Family literacy – a case study in how to develop policy John Benseman and Alison Sutton
'Adult learning makes a difference - to the economy of course, to health, well-being, confidence and to our ability to help our children. Alan Tuckett - 4 December 2006 Introduction
Alan has steadfastly believed that the inherent power of adult learning has been to change adults’ self-perceptions and subsequently their worlds through learning what they needed relevant to their particular interests and issues.
Intergenerational family literacy epitomises relevant adult learning. Family literacy programmes engage adults in their role as parents, providing learning opportunities for them to enhance their literacy and, also their parenting skills, particularly in relation to their children’s emerging literacy skills. The programmes recognise adults as learners in their own right, but also as powerful influences on those around them in their homes and communities.
There is a strong research evidence showing the strong inter-generational links between parents’ and their children’s literacy skills. Bynner and Parsons’ longitudinal studiesi clearly show that adults who have poor literacy skills are also much more likely to have children who also struggle with these skills. Furthermore, those with lower skill levels (especially below Entry Level 2) are also disproportionately overrepresented in statistics relating to poor health, poverty, lack of work
opportunities, low income and life chances generally. Conversely, improving these people’s skills for both parents and their children can help reverse these inter- generational patterns.
Family literacy programmes can be found in a diverse range of countries around the world, with strong provision in countries like Malta, Mali, Turkey and South Africa. In the Western world, family literacy is strong in Canada, the US (with a National Center for Family Literacy based in Knoxville, Tennessee), Ireland and the UK. UNESCO has recently championed family literacy as a component of its drive for universal literacy and the United Nations Literacy Decade (2013-2012). They have published
resourcesii and undertaken the promotion and development of family literacy in a selection of the 35 countries where 85 per cent of the world’s illiterate population live.
A comprehensive review iiiof the international research literature on family literacy has been completed as part of this work.
New Zealand experience of family literacy
Intergenerational family literacy may be the epitome of relevant adult education, but it is also an educational oddity, straddling generations in a world where educational provision (and policy) is predominantly age-stratified. The recent experience of one family literacy programme in New Zealand illustrates how long and hard advocates have to fight to have policies and funding changed to meet community initiatives.
Family literacy fits well with New Zealand’s Maori and Pacific Island populations where there is a strong emphasis on the extended family (whanau in Maori). While family/whanau literacy is still very small scale in terms of numbers here, it has become a strong force in one community. iv
The City of Manukau Education Trust (COMET)v, a non-profit organisation that works in an area of high social needs and large Maori and Pacific populations, developed the Manukau Family Literacy Programmes (MFLP) based initially on the US Kenan four component of adult education, parent education, child education and parent and child time. In brief, each adult participant attended a tertiary education programme delivered on a school site for 20 hours per week. Their nominated child attended their usual programme at either the partner school or an associated early childhood
centre. The adults worked toward an entry-level qualification in Early Childhood Education delivered at a pace to suit adults with low or no school qualifications and expanded to include parent education, life-skills and work-readiness and Parent and Child Together Time (PACTT).
During Tahi (daily) PACTT, the parent went to their child’s class for approximately 10 minutes per day, four times a week to work alongside their child. The family literacy teacher and the school/early childhood centres had to ensure there were literacy or numeracy activity taking place at that time. These short, regular literacy or numeracy- focused PACTT time were integral to building stronger family relationships. The PACTT concept evolved to also include Roopu (Class) PACTT) with all the
nominated children and their parents together once a month and then once a term a
Whanau (family) PACTT night focusing on story telling, a musical event or a quiz.
Whanau PACTT which often attracted 60-70 family members.
Evaluations during the seven years of MFLPvi showed positive impacts for both the adults and their children: greater levels of self-confidence and self-efficacy, improved literacy skills, improved family well-being, greater participation in school life as parents and better performance at school for the children. Longer-term, many of the participants have gone on to gain formal tertiary qualifications (often in ECE or school teaching) and gain more skilled employment than they had previously. Several of the first intake of learners are now fully qualified teachers at the schools where they started as MFLP students. Equally important, MFLP successfully recruited Maori and Pasifika learners, most of whom had no qualifications and who are consistently under-represented in New Zealand tertiary education.
