UIE Studies on Functional Illiteracy in Industrialized Countries 5

FUNCTIONAL ILLITERACY AND

ADULT BASIC EDUCATION

IN THE NETHERLANDS

Kees Hamminck

Unesco Institute for Education, Hamburg

FUNCTIONAL ILLITERACY AND

ADULT BASIC EDUCATION

IN THE NETHERLANDS

UIE Studies on Functional Illiteracy in Industrialized Countries

1. Strategies for Post-literacy and Continuing Education at the Basic Level in the United Kingdom by Arthur Stock, 1985 Extract from Volume 3 of the series UIE Studies on Post-literacy and Continuing Education, available at no charge from the Unesco Institute for Education

2. Functional Illiteracy and Literacy Provision in Developed Countries: The Case of the Federal Republic of Germany by Elisabeth Fuchs-Briininghoff, Wolfgang Kreft and Ulrike Kropp 1986, ISBN 92 820 1046 5

3. Functional Illiteracy in Industrialized Countries: A n Analytical Bibliography by Ursula Giere 1987, ISBN 92 820 1047 3

4. Workshop of Specialists in Europe on Prevention of Functional Illiteracy and Integration of Youth into the World of Work: Final Report and Recommendations Report of a worskhop held at UIE in 1986, available from Unesco, reference ED-86/CONF.602/1, March 1987

5. Functional Illiteracy and Adult Basic Education in the Netherlands by Kees Hamminck 1990, ISBN 92 820 1057 0

6. Functional: Illiteracy in Belgium by Sylvie-Anne Goffinet and Dirk V a n ^ D a m m e ".'• \ 1990, ISBN 92 820 1058 9

The Unesco Institute for Education, Hamburg , is a legally independent entity. While the programmes of the Institute are established along the lines laid down by the General Conference of Unesco, the publications of the Institute are is­sued under its sole responsibility; Unesco is not responsible for their contents.

The points of view, selection of facts, and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily coincide with official positions of the Unesco In­stitute for Education, Hamburg .

The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publi­cation do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Unesco Secretariat concerning the legal status of any country or territory, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitations of the frontiers of any country or territory.

© Unesco Institute for Education 1990

Feldbrunnenstrasse 58 D-2000 Hamburg 13 Federal Republic of Germany

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CONTENTS

FOREWORD v

INTRODUCTION 1

1. OUTLINE OF THE PROBLEM 5

1.1. The need for literacy and A B E in Dutch society 5 1.2. Defining functional literacy 13 1.3. Defining basic competence 16 1.4. Major causes of functional illiteracy 17 1.5. Nature, scope and impact of the problem 23

2. A S H O R T HISTORY O F PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES 27

2.1. Adult literacy work 28 2.2 Open School 35 2.3. Language courses for allochtones 3 8 2 .4 . Informal education for young adults 42 2.5. Other influences 43 2.6. General characteristics of the projects 45

3. THE ADULT BASIC EDUCATION PROGRAMME 47

3.1. Adult education legislation 47 3.2. A B E programmes 56 3.3. Students 58 3.4. The A B E courses 62 3.5. The institutes 64 3.6. Assessment of the first year 66

VI

4. CURRICULAR A N D M E T H O D O L O G I C A L ASPECTS O F A B E 69

4.1 . Curriculum development 71 4 .2 . Relating A B E to work and vocational education 85 4.3. Experiential learning 94 4.4. Learning problems 102 4.5. Group work 104 4.6. Learning materials 105 4.7 . The use of information technology 108 4.8 . Research in A B E 111 4.9. Accreditation 112 4.10. Concluding remarks 112

5. TRAINING O F E D U C A T I O N A L STAFF 116

5.1. Tutor profile and initial schooling 117 5.2. In-service and on-the-job training 121

6. REFLECTIONS A N D R E M A R K S 123

6.1. Professionalisation and structuring 123 6.2. Relation to the world of work 125 6.3. A B E as an instrument for social participation 126 6.4 . A B E in international perspective 130 6.5. A B E and lifelong learning 13 5

REFERENCES 137

R E S O U R C E S 143

Vil

F I G U R E S :

Figure 1 The level of education of the Dutch population 9 Figure 2 The Dutch education and training system 48 Figure 3 A B E curriculum model 78-79

T A B L E :

Table 1 Immigrant communities in the Netherlands (1989) 8

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FOREWORD

This monograph on functional illiteracy and on the recent development of Adult Basic Education ( A B E ) in the Netherlands is a major contribution to the research pro­g ramme w e have initiated at the Unesco Institute for Education, in co-operation with Unesco Headquarters.

Though reliable figures on total and functional illiteracy are still unavailable in m a n y industrial countries, the issue has gained considerable m o m e n t u m over the last fifteen years. The Netherlands offers us an interesting example of this new trend.

Literacy, which was one of the key areas of activity of the Dutch Adult Education Movemen t during the second half of the 19th century, has again become a crucial sector at the end of the present century, after an almost complete suspension of activity between 1910 and 1980. O f course, the introduction of compulsory education in 1901 was a very significant step towards the goal of universal literacy. But, two generations later, w e discover, together with its achievements, the limits of formal basic education. Still, eighty years later, a significant number of adults cannot communicate effectively in writing, and lack the basic numeracy skills required at the work place or for re­training. N e w laws have n o w been introduced to promote basic education among the adult population, so as to complement the "initial literacy" policy of 1901.

M r . Kees H a m m i n k ' s study describes this new context and the shift from "literacy" to the broader concept of Adult Basic Education. This monograph helps us to understand the

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relation between this n e w demand for basic education and the economic pressure for the re-training of a larger number of wage earners. W e have also, in this report, a n e w insight into the process of institutionalisation of A B E in countries such as the Netherlands, and into the issues raised by the resulting professionalisation. The author refers, for example, to the difficulties raised by the standardisation of the curriculum for trainers w h o are trying to render the learning experience more relevant to the life-context of the participants.

B y helping us to grasp the meaning and the problems of the re-emergence of adult literacy in an industrial country, this publication will serve to stimulate intellectual cooperation and exchange between the different people tackling this issue, both in the North and in the South.

I express m y sincere thanks to the author of the study, M r . Kees H a m m i n k . W e are grateful to M r . Cees Doets of S V E for his critical reading of the first draft, and to M r . Evert van de Biezen for preparing the camera-ready copy.

I should also like to thank Dr . A d a m a Ouane for coordinating the project, and M r . Peter Sutton for supervising the publication.

Paul Bélanger Director Unesco Institute for Education

1

INTRODUCTION

In this monograph a picture will be given of the development of Adult Basic Education in the Netherlands. A B E is a relatively n e w provision in Dutch adult education. It is grounded in the experiences gained from four projects that developed aspects of education in the seventies and the early eighties for adults with little schooling. The A B E provision which is, so to speak, the crystallisation of these project experiences is intended as an instrument to improve the social participation of adults with little schooling. O n e could say that this is the yardstick by which to measure its effectiveness.

B y drawing a picture of A B E and the way it has developed from previous experiences to its present state, and by looking into the possibilities for the future some measurement along this yardstick m a y be possible. The measurement, however, cannot be definitive. A B E is in an early phase and m u c h development work must still be done.

In describing the previous experiences and the present state of A B E provision, and the possible roads the development of this provision m a y take, this monograph intends to provide the material for critical analysis. It tries to document a process from the spontaneous development of literacy, carried out by enthusiastic volunteers, to the development of a professionalised and institutionalised form of adult education under the n a m e of Adult Basic Education, which is still in full development. In this sense this monograph gives a picture of a m o m e n t , like a still from a film of which w e do not k n o w the end. O f course some speculation will be m a d e on where it m a y go and where it should go in the view of this author.

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Without intending any injustice to the other previous experiences, one m a y say that adult literacy for Dutch-speaking as well as for non-Dutch-speaking residents of the country is one of the pillars of the n e w A B E provision. Mainly for this reason the development of A B E provision will be looked at from the angle of literacy work with adults, as it developed up to 1987. In that year literacy work became part of the n e w A B E provision, bringing with it development practices and certain views and goals concerning the w a y adult education for adults with little schooling should take place. M a n y of these views and goals were integrated into the new provision, but because of the nature of A B E , and the regulations laid d o w n by government they still have to be altered, reformulated and redeveloped. In most cases this means improvement of the weaknesses of existing practices, although in other cases some of the strong points from the previous experiences are in danger of being lost. This is not something to grieve over. It rather seems a process that deserves analysis and critical rethinking of the goals that were stated before the inception of A B E provision.

