Since independence, Timor-Leste has taken initiatives to improve adult literacy and successive governments, international NGOs and donor agencies have been involved in literacy programmes. This paper explores the non-formal literacy programmes with a particular focus on the Second Chance Education Project (SCEP), an accelerated learning model that…

The paper explores how the discourse of nationalist and neoliberal agendas have shaped the conceptions of literacy education in Nepal, the ramifications for social stratification. As the review shows, the ruling elites tactfully imposed their language, culture, and knowledge in literacy curricula in the name of national unity, but to maintain…

In this commentary, we use the occasion of the proliferation of dual enrollment to examine the discursive construction of difference between high school and college literacies, and its effects on teachers and students. This discursive divide has real, material consequences. It informs (and constrains) literacy practices and pedagogies, becomes a…

Over the past century, missionary educators, nation-state and academic planners, and literacy development workers have used alphabets for political ends for traditionally marginalized languages, and Native peoples have contested such planning with other alphabet proposals. Yet literacy work now often overlooks that there are multiple alphabets…

Student teachers in South Africa need to realise that although their classrooms are multilingual and multicultural, English remains the dominant language. Preparing student teachers for diverse classrooms require a pedagogical approach that will enable them to be agents of social change. This view supports transformative ideals in teacher…

Khoisan languages are spoken by various culturally diverse communities of Southern Africa. These languages also present an important linguistic diversity. Some of Khoisan languages communities are generally under-researched, marginalized and experiencing sustained sociolinguistic forces that threaten them. For those that have been documented,…

Australia is a country of high linguistic diversity, with more than 300 languages spoken. Today, 19% of the population aged over 5 years speak a language other than English at home. Against this background, we examine government policies and prominent initiatives developed at national level in the past 30 years to address the challenge of offering…

Meaningful and sustained assessment is best achieved when a campus unit takes a collaborative leadership role to work with other departments, offices, and groups. Simply developing and implementing assessment in isolation and for the unit itself is not enough. While the value of collaboration among diverse campus constituents is widely recognized,…

The point of departure in this study is the question: do teachers who develop theoretical knowledge of the variation theory change the way(s) they offer their pupils the object of learning due to the theoretical framework. The aim of the study is to describe this development, i.e. to find if and how teachers developed theoretical knowledge when…

This contribution compares literacy instruction in three different scripts in Eritrea. It uses data stemming from classroom observations of beginning readers of Tigrinya (Ge'ez script), Arabic (Arabic script) and Saho (Roman alphabet), the examination of teaching materials, and teacher interviews. Our analysis focuses on literacy events. We…

Support for the use of local languages for learning and communication is currently in fashion among national policy-makers in Africa. This position has been promoted by UNESCO and other local-language advocates for years; more recently it is being seen favourably by a range of influential international institutions. However, even positive language…

In Timor-Leste, many adults learn to read and write in a multilingual context. The official languages are Tetum and Portuguese, 15 regional languages are being further developed and Bahasa Indonesia and English are accepted as working languages. Most literacy programmes take place in Tetum, the lingua franca, and often regional languages are used…

The Languages Ladder--a new framework for accrediting language proficiency--is a core element of the National Languages Strategy. This paper presents Asset Languages, the system being developed by Cambridge Assessment to implement the Languages Ladder, aiming to set it apart from existing qualification frameworks by accrediting clearly defined…

The article is an introduction to The Ohio Department of Youth Services librarians and the services they provide. Information about each juvenile prison facility is revealed and provides an explanation of guidelines and standards for prison libraries. Sixty-eight questions were asked in four in-person interviews to present a profile of the…

This research review examines trends in recent scholarship concerning primary school literacy instruction in Southern Africa. Past scholarship, particularly that which originated from western researchers, focused on technical or structural issues facing literacy instruction in the region, such as language of instruction, school conditions,…