Describes a functional education program, financed by UNICEF and developed in India, which offers meaningful solutions to the daily life problems of students in third world nations. Presents learning activities related to self-employment which include functional literacy skill development as a byproduct. (NEC)

This study investigated various reading and writing abilities among 25- and 35-year-old residents of Linkoping, Sweden, and assessed the extent to which these individuals' abilities could be regarded as satisfactory for their needs. In all, 377 subjects were tested on the following skills: alphabet recognition, copying ability, reading rate,…

Relates Victorian attitudes toward education by a forgotten 19th century liberal educator concerned with proper moral education. Concludes that uses and development of basic literacy are severely bound by individual and social contexts and that basic literacy does not, in itself, wield a magical transforming power for learning and life. (TRS)

Teachers are faced with the problem of needing to do a better job of teaching the basics and the astrobasics (those skills needed to understand and respond to the complex bureaucratic demands of the space age, especially reading and filling in such forms as those required for class registration, student loans, and income tax preparation). At least…

A basic set of principles for adult education reflects what should be found in each state and local program. First, basic skills should be mastered by all students. Second, course content should be directly related to learner, labor market, and community needs. Third, partnership efforts should be expanded and strengthened. Fourth, programs must…

Adults, whatever their competence, are not obsolete. Education for adults is the font we must draw on to make possible the new environment in education that we call lifetime learning and recurrent education. Following the lead of Europe in planning broad-based adult education programs, the United States has begun to fund and operate diversified…

This report reviews major components of a workshop to develop consensus on a variety of issues and to increase participant awareness of innovative approaches to competency-based adult education (CBAE). The 200 workshop participants included state directors of adult education, other state staff, university personnel, local project directors, and…

This collection of papers focuses on numeracy education for adults. In a paper entitled "Functional Numeracy," Terry Riley questions the underlying assumptions of functional numeracy and suggests that the term has often been distorted and oversimplified. Margeret Moss, in her paper "The Language of Numeracy," stresses that…

About a quarter of South Australia's population was born overseas; these migrants speak little English and experience difficulty in seeking employment and gaining access to community services, including education. While appropriate English language learning opportunities are important for migrants, there are a range of other bridging arrangements…

This collection of papers focuses on literacy and the special educational needs of speakers of English as a second language (ESL). In a paper entitled "Ethnic Minority Educational Needs in the 1980s," Gurnam Heire examines some of the changes in employment and training that have taken place over the past few years and how these affect the…

This booklet describes existing and planned government initiatives to address the long-standing issue of low achievement in basic literacy and numeracy skills in England. The booklet begins with a brief explanation of the economic and social importance of basic functional literacy and numeracy skills. Part 1 is a discussion of English government…

This set of 36 newsletters deals with adult literacy programs and issues of interest to the business and literacy communities. Each issue contains either a message to corporate chief executive officers or a Business Council for Effective Literacy (BCEL) editorial, and most issues include brief reports on recent BCEL and corporate literacy actions…

This two-part document summarizes and analyzes the implications of a national study of adult literacy in Canada that included home interviews with a representative sample of 13,571 Canadians between the ages of 16 and 69. Part 1 summarizes the study's objectives, methodology, and findings. Among the main findings are the following: (1) 16% of…

This annotated bibliography describes 42 documents dealing with work force and workplace literacy. Annotations are provided for 17 how-to guides and assessment tools, 19 policy reports and research papers, and 6 surveys. The following are among the topics covered in the individual documents described: job-related literacy training, basic skills in…

This three-part annual report examines the challenges facing Arizona and the nation in the "war on adult illiteracy" and describes the state's responses to the multiple aspects of lifelong learning. Demographic data in Part I point out the basic elements of the challenges in adult education in Arizona. These challenges include cultural…