The monograph is written with readers in mind w h o m a y not be very familiar with the Netherlands and with Dutch educational policy concerning adult education and especially adult basic education. For this reason w e have included as m u c h factual information as seemed necessary to grasp the developments. O n the basis of this information w e hope that the reader m a y have a clear view of the weak and the strong points of the development of A B E and can thus m a k e his o w n assessments and perhaps learn from them.

In chapter one a general outline of the problem of functional illiteracy in Dutch society is given. Functional illiteracy is in this monograph defined as the lack of basic knowledge and skills which are "strictly necessary to be able to cope in daily life and society" ( O & W 1987: 36). This rather broad definition reflects

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the official goal formulated by the government on the basis of about ten years of experience in the different projects out of which A B E provision has grown.

Chapter two documents these previous experiences. The development of literacy for Dutch-speaking adults is used as an example.

In chapter three the more formal aspects of A B E provision will be described, an extensive picture of the present state of A B E will be presented, and some assessments will be given.

Chapter four focuses on the curriculum and its development, and describes the central pedagogical and methodological concepts which underlie proper A B E practice.

Since A B E is a professional undertaking, chapter five describes the training and schooling of educational staff.

In chapter six some reflections and critical remarks for the future are made. Problems and issues for the coming decade are formulated. Central to this chapter is reflection on the instrumental value of A B E for the improvement of social participation. In this chapter the development of A B E in the Netherlands will be related to international developments, especially developments in Europe during the last ten years.

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1. OUTLINE OF THE PROBLEM

The existence of illiteracy in Dutch society has only been recognised since the middle of the seventies. It was supposed mat compulsory primary education created overall literacy and thus that no need to look into the problem of illiteracy among the adult population arose. In the seventies this picture changed: a change which can be related to both changes in the economy and changes in the political landscape. The "discovery" of illiteracy among the autochthonous population can be seen as one of the last elements in a growing concern in society with the socially and educationally deprived. In this the Netherlands was not alone. The United Kingdom had m a d e this discovery some years before, and Belgium and the Federal Republic of Germany were soon to follow as were other European countries at a later stage. This European trend was connected to a global trend of giving more attention to the problems of functional illiteracy in industrialised countries.

In this chapter a general outline will be given of the problem of functional illiteracy or the lack of basic competence as it manifests itself in Dutch society.

1.1. T h e need for literacy and A B E in Dutch society

Compulsory primary education in the Netherlands was introduced by law in 1901. It was seen as an answer to the need for basic literacy both from the standpoint of industrial development and from that of liberal politics and the labour movement. In the last two decades of the 19th century, with its rapid development of industry on the one hand and the growth

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of the labour movement on the other, the need for basic overall literacy had grown. Most of the attention was given to the education of children. There were few attempts to provide for literacy for adults. In some cases community councils, unions, churches or organisations of the liberal bourgeoisie offered courses in literacy and/or basic education for adults but these were rather infrequent and most of them disappeared in the first two decades of the 20th century. The Amsterdam School for Adults (now part of the city's A B E provision), which was founded in 1890 to provide literacy teaching for adults, is the only institute mat survived from that period. Although it has hardly been documented, it can be assumed that adult literacy teaching has been going on throughout this century on a very small scale, without public or official recognition. The most c o m m o n form of it was the schoolteacher helping some of the parents of his pupils with their literacy problems. In other cases churches or benevolent organisations (such as the Dutch branch of ATD-Fourth World) were (and some still are) teaching literacy to individual adults (Hammink and Kohlen 1977). But in general it can be said that literacy teaching for adults gradually disappeared from the adult education scene during the first 20 years of the century.

This disappearance of literacy provision for adults can be attributed both to a lack of political interest and to the growing conviction in society that compulsory primary education provided for overall literacy in the population. Already at the beginning of the 20th century 95% of boys aged between 6 and 12 were regularly attending primary education (van Tijn 1977: 26). In the fifties about 98% of all children between 6 and 12 attended primary school (Hammink and Kohlen 1977: 31). The need for adult literacy was simply no longer recognised. It was assumed that every person could read and write more or less adequately after his primary education. A n example of this

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attitude is that in the sixties the Dutch government did not answer questionnaires from Unesco about the number of illiterates in the country because illiteracy was supposed to be nonexistent, except for the mentally handicapped and a m o n g some members of the nomad population (Hammink and Kohlen 1977: 4).

It is only since the middle of the seventies that functional literacy and adult basic education have gradually grown into an important issue in Dutch education.

This change can be attributed to at least two factors. First, the development of the economy in the second half of the sixties created a need for a better educated labour force in certain fields such as the expanding service sector. Quality assessment of primary and secondary education showed, in relation to this need, that m u c h potential talent was wasted. The so-called "Talent Project" by van Heek and associates (van Heek 1968) documented very clearly the weaknesses in the compulsory education system and the fact that educational opportunities were distributed unequally within the population. This was called the "spilling" of talent, and recognition of this wastage had strong effects on educational policy and adult education. (The development of compensatory primary education programmes for working class children is directly related to this.)

A second factor can be seen in the demographic changes that took place with the immigration of people with little schooling mainly from the Mediterranean area (Turkey and Morocco) and from the former colonies of Surinam and the Dutch Antilles. In Dutch policy jargon migrant groups are nowadays referred to as the allochthonous population in contradistinction to the autochthonous. This terminology is used in this monograph. "Allochthonous" means all immigrants of non-Dutch origin and autochthonous means all the people of Dutch origin,- although both m a y have Dutch nationality.

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The Netherlands has 14,800,000 inhabitants, of w h o m

791,800 are of non-Dutch origin. Table 1 gives an overview of

the composition of the population of non-Dutch origin.

Turkey Morocco Other recruitment countries and Cape Verde Islands Surinam Antilles/Aruba China Eastern Europe Other Total

Total

175,800 136,600

97,800 202,000

60,700 50,900 15,400 52,600

791,000

Dutch nationality

1,600 1,200

21,100 181,600

— 17,000 5,700 8,900

297,800

Dual nationality

6,900 5,300

15,100 6,200

— 12,150 5,800 9,200

60,650

Second generation

51,000 41,000

30,300 50,500 11,500 15,800 4,500

16,000 220,600

Source: Netherlands Interuniversity Demographic Institute (NIDI): Immigrant communities in the Netherlands, Report preceding a study of demographic projections relating to minorities in the Netherlands, March 1989.

Table 1

Immigrant communities in the Netherlands (1989)

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Since the early seventies the awareness that a relatively large part of the autochthonous and allochthonous adult population can be considered as educationally and socially deprived has grown. Although in general the educational level of the population is high, compared to many other nations (see Figure 1), there is a proportion of the population with no more than primary education, or even less.

Level of education of the Dutch population, 1961 -2000

'60 '65 70 75 '80 '85 '90 "95 2000

1) primary education

2) junior secondary education ( L B O / M A V O )

3) senior secondary education ( H A V O / V W O / M B O )

4) higher education (HBO/University)

Source: Netherlands, Ministry of Education and Science, based on Education Matrices, CBS, 1967, 1971 and 1985; CPB projections 1986

Figure 1 The level of education of the Dutch population

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Research has shown that there is a strong relation between schooling and participation in society and politics. A m o n g those with no more than primary education (8 years in the Dutch system) and two years of secondary education (26% in 1987), the use of social provisions is lower than in the population at large, as is the participation in any form of political decision­making (voting, engaging in political action, membership of parties or unions etc.). The same goes for participation in clubs and sports activities, with the exception of attendance at sports meetings (SCP 1986). Although the Netherlands has extensive reading opportunities in the form of newspapers, bookshops and public libraries, the use of these provisions is very unequal in the population. People w h o are low on the social ladder buy fewer books, read fewer newspapers and m a k e less use of public libraries (Broer 1987). The same argument holds for participation in adult education. In 1985 17.4% of the population over sixteen years of age participated in some form of adult education. O f those with no more than primary education only 3.5% participated (SCP 1988: 192). In short there is a substantial part of the population which can be described as socially and educationally deprived.