Carving out a niche
Despite its success and the community backing, MFLP never managed to secure stable funding. Funding tertiary education to be delivered in a school was challenging – school and tertiary policy funding are separate in New Zealand. Neither the Ministry of Education nor the Tertiary Education Commission were interested in the social outcomes of the programme as they were outside their policy concerns. The most difficult component to fund was the overall facilitation required to build and maintain partnerships between schools, their local early childhood centres and the tertiary education provider. The high transaction costs of building and maintaining
partnerships were a major factor in the funding struggle, notwithstanding that it was the partnership that made possible the multiple and diverse outcomes MFLP achieved.
COMET, a community organisation not an education provider per se, could not leverage funding for provision so AUT University, the tertiary education partner in the programme, became the overall fund holder, which changed the power dynamics in the school/ECE/AUT/COMET partnership. COMET repeatedly lobbied about the absence of integrated policy for family-focused services and was always pushing the bureaucratic boundaries, but MFLP was not able to grow beyond six schools. Then in 2009 the funding rules changed and MFLP no longer met any government funding criteria. COMET’s on-going and passionate advocacy of MFLP appeared to build resistance among government officials, who could not seem to find an appropriate
funding pool into which it fitted. The challenges faced by this one community-driven initiative were the embodiment of the lack of policy around family and the absence of a funding mechanism for family-focused cross-agency initiatives noted by the Chief Executives of social agencies in a special briefing to our incoming government in 2009.vii
However, as NIACE and Alan well know, sometimes it is serendipity that leads to progress and change. Its not necessarily how well you do, it may be who you bump into. After 6 months of lobbying (and rejections) by all government departments to get funding for MFLP, the programme ended in November 2009. Literally on the morning of the last day for the programme, personal intervention by the Prime Minister has provided COMET with the opportunity to develop a new family learning and literacy programme. A COMET staff member had met the Prime Minister at the opening of an ECE centre a few months before and invited him to visit the programme. He had been unable to attend until the very last day. His personal intervention achieved what seven years of lobbying, evidence building, case studies and discussion papers had not been able to achieve. Officials from the Ministry of Education (Children’s literacy), the Tertiary Education Commission (tertiary education), the Ministry of Social
Development (social outcomes) are now in discussions about resourcing and the policy issues that would need to be in place for intergenerational family literacy to have sustainable funding.
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Benseman, J. (2003). Phase 2 of the Manukau Family Literacy Programmes pilot implementation. Interim (2nd) formative and process evaluation report for the City of Manukau Education Trust (COMET). Auckland: The University of Auckland and Auckland Uniservices Ltd.
Benseman, J. (2004a). "I'm a different person now." An evaluation of the Manukau Family Literacy Program (MFLP) (Vol. ). Wellington: Ministry of Education.
Benseman, J. (2004b). Phase 2 of the Manukau Family Literacy Programmes: pilot implementation. Final (third) formative and process evaluation report.
Auckland: The University of Auckland and Auckland Uniservices Ltd.
Benseman, J., & Sutton, A. (2005). Summative evaluation of the Manukau Family Literacy Project (2004). Auckland: The University of Auckland and Auckland Uniservices Ltd.
Brooks, G., Pahl, K., Pollard, A., & Rees, F. (2008). Effective and inclusive practices in family literacy, language and numeracy: a review of programmes and practice in the UK and internationally. Reading: CfBT Education Trust.
Bynner, J., McIntosh, S., Vignoles, A., Dearden, L., Reed, H., & van Reenen, J.
(2001). Improving adult basic skills. Benefits to the individual and to society.
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Desmond, S., & Elfert, M. (Eds.). (2007). Family literacy experiences from Africa and around the world
Hamburg: UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL).
Elfert, M. (2008). Family literacy: a global approach to lifelong learning. Effective practices in family literacy and intergenerational learning around the world.
Hamburg: UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE).
May, S., Hill, R., & Donaghy, A. (2004). Review of whanau literacy projects. Final report to the Tertiary Education Commission. Hamilton: The University of Waikato.
Parsons, S., & Bynner, J. (2007). Illuminating disadvantage: profiling the experiences of adults with Entry level literacy or numeracy over the life course. London:
NRDC.
i (Bynner et al., 2001; Parsons & Bynner, 2007)
ii (Desmond & Elfert, 2007; Elfert, 2008)
iii (Brooks, Pahl, Pollard, & Rees, 2008)
iv (May, Hill, & Donaghy, 2004)
v www.comet.org.nz
vi (J. Benseman, 2002, 2003, 2004a, 2004b; J Benseman & Sutton, 2005)
vii http://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications- resources/corporate/bims/social-outcomes-bim-2008.pdf
