; as lifelong domestic violence persist with the sanction of customary laws and practices arising from religious and other social identities. Unsurprisingly, education continues to be less accessible to women and girls, promotes a value system which accords them a low status and devalues women’s work and contribution not only in the household but in development.

Young women and men represent some of world’s greatest assets and are the foundation for future development. And yet, hundreds of millions of young people are thwarted in their ability to develop their full potential – as they remain mired in poverty, denied a life of dignity and fundamental freedoms. The Word Youth Report 2005 estimated that almost 515 million young people, or nearly 45 per cent of all young people, live on less than $2 a day. South Asia has the largest number of youth living below this poverty line. Around 88.2 million young women and men are unemployed throughout the world, accounting for 47 per cent of all the 185.9 million unemployed persons globally (ILO 2006). Young women face additional difficulties as they are more likely to be confined to least protected and least paid jobs. Indigenous youth, lacking work opportunities in their long-held territories, also face specific vulnerabilities when seeking employment in other areas.

Investing in young people through literacy, youth education, learning and life-skills provide a powerful means to fight poverty, empower young people especially women and adolescent girls to take control of their own lives and make informed decisions, and develop an active and socially responsible citizenry.

ASPBAE urges that –

• Governments commit to put in place where absent, national adult education legislation and policy which guarantee the right of all adults to literacy and education within the framework of lifelong learning; where needed, governments should be supported in their efforts to strengthen their legislative and policy base for lifelong learning.
• Governments commit to developing adult literacy and adult education plans and targets as part of their EFA and education sector wide plans, and over-all poverty eradication plans of governments.

ASPBAE urges that –

• Governments commit to establishing credible, relevant and more timely data collection and appropriate assessment mechanisms for adult literacy and education, covering all diverse learning needs and contexts, with full stakeholder participation; the international community is urged to fully support these efforts financially and with demand-driven, context-based capacity-building support.
• CONFINTEA 6 set the pace for strong and effective monitoring in adult education by putting in place a global monitoring mechanism on adult education policy interacting and complementing existing global monitoring mechanisms such as the EFA Global Monitoring Report and actively targeting the EFA, MDG and other global and regional education policy processes for deserved attention to adult literacy and adult education. The Global Report on Adult Learning and Education (GRALE), to be released in CONFINTEA VI, should form part of an ongoing regular monitoring and tracking mechanism on the implementation of CONFINTEA 6 commitments.
• A substantial CONFINTEA 6 Mid-Term Review to be conducted, which will coincide with the EFA and MDG deadline of 2015.

ASPBAE urges that –

• Budget /Finance targets for adult literacy and education be agreed upon. Governments should allocate 6% of GNP to education and at least 6% of the Education Budget for adult education. Where needed, at least half of which (3% of national education budget) to be allocated for adult literacy programmes

ASPBAE calls for:

• Governments to commit to setting in place adult literacy and adult education programmes of good quality. The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) -ActionAid Benchmarks on Quality Adult Literacy (Annex 1) endorsed by government representatives, CSOs and donors participating in the 2007 Abuja High-level Workshop on Adult Literacy provide a useful starting point for quality standards in adult literacy. These should be endorsed by CONFINTEA 6.
• Governments and the international community to shore up investments in research, teaching, scholarship and professional development in adult education. Universities and institutes of higher learning to become full and responsible partners, sharing their distinct and substantial competencies with adult education communities, non-governmental organizations, public and private bodies, UNESCO and other intergovernmental organizations in the full implementation of lifelong learning.
• Governments commit to sustaining strong inter-agency coordination mechanisms at the national level for planning, implementation and monitoring of quality adult education and learning programmes. CSOs should be well-represented in these spaces and sufficiently resourced to play their role as fully functional partners.
• Governments undertake a 'Literacy Audit' and ensure that all official transactions and communications be simplified to prevent exclusion to semi-literate populations while at the same time attending to improving their literacy levels.

For adult education to truly make a difference in the lives of billions of poor and marginalised people, a string of small, disparate, one-off projects will not suffice. Not "half measures" for "half-chances" - but a fundamental shift in vision for education is required - which respects and values the right of all (child and adult) to fulfill their basic and lifelong learning needs. This opportunity of coming together in CONFINTEA 6 needs to be used to best advantage to develop strong agreement on a core agenda for commitment and for bold action that will finally decisively secure the right of all to have access to learning opportunities throughout their lives.