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On
December 17, 1977, the Consultative Committee of parliament for the Ministry of
Eductaion, Social Welfare and Culture adopted the policy envisaging extension
of adult education and literacy programmes to about 100 million illiterate people
in 15 to 35 age-group in the next five years. 'A separate division has been created
in the Ministry to deal the national adult education programme and other allied
matters'. This was disclosed by the Minister for Education, Social Welfare and
Culture, Dr. P. C. Chunder, at the meeting. Explainning the concept, Dr. Chunder
pointed out that although literacy was the first objective, it has to be related
to the functions and problems would go beyond literacy and will aim at involvement
of the poor and the illiterate in the development programmes.
Dr. Chunder stressed that steps would be taken to provide post-literacy material
to the neo-literates. Newspapers, particulary in regional languages, would be
persuaded to devote some space for publishing material useful to them. During
the discussing, members wanted primary school teachers, unemployed youth and ex-servicemen
drawn from the local community to be involved in the implementation of the programme.
The 1949 'Elsinore conference' on adult Eductaion organized by the UNESCO expressed
the idea that education should cease to be 'a marginal enterprise serving the
personal interest of relatively few people' and that for reconstruction purposes,
the people of many countries were in need of compensatory education. The Montreal
conference of 1960, organized by the UNESCO in its final report envisaged : "
Nothing less will suffice than that people elsewhere should come to accept adult
education as normal, and the government should treat it as a necessary part of
the educational provision of every country ". The Tehran Conference of September
1965, organized by the UNESCO as the " World Congress of Ministers of Education
On Eradication of Illiteracy, " has also given priority to adult education
and the literacy drive.
Literacy Declaration of Persepolis (International Symposium for Literacy sponsored
by the UNESCO) states:
"The
number of illiterates is constantly growing. This reflects the failure of development
policies that are indifferent to man and to the satisfaction of his basic needs.
In spite of the progress made in some countries as a result of far-reaching social
changes, there are close to one thousand million illiterates in the world and
many more under-nourished people. In many cases, moreover, even people who have
been become literate have not yet acquired to a sufficient degree the means of
becoming aware of the societies in which they live and of their own problem nor
the means of solving them or of paying a real part in their solution".
Success was achieved when literacy was linked to meet man's fundamental requirements,
ranging from his immediate vital needs to effective participation in social change.
Success was also achieved when literacy programmes were not restricted to learning
the skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. The International Symposium for
Literacy considered literacy not merely to constitute the process of learning
the skills of reading, writing and arithmetic but a contribution to the liberation
of man and to his full development.
In fact, adult education activities, viewed as forming part of life-long education
and learning, should not have any theoretical boundaries and they should meet
the particular situations created by specific needs of development of participation
in community life and of individual self-fulfilment. However, one can set up some
priority list of " minimum essential learning needs". A good example
is the "minimum package" which Coombs has proposed for any type of non-formal
education programme. According to him, such programmes should be directed at-
(i)
Positive attitudes
(ii)
Functional Literacy and numeracy
(iii)
Scientific outlook and understanding of the process of nature
(iv)
Functional knowledge and skills for raising a family and operating a household
(v)
Functional knowledge and skills for earning a living
(vi)
Functional knowledge and skills for civic participation
Adult
education activities should normally be planned and executed on the basis
of
identified needs, problems, wants and resources, as well as defined objectives.
Their impact should be evaluated and reinforced by whatever follow-up activities
may be most appropriate to given conditions. Literacy Declaration of Persepolis
very rightly stated : "Literacy is effective to the extent that the people
to whom it is addressed, in particular women and the least privileged groups,
feel the need for it in order to meet their most essential requirements, in particular
the need to take part in the decisions of the community to which they belong.
Literacy is therefore, inseparable from participation which is at once its purpose,
and its conditions. The illiterate should not be the object but the subject of
the process where by he becomes literate. A far-reaching mobilization of human
resources implies the commitment of literacy students and teachers alike. The
latter should not form a specialized and permanent professional body but should
be recruited as close as possible to the masses undergoing literacy training and
should belong to the same or to a related social and professional group in order
to make dialogue easier. The effectiveness of this mobilization will be increased
if greater respect is paid to the initiative of the population concerned. The
motivation of those involved will be stronger if each community is itself given
the opportunity of carrying out the literacy project. The methods and material
means should be diversified, flexible and suited to the environment and needs
of the new literates, as opposed to a uniform and rigid model".
' A teacher effects eternity, he can never tell where his influence stops' remarked
Henry Broaks Adams.
Amparo S. Lardizabal is of the opinion that to change the man is agigantic undertaking,
but not impossible of achievement. Teacher can begun by becoming models of what
they preach. They can develop the needed traits in themselves, and then in their
pupils and students by means of example and close association.
Greeting his pupils, the master asked : "What would you learn of me ?"
And the reply came:
"
How shall we care for our bodies ? "
" How shall we rear our children
? "
" How shall we work together ? "
" How shall we
live with our fellowmen ? "
" How shall we play ? "
"
For what ends shall we live ? "
And the teacher pondered these words, and sorrow was in his heart, for his own
learning touched not these not these things. (Champman & Counts).