The recognition of this situation in the early seventies led to the development of policies of adult education and social welfare directed to these deprived groups. The concept of "éducation permanente" w a s adopted as the leading concept in the development of new adult education policy and provisions.

In the formulation of these policies priority was given to the development of open provisions for those with little formal education. The intention was not to build up new institutions but to organise local and regional education networks that would be open to students, to society and to other forms of social and cultural activity. Later in this book it will be shown that this intention has not been realised.

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Emphasis in the initial phase of policy formulation was laid on the emancipatory character of the "new" adult education, which was to "provide awareness of the changes in society and of the possibilities people have to influence this process" (from a speech by the Social Democrat Prime Minister J. D e n Uil in 1975, quoted by Hajer 1982: 75). This statement led to the government decision in 1975 to give priority to the development of the Open School for people with little formal education, where they could refresh their former knowledge and build up general insights and skills (for further explanation see 2.2.). Although there was a strong lobby (mainly from the media and the universities) to develop an Open University following the model of the O U in Great Britain, the government, under pressure from the Social Democrat and Christian Democrat majority in parliament, chose to give priority to provisions for the low-educated. The Open University had to wait for the next more conservative government.

The government's position in the seventies was a reflection of a general interest in society in opening up educational possibilities for the less priviliged. At the beginning of the seventies n e w learning provisions for adults were rapidly developing.

Community centres started offering courses under names such as "parents learn again", "adults refresh their knowledge" and the like. Evening schools started to offer day-time courses in elementary secondary education for w o m e n . The feminist m o v e m e n t developed a broad variety of educational opportunities for w o m e n . Volunteer groups started offering language education for migrants. Even before the official start of the Open School experiments, "spontaneous" open schools started in many places, mostly as initiatives of voluntary groups related to the women ' s movement.

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In short there was m u c h m o v e m e n t in the area of adult education, and especially in education for adults with little schooling. The "discovery" of illiteracy a m o n g the native population c a m e a little later than the aforementioned developments. But it can be seen as an inevitable consequence of the attention that was paid to the problem of low schooling.

There are at least two reasons for this attention. First, a society in a state of rapid technological development cannot allow itself to have a large reservoir of unskilled labour and non-participating citizens. Both the quality of the labour force and the legitimacy of democracy are at stake. The second related reason is to be found in the prevailing social democratic politics in the early seventies. The "just sharing of power, income and knowledge" was the political slogan of the then governing coalition of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats.

The third reason is found in society itself. The development of the welfare society led to changes in the overall culture, which influenced both the relation of the individual to society and the relations between individuals. This is shown in tendencies such as participation, individualisation, a general striving towards more equality, the change in role patterns and role expectations, the growing complexity of modern bureaucracy, etc. In combination with rapid technological changes in the workplace and in communications, these tendencies can be seen as motivational for adult education. There was, so to speak, a ready public for education.

These three elements can be seen as factors strongly encouraging the development of policy and provision for literacy and adult basic education in the Netherlands.

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1.2. Defining functional literacy

Although there is an official policy for adult basic education in the Netherlands, a c o m m o n definition of functional competence does not exist. In the debate over the years different approaches have been tried but no consensus about what abilities are needed to function adequately in society has arisen.

A certain progression or widening of the concept can be seen. In the course of development of A B E provision and the projects that preceded it the emphasis changed from defining illiteracy to defining literacy in a social context, and further to attempts to define the goals and contents of basic education in terms of its social functions. This progression is comparable to the development of literacy provision in other European countries, notably the Federal Republic of Germany (Fuchs-Brûnninghof 1986) and the United Kingdom ( A L B S U 1983). W h a t is being sought n o w is not a definition of literacy or even functional literacy, but a definition of basic competence or basic skills necessary to "function adequately as a person and in society", as is the government's general definition ( O & W 1987: 28).

The nature of the problem is of course very complex. In a heterogeneous culture, as Dutch culture is, there can hardly exist a uniform definition of literacy, let alone one that goes further and defines functional competence.

In the first study in this century on illiteracy in the Netherlands,which appeared in 1977, H a m m i n k and Kohlen devised a double definition (Hammink and Kohlen 1977: 12).

According to that definition illiterates or semi-literates are those w h o are not able to make use of reading and writing in a meaningful w a y for themselves and/or society. "Meaningful" however was not defined, either from the viewpoint of the individuals concerned or from the viewpoint of society.

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T o m a k e this definition more concrete a corresponding number of school years was added as a point of reference. The assumption was that after primary schooling, which in 1977 took six years, starting at six years of age (since 1985 primary education starts at the age of five, or four if the parents wish, and lasts for eight years), the majority of children are able to read and write well enough to function in society.

According to this definition, illiterates were presumed to have a reading and writing ability less than or equal to what a normal child reaches after three years of primary education, semi-literates an ability that equalled the ability of a normal child after five years of primary education.

This distinction disappeared in the course of the development of literacy work. It became clear that it was merely an academic distinction, m a y b e useful for statistical purposes but without value for practical work. It was recognised that there are quite different levels of ability in reading and writing performance between adults and that the concept of literacy should be a broad concept. It must be defined not only in terms of reading and writing skills, but more so in terms of what social functions can adequately be performed with the use of written language. It was generally felt that the equating of adult performance with primary school performance did not do justice to the rich and diverse experience adult students brought to literacy classes.

A s w e shall see later, a somewhat different kind of differentiation in relation to the broader category of A B E students reappeared recently as an instrument to devise a curriculum model (see 4.1.).

T h e defining of functional literacy for allochthones is somewhat different. A distinction must be m a d e between allochthones w h o are illiterate in their mother tongue and w h o do not speak Dutch adequately and allochthones w h o are literate

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in their mother tongue but w h o do not speak, read and write Dutch adequately. It is clear that both categories lack essential skills to function in society.

In the development of literacy work for Dutch speakers the focus changed from attempts to define illiteracy to a search for a definition of literacy. The first policy document on literacy defined it very vaguely as "activities for people that cannot or can hardly read or write and w h o find that this hinders them in their functioning as a person and in society" ( C R M 1980: 2).

T h e judgment about a desirable measure of reading and writing ability related to functioning as a person and in society was put in the hands of the people concerned. This viewpoint is to be found back in the goal formulation for literacy work as stated by H a m m i n k and Noordijk: "It is not important that illiterates should learn something that every citizen should be able to perform, it is important that they should learn through learning reading and writing to articulate and defend their proper interests" ( H a m m i n k and Noordijk 1983: 69).

In chapter two w e shall elaborate on goal formulation for literacy. For this section it has been sufficient to m a k e clear the emphasis laid on the people concerned, instead of defining the problem from the perspective of societal needs or wants.

It was at first adequate to rely on a definition couched in terms of individual fulfilment since literacy and related types of adult basic education were not a major concern of the education policy of the state. Literacy was included in the fairly loose regime of the Ministry of Welfare and Culture, and was usually offered by voluntary organisations.

This situation changed in due course. W h e n adult basic education became an important issue in educational policy the emphasis on the personal definition cited above shifted to an emphasis on the needs of society.

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1.3. Defining basic competence

Although the recent law on Adult Basic Education does not contain a proper definition of functional literacy or basic skills it states that A B E is intended for those w h o lack the skills "strictly necessary to cope in daily life". These skills are language skills, numeracy, and social knowledge and skills. The conclusion of primary education and two years of secondary education was set as the m a x i m u m level of schooling for admission to A B E classes.

Since 1987, when this law came into being, much development work has been done to formulate goals for the different learning areas of A B E . The central focus has been to formulate goals in terms of the social and personal functions that can be performed with the use of language, numeracy and social skills. For these skills, fourteen main areas of functioning have been selected on the basis of research into the effects of attending literacy classes and Open School classes (Brandsma and Wijnen 1985). The areas are: 1. The schooling of one's children 2 . Education and training 3. W o r k 4 . Hobbies 5. Housing and environment

6. Family life and the household 7 . Social security 8. Social participation 9. Communication and media 10. Consumer affairs 11. Healthcare 12. Politics and culture 13. Transport 14. Personal interests

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In all these functional areas goals are going to be formulated for the varied subject matter of A B E . There is a differentiation for the various target groups such as allochthones, illiterates, etc. _

H o w e v e r , these goal formulations d o not claim to d o m o r e than form» a guideline for practical work. In the actual A B E class it is a central principle that the learning starts from the needs and wants of the students. In fact in dialogue with the teacher they decide what goals they want to pursue, to what extent and for which personal or social functions.

