LITERACY PROJECT: SPEAKING UP FOR THE WRITTEN WORD
In a century when rapid change is commonplace, information overload is a reality; the pace of discovery has almost overtaken the ability of humanity to assimilate knowledge. At the cusp of the information millennium, it's tougher than ever to get through all the details without being able to read.
Literacy is essential in societies which rely on written information, although images and oral traditions can be effective. But in spite of intrinsic value, literacy remains a basic challenge for the Commonwealth's developing countries. Which is where The Commonwealth of Learning's Literacy Project (COLLIT) comes in.
With a grant from the British Department for International Development (DFID), COL began its three-year pilot project in India and Zambia in 1999. The goal is to kick start self-sustaining literacy programmes based in community learning centres, using information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as computers and televisions, in the curriculum of the country. The target group is adults and out-of-school youth in the workforce who have an immediate need for reading and writing skills. Actual programme design and implementation, as well as providing physical infrastructure, is the task of in-country partners: the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) of India and the University of Zambia.
COL helps partners design and acquire needs-specific learning material, and assists in training literacy workers and tutors to staff the centres and conduct classes. Aside from the project manager, Dr. Glen Farrell, COL has engaged an instructional designer to help develop project course material.
In-person meetings between COL, in-country project directors and literacy education experts are held annually to report on progress, deal with difficulties and tweak the project time line. More frequent teleconferencing resolves housekeeping and just-in-time issues. Dr. Judith Calder, senior lecturer with the Open University in the United Kingdom, is the independent evaluator monitoring the project in consultation with all parties.
India's COLLIT Project began in July 1999. Based on existing Hindi literacy programmes, material will be reworked to incorporate ICT use in consultation with the instructional designer. The State Resource Centres of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are working with IGNOU and each Centre will operate two community learning centres. Content will include computer literacy training and programmes on the local culture and economy.
The COLLIT Project in Zambia supplements the print-based Zambia Literacy Programme. Content is agriculture-based; English material has been translated into one of three local languages being used in four centres. Two are in Kabwe in the Central Province and one each in Katete, in the Eastern Province, and in Monze, in the Southern Province. Web-based courses are already available, and other ICT uses, such as digital cameras for capturing graphics, are being explored.
Project manager Glen Farrell's take on the project? "I would have preferred for us to be further along, but introducing innovation takes time," he says. There is red tape to untangle, centres to be equipped; training of centre support staff, especially in ICT use, is still underway. But the will is there, and in pushing for literacy, the COLLIT Project is getting through the details.
- Grace Chin
COL Clippings article
November 2000
