Education for All

Education for All

The provision of basic education for all children and adults became a concern of the international community in the 1980s. Initially the mood of the late 1970s led to the promotion of mass adult literacy campaigns for the purpose of “eradicating illiteracy by the year 2000”. As a result of the onset of the grave economic recession in most of the Third World countries, there was a state withdrawal of commitment and involvement in all levels of education, more particularly, basic education of children and adults. In trying to re-assure the commitment for EFA, the Third World countries which were reeling the crisis of economic recession and consequent structural adjustment, either totally withdrew from the education sector or paying attention only on formal primary education, to the neglect of adult education. Even when the EFA momentum returned with huge foreign aid, it came with severe conditionality.

The result was the skewed priority within EFA to UPE and UEE, at the cost of adult literacy and adult education, and thus, pushing the EFA target deadline in respect of literacy and adult education farther and farther, from the initial deadline of 2000 to now 2015.

India, however, had a peculiar turn of events, viz., combining the EFA wave with an MLC approach in respect of literacy, and connecting it with the primary education as part of the EFA agenda. Even though India did not come under the revolutionary environment, it adopted the MLC approach with a radical content as in other countries, undergoing socialist transformation through the literacy campaign.

In the case of India, there was an attempt to interlink literacy with primary education as part of the EFA, and also all other development departments so that the illiterates get the benefits of all anti-poverty programmes of the government. What is noteworthy is the radical content even in the absence of a revolutionary milieu, which gave a lot of hope both to the learners and the activists involved in the campaign implementation, and connected the fervor to push for UPE.

Conclusion

Some of the salient points that pervaded the survey of perceptions about objectives, knowledge, awareness and skills related learning components in the content and curriculum of adult education through the different decades could be abstracted. One is the centrality and continuity of certain core dimensions of knowledge and values of adult education. Second is the precedence of certain focus of the components at certain programme format phases, at least in theory, not negating all other dimensions, but generally sidelining them, in the context of predominance given to certain specific aspects – the focus of adult education during different thematic and programmatic phases are cases in point. These two facets of the profile of adult education also corresponds to the trends at the global level – the focus of adult education in India could be seen as a window to the trends in the world in the area of adult education, at least at certain phases. These continuities and changes are highlighted through the prism of curriculum and content focuses rather than as history of organization and management of the adult education programme in different phases.

Literacy and adult education was a political strategy of social mobilization to participate in the nationalist movement and hold the nation in highest esteem in respect of unity and diversity, and the desire for democracy as the vision of the nation. There was no mistake about this focus of adult education during the nationalist movement; besides these, adult education was to serve as the channel of social cohesion, solidarity, fellowship, etc. Adult education spans across all facets of life and should address all the learning needs of all these facets. Adult education is not complete only with learning materials, howsoever comprehensive and all-inclusive. Its pedagogical scope includes, besides the curriculum and content contained in the syllabus, also awareness and learning by demonstration and hands-on.

The efficacy and versatility of this approach was variously demonstrated through the various programme formats and the broadening of the vision of adult education and how to make it more effective. However, the basic core and crux of adult education has always revolved around health and hygiene, knowledge, awareness and skills to improve in economic condition and addressing other forms of socio-cultural, political and gender inequalities. However, its proactive conversion into reality in any substantive degree always eluded.

The pre-occupation of social education, was an education in citizenship, democracy, community development. Values of democracy was the burden of adult education while the development perspective was on modern development, on building factories, dams and roads and formal education from lower to higher level, with specific emphasis on higher and technological education. This dualism on the part of the leadership was not in sync with the illiterate adults with respect to their life and its needs – the reason why social education did not even touch 3% of India’s target population in respect of their participation (SY Shah, 1999).

Adult education had certain crux in respect of real emphasis in the lives of non-literate adults in rural and urban areas – literacy, health, livelihood and socio-political participation without exploitation and oppression. Whenever all these concerns were addressed effectively, there was no problem about learner response – the much dreaded prospect of lack of interest and motivation in adult education: the Gram Shikshan Mohim and the literacy movement during the initial years in the early 1990s are cases in point.

It is interesting to see that India dabbled for a time to validate the human capital approach that suffered in India from lack of sincerity with respect to the constituency it sought to address – the poor, landless and the rural illiterate adults. It also serves to remind about the fringe nature of the programme with reference to the concerns and needs addressed in India. The Farmers Functional Literacy Programme is a reminder in this regard. It must also be said that the FFLP was a classic example of the efficacy of learning and application as more effective and improvement-oriented. Adult education is a cross cutting by nature: it suffered on this score all through for lack of sincere effort.

This paper’s pre-occupation with policy intentions and pronouncements served as the benchmark in designing curriculum and content and topics for learning. It must have been ideal to show and demonstrate the continuity and change in curriculum focuses from actual lessons through the primers and different programme forms over last 6 decades – for scarcity of time and paucity of materials, only the lessons of primers from two States during TLC could be marshaled; but that illustrates the continuity of central concerns in adult education in a development milieu like India. The transition from national focus in aspects of learning to locally relevant and diversified content, as seen during the NFE phase was a slow build up to its centrality in policy perspective during the TLCs, especially in the PL and CE phases. More importantly, the FLAW programme was the harbinger of women needs-specific learning components in content and curriculum. It is another matter that it was a highly stereotypical gender reinforcing focus.

India was no Vietnam, China, Tanzania, Cuba or Nicaragua in respect of a society under a socialist transformation. Yet under the NAEP, there was a breath of fresh air about literacy becoming a hope for the exploited, oppressed poor illiterates in rural and urban areas as an instrument of liberation. The channel was critical pedagogy through dialogical process, organization and active participation in the development process to secure the benefits of the anti-poverty laws and schemes. NAEP stood out, with an agonizing briefness, as a hope, soon to disappoint, by its supersession by other programmes with only lip service in the content and intent of curriculum and pedagogy.

As an internal reiteration and benchmarks for organizing adult education in an incrementalist milieu and perspective, a few key points underscored by the Review Committee on NAEP have been portrayed such as development with social justice, family planning, health care, cultural creativity, etc. In hindsight and retrospect, one could appreciate how such stresses continued to guide and pervade curriculum and content in adult education ever thereafter.

At least in respect of adult education, what is seen as the bible in policy domains, the NPE, 1986, its POA and even its revision in 1992 and the corresponding POA, seem to follow the perspective – knowledge, awareness, values and skills domains chartered in the Review Committee in 1980. It was shown to be a reiteration of the convictions of the Review Committee in terms of broadening and deepening of the content in respect of awareness and functionality.

It is also a reminder about the policy premise in a non-revolutionary milieu like India that the illiterate poor can rise to their own liberation. The idea behind highlighting and dilating policy premises and operational elaborations is remind how these were guideposts for curriculum and content in the primers and other learning materials later on. The eternal values of these incremental benefits in terms of aspirations of the oppressed non-literates about the vision of India, and also of the educated who design the vision of India through adult education are shown from the NCFAE. The comparison of India’s literacy movement through the TLCs with the MLCs highlights the Indian engagement with the exploited and deprived non-literates on the agenda of the scope and possibilities of at least partially addressing and redressing the impediments they face. It also shows that even the extremely limited success and scope in this direction is a deliberate and considered alternative to the status quo and fatalism of the non-literates – this and direction as ethically and morally edifying engagement in behalf of the poor and the pedagogy for a better India.