Functionality is thus seen as a broad category, in which m a n y of the students' needs and wants can be met.

1.4. M a j o r causes of functional illiteracy

A s w a s argued in 1.1. above, the Netherlands has extensive provision for reading in various forms. T h e average Dutch m a n or w o m a n reads for 5.3 hours per w e e k , the n u m b e r of book loans from public libraries rose to 178,048 in 1987, and every day 4.5 million newspapers are sold ( S C P 1988: 242) . H o w e v e r , this reading culture does not prevent illiteracy in Dutch society. T h e easy access to reading provision in the form of newspapers, books and public libraries in itself seems not to be a sufficient condition to prevent illiteracy.

F r o m the literature about illiteracy for Dutch speakers that has been produced over the recent years four clusters of causes for the p h e n o m e n o n of illiteracy in the adult population in industrialised countries are appearing: 1. The socioeconomic situation. A low income position seems

to be related to illiteracy. 2 . The sociocultural situation. In certain specific "subcultures"

there seems to be more illiteracy than in others.

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3. The educational system. M a n y literacy students report that they had a "bad" education.

4 . The individual situation. This is usually seen as a complex of individual problems combined with one or more of the aforementioned clusters (Hammink 1987).

These four clusters are closely related. Illiteracy is seen as the product (or the failure) of a socialisation history in which all four elements c o m e together.

Socialisation processes are, as is shown by m a n y researchers, specific to the subculture in which the individual lives. The development of identity and self-image is conditioned by the social background. A big part of this development takes place before children enter school. In the sixties there was a strong tendency in society to judge the results of socialisation of working-class children as negative in comparison with the socialisation results of middle-class children. The compensatory language programmes in primary schools (and television programmes such as Sesame Street) are built on this assumption. A s is shown in a recent study by Slavenburg on compensatory programmes in Rotterdam (Slavenburg 1986), those programmes have not been very effective.

Other researchers, notably Willis (Willis 1977), have m a d e clear that there are no shortcomings in working-class socialisation, but that there are quite different values at stake. Working-class culture is in some aspects quite different from middle-class culture and that explains the problems working-class children are confronted with in a school system that is predominantly based on middle-class values. There is a marked "clash" between the culture of working-class children and the culture of a middle-class school in the contents and the linguistic codes of teaching. The school transfers knowledge which is experienced as not related to working-class life, and it does so in a code which differs from the codes of everyday life. The prime

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motivation for learning in school, i.e., the relation between teacher and pupil, can thus not be established.

This process can explain w h y so m a n y working-class children cannot meet the standards of school. It does not fully explain the fact that some of them leave school as illiterates, whereas others from the same background become more or less literate. T o explain this w e will need to look into the problems of the individual and the role of schools.

Individual problems

The fact that there is illiteracy in a country where 99% of all children regularly attend school says something about the w a y the school functions, but it must also be related to specific individual characteristics of the persons concerned, characteristics that are for a large part shaped in socialisation processes, but which have no collective dimension. Not every child in a backward position leaves school illiterate. O n e could argue that failure at school is related to unfavourable personal characteristics, whose negative effects on learning are worsened by unfavourable socialisation and the malfunctioning of the school system. Social and individual factors are closely related and reinforce each other.

It is extremely difficult to grasp these individual factors. The mental capacity to learn is certainly one element but w e do not k n o w what the exact role of it is in causing illiteracy. In literacy classes it is often experienced that some students have massive learning difficulties that cannot be explained only in terms of the personality or negative self-image of the student. In those students the individual capacity to learn to read and write seems less than in other students, but m a n y of them still do learn.

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Other individual factors that are sometimes mentioned are left-handedness and dyslexia, but for both there is no empirical evidence to relate them to illiteracy as such.

It is obvious that individuals differ in their capacity to learn to read and write, but this does not fully explain w h y these individuals stay illiterate. The question that has to be asked is w h y schools cannot meet the demands of every learner. W e must therefore take a look at the role the school plays in this process.

The role of the school

In m a n y publications about illiteracy in the Netherlands and Western Europe the school is seen as the most important cause of illiteracy. W e have already argued that the conditions for illiteracy probably exist before the child enters school. The starting conditions are unfavourable. However , the question must be asked w h y the school does not, or does not fully adjust to these unfavourable starting conditions.

In every society the social function of the school is to provide children with elementary culture skills, through which participation in society and legitimation of social conditions are possible, and to provide them with the skills to be able to function as a labour force. In this latter function the school has a role as an instrument of selection for the labour market. In the first function it is an instrument of reproducing the existing social order. But s o m e h o w there is a malfunctioning. In a modern technological society with compulsory primary education the purpose of school can never be to produce illiterates. This purpose would be dysfunctional to the main functions the school system is for.

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This dysfunction can be explained if w e take a look at the pedagogical practices that are used in primary schools.

Mathijsse gives the following characteristics of the Dutch school system: 1. Intellectuality, selectivity, elitism and hierarchy on the basis

of the knowledge principle. 2 . Fragmentation. The curriculum is a sum of subjects but

there is no integration of knowledge through the establishment of a relationship with the recognisable problems of social reality.

3. The system of year classes. 4 . The hierarchic relation between teacher and pupil. 5. Strict control by the government. (Mathijsse 1971: 72)

In this framework pedagogical practice does not succeed in passing the most elementary culture skills to all pupils. This failure can be related to at least three elements: the difference between school language and values and h o m e language and values, the use of standardised methods and the year class system.

Language differences between h o m e and school have been mentioned before. In two aspects there m a y be considerable differences: the contents of the message and the nature of the linguistic code in which the message is transferred. A s a literacy student once said, "I hear him (the teacher), but I don't hear (understand) him. I see what is written d o w n , but I don't grasp it." This linguistic barrier makes a sensible communication between teacher and pupil rather difficult.

The standardisation of methods for reading and writing causes problems in the sense that they do an injustice to the individual learning styles and capacities of the pupils. There is no link with everyday experience or the function of reading and writing for the pupil. T h e method dictates the learning tempo and, as is argued by m a n y authors and practitioners, teachers tend to

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reduce reading to an auditive and visual technique which w h e n correctly used produces a reader. "The advantages are clear, in a short timespan 90% of the children learn to read in a clear and controlable process. The teacher knows exactly what to do and six or seven percent of the pupils stay illiterate" (Ruys 1984).

The year class system is based on the assumption that a year group of children is a homogeneous group. The implication of this is that didactic methods can be based on a uniform average level that corresponds to the age group of the pupils. The assumption that in a group of 25 to 35 children recruited from different social backgrounds there is an average level will for some pupils lead to their lagging behind and in some cases even to the drop-out of those w h o can or will not match this level. F r o m the viewpoint of pedagogics and psychology this assumption will not hold.

Allochthones

For allochthones the above mentioned causes of illiteracy m a y also apply. But compared to autochthones some clusters will be of greater weight and others will be of less importance. The individual factors seem to be less important whereas factors relating to progress through school will be more so. In m a n y of the h o m e countries schools do not function very well or in some cases are absent. Related to this is the problem of the difference between school language and h o m e language. In m a n y of the h o m e countries (e.g., Morocco, Dutch Antilles, Surinam) these are completely different languages. Functional illiteracy in the sense of not speaking, reading and writing Dutch adequately can be related to the socioeconomic and the sociocultural position of the allochthones, but must also be related to a lack of attractive facilities for learning Dutch. Another factor m a y be the fact that

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in the first years of migration most of the migrants (and the official policy) felt that they were here on a temporary basis. The prospect of returning to the h o m e country in a few years' time prevented them from investing energy in learning Dutch. Over the last ten years this perspective has disappeared. Instead, migrants' families have c o m e to the Netherlands, not temporarily but to stay here.

1.5. Nature, scope and impact of the problem

There is very little research data on the number of people in the Netherlands w h o are illiterate. O n e reason for this is of course the difficulty in defining the problem. Another, more important reason is found in the fact that the persons involved tend to hide the fact that they cannot read and write very well. In a society that is predominantly literate, in which everybody takes more or less for granted that all the others are able to perform reading and writing tasks, you do not very easily admit that you are one of the few w h o cannot perform as expected.

