why older people go back to school

Nov 18, 2008

YOU have probably read, with curiosity, about 50-year-olds or even those in their late 60s joining Primary One. Many even think they are out of their minds.

ADULT LITERACY

By Arthur Baguma

YOU have probably read, with curiosity, about 50-year-olds or even those in their late 60s joining Primary One. Many even think they are out of their minds.

Studies have shown that people aged 60 and older now represent the largest fraction of functional illiterates. And yet educational systems have not adequately addressed the needs of this group, especially in third world countries.

Many older adults living at or near poverty levels have no basic education training and have great difficulty finding employment.

Education experts, however, believe that for an adult who missed the basic conventional education, the best alternative is the non-formal education system.

Aggrey Kibenge, the education ministry spokesperson, agrees with the argument.

Studies show that adults who join school have convincing reasons for it.

Some adults may join classes, not because they want to use their new literacy skills but because they want to join “the literate set”. They see the world as divided into two; the literate and the illiterate — an inferior, ignorant and powerless race. They feel that other people (especially the literate group) regard them with scorn because they cannot engage in the dominant textual communications. They join adult literacy classes to transfer from one class to the other and to gain power.

Others want to learn literacy skills to accomplish a literary task. Several aspire to read the Bible or the Quran.

“I want to learn to use the hymn book,” said one elderly learner in Rwanda.

Many adults join adult literacy classes, not to learn literacy skills but for the opportunities the course will provide subsequently.

In Botswana, some said they had joined because they could then get a driving licence. In some contexts, obtaining a loan is dependant on being able to read and write. In Nepal, some went back to school because with the certificate they obtained at the end of the course, they could become community health volunteers. Some adults realise that completion of a literacy programme helps to obtain paid employment or get a promotion at the workplace.

Some go to literacy classes in order to access further learning. This is a kind of opportunity motivation — the end of the literacy learning programme will open the doors of education to them; but it is also an instrumental motivation, for the literacy skills will be learned for use.

They hope to use their literacy as an entry point into second stage education, for example, to get into school through their adult literacy classes.

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