Failing adult learners: Why Rwanda’s adult literacy education is not delivering

Pamela Abbott; Roger Mugisha; Peter Mtika; Wenceslas Nzabalirwa

doi:10.31124/advance.12464567.v1

Failing adult learners: Why Rwanda’s adult literacy education is not delivering

Pamela Abbott^* (Corresponding Author), Roger Mugisha, Peter Mtika, Wenceslas Nzabalirwa

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

Having a literate society has been a policy objective of the Rwandan Government for 20 years. However, in practice, it has never been a high priority, although investing in adult literacy education has the potential to contribute to socio-economic transformation. This paper reports on findings from a survey, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. We show that learners rarely benefit from attending literacy classes. Extreme poverty, lack of a ‘culture of reading’ and the poor delivery of literacy classes are the main barriers to student learning. Without more investment in training tutors, infrastructure and learning resources, the policy implementation gap will persist.

Original language	English
Article number	102288
Number of pages	9
Journal	International Journal of Educational Development
Volume	79
Early online date	29 Sep 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.31124/advance.12464567.v1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2020.102288
Publication status	Published - 30 Nov 2020

Keywords

Adult literacy education
Rwanda
Empowerment
Social practices
Community tutors
Literacy environment

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.31124/advance.12464567.v1Licence: CC BY
10.1016/j.ijedudev.2020.102288Licence: Unspecified

Abbot_et_al_IJED_FailingAdultLearners_AAM
© 2020. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Accepted author manuscript, 273 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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abstract = "Having a literate society has been a policy objective of the Rwandan Government for 20 years. However, in practice, it has never been a high priority, although investing in adult literacy education has the potential to contribute to socio-economic transformation. This paper reports on findings from a survey, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. We show that learners rarely benefit from attending literacy classes. Extreme poverty, lack of a {\textquoteleft}culture of reading{\textquoteright} and the poor delivery of literacy classes are the main barriers to student learning. Without more investment in training tutors, infrastructure and learning resources, the policy implementation gap will persist. ",

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author = "Pamela Abbott and Roger Mugisha and Peter Mtika and Wenceslas Nzabalirwa",

note = "Funding: The project of which this research forms part was funded by the Scottish Government [Grant no. RW3]. The Scottish Government had no involvement in the conduct of the research, in the writing of the article or of the decision to submit the article for publication. ",

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AU - Nzabalirwa, Wenceslas

N1 - Funding: The project of which this research forms part was funded by the Scottish Government [Grant no. RW3]. The Scottish Government had no involvement in the conduct of the research, in the writing of the article or of the decision to submit the article for publication.

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N2 - Having a literate society has been a policy objective of the Rwandan Government for 20 years. However, in practice, it has never been a high priority, although investing in adult literacy education has the potential to contribute to socio-economic transformation. This paper reports on findings from a survey, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. We show that learners rarely benefit from attending literacy classes. Extreme poverty, lack of a ‘culture of reading’ and the poor delivery of literacy classes are the main barriers to student learning. Without more investment in training tutors, infrastructure and learning resources, the policy implementation gap will persist.

AB - Having a literate society has been a policy objective of the Rwandan Government for 20 years. However, in practice, it has never been a high priority, although investing in adult literacy education has the potential to contribute to socio-economic transformation. This paper reports on findings from a survey, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. We show that learners rarely benefit from attending literacy classes. Extreme poverty, lack of a ‘culture of reading’ and the poor delivery of literacy classes are the main barriers to student learning. Without more investment in training tutors, infrastructure and learning resources, the policy implementation gap will persist.

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Failing adult learners: Why Rwanda’s adult literacy education is not delivering

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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Pamela Abbott

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Failing adult learners: Why Rwanda’s adult literacy education is not delivering

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Keywords

UN SDGs

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Pamela Abbott

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