In this sense one could speak of a hidden problem, certainly where it concerns the autochthonous population. A m o n g allochthones, such as Turks and Morrocans, the taboo on admitting that one cannot read and write very well does not exist, certainly not where it concerns mastery of the Dutch language.

Research-based estimates of the number of illiterates in the autochthonous population vary from 1% to 8% of the adult population (in absolute figures something between 100,000 and 800,000 persons over 18 years of age) (Hammink 1987: 20). For ethnic and cultural minorities there is also no solid research-based figure available. It is estimated that 23.5% of the Turkish migrants and 58.5% of the Moroccan migrants did not attend or

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did not finish primary education. It is assumed that they cannot read and write, in their mother tongue or in Dutch ( N C B 1989).

For people from Surinam and the Antilles there are figures of 5 to 10% mentioned. However , thé Bureau of Government Statistics qualifies these figures as rough estimates (Gelauff-Hanzon 1988: 23). For other minority groups there are no figures available.

Persons w h o are literate in their mother tongue but w h o do not speak, read and write Dutch are not seen as illiterates. However, in Dutch society they cannot function adequately and thus could be defined as lacking basic competence. Language courses for migrants are nowadays seen as a priority in the development of a policy for the integration of allochthones.

The problem of the lack of basic competence in Dutch society has m a n y different aspects, and it concerns a broad variety of people. The target groups for Adult Basic Education are not very well defined. Their c o m m o n characteristics are that they lack (or experience a lack of) basic skills to function adequately in everyday life and society and that they had little formal schooling (primary education and two years of secondary education is seen as a m a x i m u m ) . If w e accept this formal definition then over 25% of the adult population can be seen as in need of basic education. This category m a y be split up as follows:

— Autochthones w h o are illiterate or semi-literate — Autochthones w h o feel incompetent in a variety of basic

skills and knowledge (e.g., language, numeracy, social skills)

— Allochthones w h o cannot or cannot adequately make use of the Dutch language

— Allochthones w h o are illiterate in their mother tongue — The mentally handicapped

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In a society that becomes more and more complex there is a need for education of these groups, both from the viewpoint of society and from the viewpoint of the people concerned. A s argued above, for society it is dysfunctional to have such a large group that cannot adequately participate. For individuals this applies also. In a paper Huisman has demonstrated the motives for illiterates to engage in literacy courses: motives that seemingly also apply to m a n y of the other groups. They fall in the following four catagories: 1. Motives related to the growing complexity and bureaucracy

of society 2 . Motives related to individualisation processes in society 3. Motives related to equality versus inequality 4 . Motives related to changing role patterns and expectations

(Huisman 1984) Complexity and bureaucracy are shown in areas such as

housing, social security, work etc. In the workplace unskilled labour is rapidly vanishing. In a labour market where there are m a n y competitors one needs at least basic skills for nearly every job.

Individualisation is two-sided. Independence is highly valued in Dutch society, and there are processes going on (the breaking up of old neighbourhood networks, changing personal relationship patterns, the individualisation of social security, etc.) that are changing dependency relations between people. There is, so to speak, the goal and the threat of independence that provides a motive for participation in Adult Basic Education.

Related to this is the tension between equality and inequality. T o become more equal to others is a strong motive. The more emphasis is put on independence, the more feelings of inequality grow into frustration.

Changes in role patterns and expectations are brought about by the processes mentioned above. For instance the role of

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parents is changing. They are nowadays supposed to be able to support their children in their school career, to read books to them and the like. This is an expectation which did not exist twenty years ago, at least in working-class culture. Being able to help and understand the children is a powerful motive to join Adult Basic Education classes.

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2. A SHORT HISTORY OF PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES

Adult Basic Education has developed during the last ten years from different sources. In fact the term A B E has only been used since 1987, when the government decided to bring together in one regime five different adult education activities that were more or less intended for persons with little education. The five were: 1. Adult literacy work for autochthones 2 . Language courses for ethnic minorities 3. Open School 4 . Informal Education for Young Adults 5. Household information in the countryside

The activities 1, 2 and 3 were set up from about 1975 as projects to stimulate and experiment with different aspects of what later became Adult Basic Education. The last two have a longer tradition. Informal Education for Young Adults (VJV) grew out of Catholic youth work and became a general educational provision during the sixties. It was informal in the sense that it did not have prescribed learning programmes and that much of the learning was on issues the students themselves thought of interest. Usually these concerned daily life and behaviour.

Household information in the countryside offered a variety of courses to housewives in rural areas, usually about domestic affairs. The interest in these courses was diminishing by the seventies. This was a reason to use the government budget for it to build up Adult Basic Education provision.

In this chapter w e shall not deal extensively with the history of these five activities. A s an example, the development of

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literacy provision for autochthones will be sketched, and a brief outline of the development of the Open School and language courses for ethnic minorities will be given. In our view these three are the most important in the formation of adult basic education provision. In the last paragraph of this chapter w e shall outline some of the methodological and pedagogical influences that, coming from the previous experiences, were carried over into Adult Basic Education.

2.1. Adult literacy w o r k

Until 1977 there was no public recognition of the fact that illiteracy a m o n g autochthonous adults existed. In that year H a m m i n k and Kohlen published a research report in which they estimated that 1 to 4 % of the adult population were probably illiterate or semi-literate. The report also described some of the 20 to 25 then existing literacy projects for adults. It m a d e public what was already k n o w n in a small circle of adult educators and suspected by m a n y others in the field of adult education and of social work. The report received m u c h attention in the media and can be seen as the starting point of a rapid development of literacy provision for adults. In September 1977 a conference was held on the subject. Participants in the conference were organisers and tutors of the already existing literacy projects, policy-makers and people interested in starting literacy projects. This was the first time that people engaged in literacy got together to exchange views and to m a k e a start with policy-making. Since there was no government policy at that time, the conference outlined the first criteria for development. The central points were:

— development from the grass roots — a policy to stimulate existing and new local initiatives

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— no central curriculum, methods and materials — a support agency to organise and stimulate the exchange of

experience This led to the foundation of the "National Initiative Group for

Literacy", which later developed into the "National Support Group for Literacy". This group consisted of people from the field, w h o felt some distrust for policy-makers. Grass-roots development was the ideology. The group offered help to those w h o wanted to start a literacy project, organised meetings and workshops and started a bi-monthly magazine.

The number of literacy projects, mostly run on a voluntary basis in community centres, rose rapidly from about 25 in 1977 to about 200 in the summer of 1980, with an estimated number of students between 2500 and 3000. In 1985 there were over 400 literacy projects for autochthones with about 10,000 students.

The basic philosphy in developing literacy provision can be described by the word emancipatory. Literacy was supposed to contribute to the emancipation of the lower strata in society. This contribution was, by the nature of the thing, primarily seen as education but it should be connected to other aspects of social and welfare policy.

The basic concepts for literacy, formulated in an article in the Alfabode (Literacy courier) in 1980, can be seen as the basis for the development of literacy praxis in the years from 1980 to 1987. They formed more or less the ideology of the literacy movement in the Netherlands. W e shall come back to them later.

O n the part of the official policy-makers, in 1977 a working group was set up with the task of developing proposals for government policy on the matter. This working group was composed of members of two advisory bodies for adult education and some experts. At the same time the "National Support Group", which was funded by the Ministry of Culture

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from the autumn of 1978 (funds for one staff m e m b e r and a secretary), was working on a policy proposal from the field. Both proposals appeared at the beginning of 1979: the official one, placing literacy in the context of existing adult education policy, and the one from the grass roots stressing the link between literacy education and social and welfare work.

It took the government till the s u m m e r of 1980 to devise a definitive policy document. This policy was aimed at stimulating literacy work and starting literacy projects by giving funds to local communities. The policy was open in the sense that it prescribed very little. The funding arrangments offered m a n y posibilities to develop the work from the grass roots and included finance for N G O support at regional and national levels. In each of the 12 provinces a provincial coordinator for literacy was appointed and the S V E , the National Study and Development Centre for Adult Education, was funded for a project to develop methods, materials and tutor training in close cooperation with field workers. However open the policy was, the funding was rather limited. Local literacy projects could get 1000 guilders per student per year, but the total amount of government spending was limited. With the quick rise in the number of students this meant in practice an average of about 500 to 600 guilders per student, per annum. Implicit in this funding arrangement was that m u c h of the work had to be done by volunteers, as it had been before there was any government money at all. In some cases local community councils donated some extra money to the projects with which a professional coordinator could be paid.