Despite the development of valuable teaching tangibles (resources and amterials)
and scientific techniques the most powerful and vital teacher factor cannot be
ignored in any programme of education. Analysis of the ' role expectations ' of
an adult education genuinely cite the unique position of this profession. In the
words of Rogers Axfor,1 "An adult educator must be humane human being, a
person with flexibility, a person with sound philosophy of adult education, a
promoter of adult education, a person with nose for need, an organizer, a sharer
of ideas, a person with sound philosophy of adult education, a promoter of adult
education, a person with a think skin, an educational leader, a programme planner,
but above all a person with commitment to the value of learning throughout life".
George Herbert Palmer2 (a famous teacher in adult education from U. S. A. ) has
postulated four fundamental qualities (he may even possess more than this) for
an educator of the adults, viz., "an aptitude for vicariousness, an already
accumulated wealth of wisdom, an invigorate life through knowledge and readiness
to be forgotten".
In
a Seminar3 organized in 1972, to find out the ' training needs ' of adult
educators,
it was resolved that adult education needs different training programmes to serve
the different levels of its workers.
A working outline of the training contents for the adult education should be somewhat
like this : History and Philosophy of adult education, Sociology and Psychology
of adult education, principles, techniques, methods, processes and practices of
adult education.
The
seminar also emphasized the knowledge of the total context of the subject which
one is going to handle, such as, the syllabus of literacy, general education or
vocational subjects.
Above all the teacher should have insight, sensitively and understanding. The
most important single characteristic of an adult educator is a real liking for
adults. The liking must be genuine-adults quickly detect the difference between
a warm, friendly person and one who puts on a show of friendliness without really
feeling that way. Appearance, dress, age, theoretical knowledge, experience-all
these are less important than a genuine fondness for adults as they are, complete
with their faults and annoying habits. The teacher should have lot of patience
with a clear understanding that any thing worth learning takes time to learn and
time to teach.
"
The main reason why adult education has not achieved the impact on our civilization
of which it is capable, is that most teachers of adults have only known how to
teach adults as if they were children" remarked Dr. Malcolm S. Adiseshiah,
As a matter of government policy, (The Sunday Standard, July 2, 1978) the instructor
for an adult education centre should preferably be selected from the community
which it is designed to serve. Eagerness of a person to serve the community should
be the primary consideration. His basic qualification should be of standard VI
or above. This was recommended by a two-day National Seminar on Training Strategy
for Instructors, Supervisors and Project officers under the National Adult Education
Programme which concluded in New Delhi on Wednesday, 28th June, 1978.
The participants were of the view that an instructor should be identified by the
community itself in consultation with the supervisor of the area.
Referring
to the training of the instructors and project officers, the Seminar recommended
that the task should be taken on hand immediately.
Instructional
media have an important role to play in the teaching-learning process. While planning
a lesson, the teacher has to list some of the instructional aids which he wants
to use during the course of his teaching. Use of instructional media in a lesson
makes it lively and easily understandable. Teachers should base their selection
of tangibles on valid learning objectives and the unique characteristics of learners.
There is a wide variety of tangibles available such as television, motion pictures,
radio, record players, models taperecorders, slides bulletin boards, and exhibits
chalk-boards, flannel boards, overhead transparencies etc. They can be used as
and when required according to the needs of the learners. Modern learning theory
no longer focuses on the teacher nor on the textbooks nor on the units of subjects
matter, but upon each human learner and his personal needs and goals. Tangible
are always to be selected keeping in view the individual and group needs. They
should give a true picture of the ideas they present. Obsolete, old fashioned
and out-of-date materials may give a distorted view of the whole thing. Sometimes
the materials may be quite accurate and still be unsuitable, because they fail
to advance our specific learning purpose in a unit or problem. It is never enough
merely to say that audio-visual materials are valuable. Instead we should always
ask 'valuable for what " ' ' For what important objective ?' Does it contribute
meaningfully to what we are studying now ? A television programme may be understand
its language, it is useless for them. The relevancy aspect, therefore, should
not be lost sight of. Is the material worth the time, expense and effort involved
? Almost any dramatization, recording or telecast have some value. Hardly, few
organized experiences are completely valueless. The main point, however, is whether
a specific item is more valuable then something else that might be submitted for
it. To be very frank, we should learn to establish priorities. Let us not forget
that our time is valuable and so is the learner's. Hence the teaching materials
that increase the richness of learning per unit of time should be preferred. The
teacher who lacks the techniques of making proper use of the tangibles makes a
poor show before the learners. The teacher should know the techniques of presenting
the tangibles at the appropriate moments apart from following a flexible methodology
of teaching the adults. No matter what methods or materials a teacher may use,
he or she must answer to the following questions :
Did
communication take place ?
Did
the message get through ?
Did
the students learn what we planned to teach and they planned to learn ?
Did
their behaviour change ?
For the best way to evaluate any teaching effect is to see how closely the terminal
behaviour resembles the behaviour we set out to teach i.e., we should try to see
the outcomes in terms of the objectives.
The importance of audio-visual aids for literacy was fully recognized by the International
Symposium for Literacy sponsored by the UNESCO, but it was also stated that attempts
to take over these aids on grounds of technical necessity by economic or political
forces beyond the control of the people concerned, and their use as instruments
of cultural colonization, should be rejected. Use of audiovisual aids that would
hinder active participation and human dialogue should be banned. Programmes should
be drawn up in consultation with those concerned through an exchange of information
on significant experiences. Literacy work should encourage the participants to
acquire a wide range of communication skills.