CHAPTER ONE: BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
1.3 The rationale for the study
Many writers like Lyster (1992 a), Okech et al (1999) and MoGLSD (2002) acknowledge that the concept of literacy is complex to understand and has not been extensively researched. This therefore means that there is a need for more research in the discipline. Hence, this study had to be undertaken because it was hoped that its findings might help to enrich the knowledge base of the discipline of literacy and become useful to many scholars, educationalists, policy makers, bureaucrats, NGO workers and literacy practitioners.
It was also important to undertake this study because of the significant aspect of literacy it addresses. It should be pointed out that despite frantic attempts to eradicate illiteracy among the population, there are no visible signs that it will vanish in the foreseeable future. Thus, the composition of URLCODA's adult literacy programme appears to be in line with the new vision of EFA as expressed in Dakar Framework for Action. The study was therefore a move in the right direction since it falls within the Jomtien and Dakar Declarations, that is to say, trying to find a way to provide education for all including the unreached. This concern was expressed in the Hamburg Declaration on Adult Learning as follows:
...there are millions, the majority of whom are women who lack opportunities to learn... we therefore commit ourselves to ensuring opportunities for all to acquire and maintain literacy skills.... The provision of learning opportunities for all, including the unreached and
the excluded, is the most urgent concern.
(UNESCO/IIZ, 1997, p. 14).
The literacy programme of URLCODA, in which children are learning together with adults, which is contrary to the usual arrangement for literacy provision for adults and children, was worth studying because of its intergenerational dimension. There is a possibility that this learning arrangement could, in future, be developed to become an alternative method of literacy provision in
which different generations can learn from each other. This could go a long way towards opening another avenue for the poor who cannot afford school fees and scholastic materials for their children and also help those children who cannot get the opportunity to be in school for all the days in week because they are expected to help their parents with domestic work.
Similarly, the work of Ssekamwa (1999) on indigenous and informal education acted as a great motivation for me to undertake this study. In his work, Ssekamwa presents a fascinating description of indigenous education, which is a reflection of the fact that people can learn different things from different persons irrespective of their ages. He for instance maintains that in
indigenous education, a child of ten could learn something expected to be learnt at the age of twenty and vice versa. I found this particularly attractive because it seems to fit very well with the Vygotskian concept of mediation and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Lee and Smagorinsky 2000), one of the theoretical tools that interested me to venture into this study. I thought this could offer a good example for analysing the phenomenon exhibited in URLCODA.
The pedagogy - andragogy debate that is concerned with the differences between adults and children in terms of learning has continued. The trend has been that the two groups have different characteristics, which tend to influence how they should be taught. However, Hanson (1996) asserts that no conclusive agreement has so far been reached about these differences.
Despite Hanson's assertion, it has not been common to find an adult literacy programme with such intergenerational characteristics as the one managed by URLCODA. Besides, studies on the interaction between adult and child learners participating in the same literacy programme are rare. Even the account of the different case studies of adult literacy programmes in
developing countries given by Rogers (1994) and Richmond (1986) have not cited any one literacy programme involving children.
Thus the above phenomena exhibited by URLCODA's adult literacy
programme seems to have turned over a new page in the history of adult literacy provision in Arua in particular, and Uganda in general. It was
therefore my personal conviction that if the teaching and learning processes in this programme are carefully observed and analysed, the findings could contribute towards enlightening scholars regarding the ongoing pedagogy - andragogy debate.
I was particularly motivated to do this research because I had been confronted, for the first time in my life, with a situation in which mature women and their children had to be taught together in an adult literacy class I initiated and ran for migrant women of Komamboga suburb about seven kilometres north of Kampala City in Uganda in 1996/7.
It was interesting to note that what started as a purely adult literacy
programme dominated by mature women gradually became complex because the women began to allow their children to come and attend literacy classes with them. When asked why this was happening, their explanation was that they were too poor to afford education for their children since their livelihood depended on selling papyrus mats, which could not even sustain their
families. Considering the cost of living in an urban area, this was quite understandable. When I learnt of this case in URLCODA, it quickly reminded me of my previous experiences in Komamboga six years back and motivated me to investigate why and how this was happening (the motivational factors and the dynamics involved), how the dynamics impact on the learning and teaching processes; and what the challenges are for the literacy
instructors/managers and the prospects for learners in such a learning arrangement. It was on this basis that this study was conceived, designed and undertaken.
It should be noted here that the introduction of UPE in Uganda has created new demands on the parents, which include taking an active role in the
management of schools (Okech et al 1999), and monitoring the learning of their children at school. This places illiterate parents and their children in a disadvantaged position because the parents cannot offer the much-needed support their children expect from them and consequently the children may perform poorly in the schools. Certainly, a literacy programme like the one managed by URLCODA, which brings together both adult learners and child learners, is worth investigating since it could be of help in addressing this complex problem, which affects both the parents and their children. If the above problem of parents' failure to assist their children on UPE programme due to illiteracy is not properly addressed it could lead to perpetuation of illiteracy among the poor families/households which will further worsen the poverty situation. This is also why it was important to undertake this study.
Finally, there has been a conspicuous problem of lack of trained or professional adult literacy instructors in Uganda. Literature available in MoGLSD (2002), WUS and LABE (1998) and Okech, et al. (1999) all highlight this very well. The problem of lack of trained adult literacy instructors and facilities for training them was also realised by the Education Policy Review Commission (EPRC) of the Ministry of Education (MoE) in 1989 and reiterated it in 1992 (MoE 1989) and suggested that all Primary Teacher Training
Colleges (PTTCs) should incorporate into their curriculum aspects on adult education so that they can produce dual-purpose teachers. The commission specifically put it as follows:
All teacher training colleges should introduce the teaching methods for adult education as a compulsory subject so that every qualified teacher is able to teach children as well as adults
(MoE 1989, p. 105)
Unfortunately this has not taken off and this study could also help in raising issues of pedagogy in teaching in intergenerational literacy programmes.