Literacy volunteers were mostly w o m e n from the middle and upper strata of society, usually with a higher education. M a n y of them had a teacher's or a social worker's education. Very few of them had previous experience in adult education. Motives to

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engage in literacy work varied a m o n g the volunteer tutors. They can be described in three related categories: — politically inspired motives: on the basis of an analysis of

social inequality and the belief that this is unjust and can be fought with education, they want to engage in literacy.

— pedagogically inspired motives: on the basis of a critique of school practices and the recognition of unequal chances in schools there is the feeling that drop-outs should get a second chance.

— caritative motives: there is compassion for the "poor" people w h o need help.

In the course of development the last category more or less disappeared. The first and the second category, which were from the start very m u c h present, prevailed and one can argue that in the process of fitting grass-roots literacy into official policy the second category of motives became the most important.

Basic concepts

A s mentioned above, in 1980 the basic concepts for the development of literacy were formulated. In summary they are as follows: 1. T h e learning of reading and writing is a function of the

growing awareness of the learner's possibilities, of the enlarging of self-confidence and of the ability to identify and defend one's interests in the social context ("social vigilance"). In the long run it should support changes in the learner's life situation.

2 . Support and aid for social and personal problems form an integral part of literacy work.

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3. Reading and writing, and thus the learning of them, are an activity through which the language user receives and transfers meaningful information. In the learning process use must be made of the language experience of the learner.

4 . The starting point for successful learning lies in the life situation and the problems therein as experienced by the learner.

5. Group work is favoured as compared to one-to-one tuition. 6. The learning situation is characterised by a horizontal

relationship between students and tutors. 7 . Everybody has in principle the capacity to learn to read and

write. 8. A literacy scheme (seen as a clustering of learning groups)

should be organised in such a way that both students and tutors have influence on the running of the scheme. (Hammink 1980: 24)

These concepts formed the basis for the development of the work. In 1980 there was a consensus about them, idealistic though they were. O n the basis of these concepts a development project was started by the National Study and Development Centre for Adult Education, S V E . The project developed concepts, models for literacy tuition and training for tutors. Since the basic input was concerned with experience-based learning, the project did not develop "ready-made" learning materials. The focus was on the production of handbooks, collections of ideas and examples on the basis of which tutors (and students) could produce learning materials that fitted the specific needs and interests of the learning group and the individual students in the group. Most of the development work was done in close cooperation with tutors and with the provincial coordinators, usually in working groups with experienced tutors. The members of the project team were

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involved in tuition' in local literacy schemes during the project period as volunteers.

For its work the S V E project was awarded the Krupskaya prize in 1987.

Tutor training

Implementation of the outcomes was done through tutor-training, the magazine Alfabode and the m a n y personal contacts between the members of the project team and literacy, tutors in the country.

The role of tutor training in this respect was of paramount importance. First of all, since it was a rather n e w area of work, volunteer tutors were very eager to take part in training meetings. Secondly, there was the provincial coordination which m a d e it possible to train a large number of volunteers in many different aspects of the work.

Following the basic concept of literacy tuition the tutor training was largely experience-based. After a relatively short introductory training of about 15 to 20 hours, the n e w tutor was assigned to his literacy group, often in combination with a somewhat more experienced tutor. The follow-up training was done on the basis of the problems experienced in tuition. There were three main forms of training: counselling and criticism by the co-tutor, exchange of experiences with the other tutors within the scheme, and training sessions organised by the provincial coordinator, where exchange between tutors from various literacy schemes took place.

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Literacy practice

The translation of the basic concepts into literacy practice can be described with the key words experiential learning, language experience approach, student-centredness, group work and action for change.

The concept of experiential learning, mainly based on the works of Paulo Freiré, and for literacy work also on the work of the French teacher Célestin Freinet, influenced m u c h of the development not only of literacy but also of the O p e n School and of Informal Education for Y o u n g Adults. The O p e n School development team described the concept as follows:

"... knowledge and insights are acquired through the investigation of knowledge and experience that students hold in their life situation. Critical appraisal of the meaning and relevance of this knowledge and experience, related to the situation from which they arise, leads to the tracing of n e w areas of knowledge and insights which students want to enter.... Experiential learning is directed to the further development of perspectives for action, that is to say students acquire more possibilities of engaging in activities for change" ( I W O S 1984: 9).

For literacy work this concept is worked out in several publications. Central is the publication by Noordijk and Tubbing (1983) and the didactic translation of the concept by Bohnenn et al. (1984-1987, 4 volumes).

Basic to it is that the learning of reading and writing starts from the experience of the student and the language in which this experience is expressed. The experience forms the content of what is written, read, talked about and investigated. The language used is not taken from a scientific analysis of the process of reading and writing but from the student's experience and his goals. Learning is not seen as a mere technical activity in

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which the correct sounds are attributed to signs but as something that takes place in a meaningful context through which transfer of the acquired skills to real life is made easier.

Fundamental to the use of this approach is the production and analysis of text material by the student (either self-written or written by the tutor on the basis of what the student has to say). In both publications mentioned above, but also in others student writing has an important place.

Professionalisation

During the years from 1980 to 1987 literacy work developed into a professional field of adult education. There were experienced and well-trained tutors, outlines for curricula were developed, and the organisational context of literacy work changed slowly from spontaneous to more or less institutionalised. However, the central characteristics of an open and flexible provision, which was run with great enthusiasm, were not lost in the process.

In 1987 the law on Adult Basic Education came into being. This changed the landscape profoundly for literacy work and the other predecessors.

2.2. O p e n School

In 1975 the government started the Open School experiment. In 14 places in the country an experimental educational provision was offered to adults with little schooling. The background to the experiment was composed of the debate on "éducation permanente", a variety of local initiatives in adult education such

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as "Parents Learn Again", and m a n y education courses for w o m e n .

Besides the official projects a far bigger number of spontaneous open school projects were started locally and run by volunteers in the period from 1975 to 1980. B y 1980 several thousand students, mainly w o m e n , were enrolled in the O p e n School.

The Open School programme was originally intended as a multi-media programme. Thematic learning programmes were supposed to be supported by television and radio programmes. Right from the start it became apparent that this concept did not work. The learning groups felt restricted in their learning processes by the top-down approach of the initial experiment. This led to reformulation of the curriculum and the learning materials so as to allow for a locally defined learning path.

In 1980 the experiment was reviewed and changed into a project for the development of new educational possibilities within the already existing provision. Thirty-one so-called introductory projects were started. In these the former O p e n School experiments, adult secondary schools and informal adult education institutes participated. However, the intention to see the Open School not as a new institution, but as an approach for all adult education, was not realised. B y 1987 most of the 31 projects were operating more or less separately.

In the curriculum plan of 1980 the target group of the O p e n School is described as follows:

"The educational provision is intended for adults and young adults w h o can at least read and write and w h o did not attend more than two years of secondary schooling. A s a rule the m i n i m u m starting level can be seen as equal to four years of primary schooling ... In this target group several subgroups can be distinguished which, given their

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special situations, need particular provision." (SPOS 1980: 6)

In 1986 it was estimated that 4,458 students were involved in Open School programmes, the majority of them w o m e n . (This includes the unofficial "spontaneous groups".) (Doets and Huisman 1988: 12)

The goals of the Open School were described as follows: "a. the enlarging of basic knowledge and skills

b. the widening and enlarging of social orientation Goals under (a) and (b) are geared towards:

c. personal development, together with d. the growth of the capacity and willingness to act as a

person and as a m e m b e r of society, out of free choice in specific life and work situations.

These general goals can be distinguished but not

separated. They must be seen in their interrelation. Preparation for adult secondary education, informal education and/or vocational education is a related aim." (SPOS 1980: 14)

These rather holistically formulated goals were translated into educational practice through a student-centred approach. Basic concepts were formulated as follows:

"a. students' power to decide on what to learn b . integration of formal and informal education c. experienced-based learning d. reciprocal learning or learning from each other."

(SPOS 1980: 26) The most essential point here was that the students themselves

were supposed to decide on what and h o w they wanted to learn. The pedagogics were designed to make this kind of decision possible. In this there is a close relation to the concept of experiential learning as described above. O n the basis of investigation of and reflection on everyday experience, learning

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problems were formulated and learning paths leading to information and solutions were developed within the learning groups. The tutors acted as facilitators for this kind of learning process.

These concepts and this approach played, as will be demonstrated in chapter 4 , an important role in the formulation of the methodology for Adult Basic Education.

2.3. Language courses for allochtones

During the seventies the number of migrants in Holland rose quickly and it became more and more clear that they were not here on a temporary basis as "guest workers". There was an increasing demand for language courses. M a n y organisations and groups of concerned citizens, such as neigbourhood centres, organisations for migrants, volunteer groups, etc., tried to supply this demand. The government did not have a coherent policy for language courses until 1980. Different ministries (Culture, Education, Social Affairs, H o m e Affairs) and city councils made contributions to the growing number of courses.

In the "project policy" of 1980 these initiatives were brought together. The project "Education for Ethnic Minorities" had the following goals:

"— emancipation of members of cultural minorities — the promotion of participation in adult education for

members of cultural minorities — the improvement of the relations between members

of cultural minorities and autochthones" The educational aims for the courses were formulated as:

"— the enlarging of "social vigilance" through improved social orientation

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— the broadening of general basic knowledge and skills, and personal development

— an increase in learners' awareness of their o w n situation in society and the improvement of skills to be able to act in this situation." (Gelauff-Hanzon 1988: 85)

Education was offered in literacy (either in the mother tongue of the migrant, or in Dutch), Dutch as a second language, orientation and knowledge of Dutch society and social skills.

The target groups for this project were: migrant workers and their families, refugees, people of Moluccan, Surinam or Antillian background, and nomads. The migrant workers and their families (mainly from Turkey and Morocco) constituted the majority of participants in the activities. In 1986 it was estimated that there were 25,000 students participating (Doets and Huisman 1988: 12).

Methods debate

In the field of Dutch language education for minorities there is m u c h debate on which methods are best suited. At first m u c h attention was paid to grammatical methods, but later attention was drawn to audio-lingual and audio-lexical methods and recently there has been a growing interest in methods and approaches that can be termed communicative (e?g., the total physical response method). However, in the field and among researchers and developers there can still be found adherents of every approach.

More consensus seems to exist on the matter of integrating the learning of Dutch with learning about Dutch society. M a n y of the programmes for migrants integrate the "technical" aspects of language learning with the social functions of language in

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everyday life and thus relate the language learning process to the personal and social life situation of the learners and the problems they face in dealing with Dutch society.

This integration is not always applauded as being effective. Gelauff-Hanzon states on the basis of research in two cities that

"if students do not understand enough Dutch it is not advisable to "wrap up" the information about Dutch society and the learning of skills in the teaching of Dutch ... Foreigners need direct information that has to do with their position: legal information, housing, health care, banking, etc., etc. This information might c o m e too late if it has to wait till the student adequately masters Dutch." (Gelauff-Hanzon 1988: 98)

The statement seems correct but overlooks the fact that one of the major social skills for a migrant is the mastering of the language of the host country. The use of the aforementioned information will be restricted if it is not accompanied by the mastering of the language in which the student will have to deal with it in everyday life. This does not mean that the information in all ,cases must be given in Dutch. It seems important to m a k e use of the mother tongue as a teaching language in combination with Dutch. A big problem in this respect is that most of the migrant learning groups are heterogeneous in the sense that different linguistic backgrounds are represented and that the majority of the tutors do not speak migrant languages such as Turkish or Moroccan Arabic.

F r o m the field of education for migrants there is a continuous plea for more homogeneous groups and for more educators, preferably from migrant groups, w h o speak the languages of the students and have knowledge of their social and cultural background.

M u c h debate has been going on about the relation between the

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learning of Dutch as a second language and learning in the migrant's mother tongue.

It is supposed that illiterate migrants learn Dutch better and more quickly after achieving basic literacy in their mother tongue. For Turkish, and probably for Moroccan also, it is shown that literacy in the mother tongue is a good start for learning reading and writing (Emmelot and van Kooten 1987). Besides this, more "technical" arguments, ethical and political arguments are used to state the importance of mother tongue literacy for allochthones. In 1988 C o u m o u stated the following arguments:

"— It is a fundamental right for every human being to be able to read and write his o w n language.

— Mother tongue literacy offers chances for personal development.

— Being literate in one's mother tongue strengthens one's o w n identity.

— For allochthones reading and writing skills in the mother tongue maintain the links with the roots in the h o m e country. This will lead to better coping in the strange environment." (Coumou 1988).

O n the other hand there is on the part of m a n y students a demand to learn Dutch as quickly as possible, instead of first having to learn to read and write in the mother tongue. This has led to two types of literacy course for migrants: literacy courses in the mother tongue and courses for direct literacy in Dutch. Aside from these types there are courses for those w h o are literate but whose mastery of the Dutch language is inadequate or totally lacking.

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2.4. Informal education for young adults

Informal Education for Young Adults (VJV) developed in the sixties out of the so-called "Mater Amabilis Schools" for working girls from 17 to 22 years. In 1968 these schools were transformed (and taken from under the wing of the Catholic church) into a general informal education provision for young adults from 17 to 25 years. Later the m a x i m u m age was raised to 30 years.

Since 1968 the provision was funded by the Department of Education. The work was done in 110 local institutes by about 420 professional educators.

The target group for the V J V centres was formed of young adults from 17 to 30 years with a low level of schooling. This group was divided into the following subgroups: — working and jobless youngsters — young housewives/women and girls — mentally and/or physically handicapped — migrant youngsters and w o m e n — street corner youth

Besides their "regular work" many V J V institutes were from 1980 participating in the Open School, Literacy and courses for ethnic minorities.

The goals of the V J V were to: — m a k e the students aware of the surrounding society in

which historically and structurally defined relationships of power create barriers, possibilities, values and norms for them

— involve the students more directly in the development of society, so that they might gain a better understanding of themselves and each other in solidarity and help to shape society through active participation in unions, action

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committees, political parties, the women ' s movement, self-development and creativity groups

— teach the students social skills that enable them to survive in an increasingly complex society and to make a creative and critical contribution to the enriching of their o w n life and housing and work situation. (VJV 1983)

The V J V programmes varied according to the specific learning groups. The concepts of experiential learning and student-centredness formed the basis of the educational practice. In many of the programmes the perpective of action (the use that can be made of the knowledge) had a central place.

2.5 Other influences

In the process of development of Adult Basic Education there were, besides the experiences from the aforementioned projects, a number of other influences which will be mentioned here.

It must be recognised that the development of the predecessors of Adult Basic Education reflected the general climate in adult education during the sixties and seventies.

There was a rising optimism about the emancipatory possibilities education could offer for those w h o were not well off. There was growing criticism of the educational system and a feeling that things should change.

Social movements (the peace movement , unionism etc.), community work and education, informal education and secondary adult education were blooming. The w o m e n ' s movement started to develop emancipatory education. M a n y people working (as volunteers or as professionals) in the "new" adult education were involved and (not the least important) many of them were from the student generation of 1968.

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Emancipatory ideals of course were not n e w to adult education. Ever since the industrial revolution there has been a tradition in informal and residential adult education of educating the working class to support their emancipation. Most of the concepts used, however, stemmed from the liberal bourgeoisie, w h o saw it as their task to enlighten the working class. In the seventies, a n e w generation of adult educators wanted to develop new concepts that m a d e the interests and needs and wants of the "oppressed classes" the fulcrum of adult education instead of the interests of liberal society. Such concepts were offered by authors such as Freiré, Freinet, Negt and Deppe. The debate about the concept of experiential learning, of which elements can be traced in the practices of the four experiences mentioned earlier (section 2.1.) has been deeply influenced by the works of Freiré. The student-centredness of learning, the active involvement of the learner in the process and the structuring of learning around everyday experience and its analysis can directly be related to his Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freiré 1970). These same elements, but in a more strictly Marxist context, were found in Oskar Negt's Exemplarisches Lernen und Arbeiterbildung (Negt 1969) and in the follow-up work done by Helga Deppe . In particular, the notion that experiences can be analysed collectively and related to the power structure of society was derived from their work.

The French teacher Célestin Freinet had a special influence on literacy. His ideas were introduced by people working in the so-called Freinet Schools (also referred to as schools with a printing press), which engaged in literacy work (Hooft 1982). The fundamental notion taken from his work was that, since reading and writing are communicative, the learning of reading and writing must also be communicative, instead of a technical act. This had a major influence on the development of the basic concepts of literacy. Although the printing press was not very

45.

c o m m o n in literacy, the reproducing of the students' words in a printed form by the students themselves in the form of magazines was widely used as a motivating and stimulating method. From 1981 to 1985 there appeared a national magazine of student writings.

The emphasis which was laid on student writing was also influenced by literacy work in the United Kingdom. Student writing and the notion of learning based on language experience (McFarlane 1979a; 1979b; M a c e 1979) played an important role in the development of literacy methodology.

2.6. General characteristics of the projects

All these influences can be traced in the different projects mentioned earlier. They form, together with the achievements of the projects in the period up to 1987, the central input for what has become Adult Basic Education in the Netherlands.

The most essential characteristics of these projects seem to be the following: 1. The development from spontaneous action by engaged

citizens, sometimes through a social organisation, to more professional work, and the associated development of more structured forms of organisation. However, the enthusiasm and the motivation of the volunteers remained a characteristic of the whole period. But both the professionalisation and the trend towards more organisation created the need for more professional training, the official recognition of qualification and a better organisational framework for this professional work.

2 . The open character of the provisions. Students could define their o w n learning goals, and courses were usually given in neigbourhood centres, in some case even in the house of

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either a student or a tutor. In the case of literacy for autochthones, this openness acquired a special dimension. A n y student could join, regardless of his learning capacities.

3. The concept of experiential learning and the related notion that the learning of basic skills should be placed in the everyday context -of the students and thus create functionality. In chapter four this concept will be discussed extensively.

4 . The emphasis laid on personal and social development. The essential goals of most of the projects were related to desired changes in society and in the living conditions of the students. T h e learning of basic skills and the development of social awareness were supposed to be instrumental to this emancipatory ideal. Links to further education or to job orientation were hardly m a d e . This was seen as a gap in the provision in later years.

These characteristics, and m a n y concrete experiences formed the luggage with which the projects entered the development of A B E . M a n y of these elements can be traced in the formulation of A B E policy and in the subsequent development of practice. H o w e v e r , they were transformed in the process through professionalisation, individualisation and structuring. In chapter six some reflections on this development will be given. In the following chapter the law on Adult Basic Education and practice during the first year of its operation will be described. This can be seen as the crystallisation of more than ten years of experimenting with different forms of Adult Basic Education.

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3. THE ADULT BASIC EDUCATION P R O G R A M M E

3.1. Adult education legislation

In 1987 the n e w rules for Adult Basic Education came into being. They were the first step in a large-scale operation to reform adult education legislation. Recently this set of rules has been integrated in a proposed law concerned with the planning of the whole of adult education, including the support structures and curriculum development. This proposal is related to a draft law for vocational adult education and for secondary adult education.

The intention of this adult education legislation is above all harmonisation and coordination of the planning, the support structures, the advisory services and consultation. Adult Education used to be governed by m a n y different regulations and financed from various sources. This created a lack of clarity which m a d e it difficult both for potential students to m a k e a good choice of course and for the authorities to conduct an effective policy. The proposal also contains a separate section on Adult Basic Education. T o place the adult education sector in the context of the Dutch educational system a diagram is given in Figure 2 .

The structure of the adult education act is roughly as follows. Planning of adult education provision must be as close to the activities themselves as possible. A B E is planned in principle at the municipal level or the level of cooperating municipalities. For the planning of other elements of adult education 28 regions will be formed in which the municipalities will cooperate. These regions are the same as the regions for planning and organising the labour market and the struggle against unemployment.

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Special education (4-18)

Pre-university education (12-18) * Atheneum * G y m n u i u m * G r a m m a r school

Senior general secondary education (12-17)

ItJE

3 8

.'Eg

I

Adult education (18+) - basic education - day-time£vening education

Scientific education

<»íísi

Higher vocational education (18+)

T||j| IF

Figure 2 The Dutch education and training system

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Vocational adult education is planned at this regional level and in its planning must be related to the demands of the labour market. Regional employers, unions and municipalities play an important role. General secondary education is planned at the same regional level but here the planning authorities are the cooperating municipalities. In principle the cooperating municipalities are to create a regional education council in which the institutes offering adult education are represented as well as relevant social organisations. This council will draft the educational plans for the region. For labour provision and vocational education there will be a tripartite (government, employers, unions) regional council for the labour market. O n e of its tasks will be to formulate the d e m a n d for vocational education to the regional education council. For A B E there m a y be a local council which is supposed to coordinate its planning with the regional councils.

Support structure

The law creates a separate support structure for adult education at three levels: — Regional educational centres, which serve as information

centres for students and potential students and service centres for adult education institutes and their personnel. Originally it was intended to create 60 of these centres. Forty of them are n o w operating, but the revised policy of the government is to link these centres to the 28 regional education councils. This will m e a n the merging of rather small scale organisations into one bigger regional body.

— Provincial educational workshops, with tasks in elementary curriculum development and implementation and in tutor training (in cooperation with higher vocational education

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and universities). There are twelve of these workshops in the country, and the four big cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht) each has a similar institute. It is supposed that if the merging operation mentioned above is finished there will be no more need for the services of a provincial workshop. In due course they will probably cease to exist.

— National institutes for research, curriculum development and the production of learning materials. For each sector of adult education one institute has a coordinating role. S V E , the National Study and Development Centre for Adult Education, is the coordinator for Adult Basic Education.

Adult Basic Education regulations

It is outside the scope of this study to describe the legislation for general secondary education and for vocational education. The rest of this chapter will be restricted to the Adult Basic Education regulations as they are already accepted by parliament and, what is more important, as they have been put in practice since August 1987.

A B E regulations are the outcome of the projects described above and of a political discussion between government and parliament, with m a n y inputs from the field, which ran from about 1980 to 1987. In the government declaration of 1982 it was stated that the government intended "to offer education and schooling to those w h o have had few educational opportunities, principally through adult education" (quoted in O & W 1988: 12). In that same year a report by the Science Council to the government stressed the importance of adult education for the compensation of social, economic and educational shortcomings. The report describes developments in

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technology, in economics, in society and in culture to demonstrate the need for education for those "who tend to be left behind" ( W R R 1982). Special attention was given to the position of w o m e n and ethnic minorities.

O n this basis the concept of Adult Basic Education w a s developed. A B E offers those skills that "are strictly necessary to be able to cope in daily Ufe" ( O & W 1987:4).

Contents

A B E consists of three types of activity. In the policy document they are described as: 1. The acquiring of:

a. language skills b. numeracy skills c. social skills

2 . If the students wish, the activities can be geared towards orientation and upgrading for further schooling and education

3. Animation and recruitment of students for the activities mentioned under 1 ( O & W 1987: 8).

Language skills are a broad category containing the skills needed to use the Dutch language actively and passively in its spoken and written form in daily life; the skills to read and write in the mother tongue as far as is necessary for better performance in learning Dutch; elementary skills in English; and for the province of Friesland skills needed to use the Frisian language.

Numeracy skills are seen as the skills needed to be able to use elementary numeracy in daily life.

Social skills are the skills to be able to use knowledge and insights in society in daily life.

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T h e use in daily life is here the key word. Nowhere in the regulations or in the curriculum guide which is attached to them is there a more precise definition of the level of performance that is required for "use in daily life". It is up to local practitioners and the curriculum developers to define that level. However, the education inspectorate will check whether this is done in the spirit of the programme. In chapter four w e will return to this problem.

Target groups

Formally the target groups are defined as: "Persons living in the Netherlands w h o are not liable to compulsory education and are backward. This shows itself in a low level of coping skills in personal and social functioning, caused by insufficient language skills and little knowledge or insight with regard to social arrangements and developments. Special attention is to be given to groups in society w h o have a special situation with respect to backwardness, such as ethnic minorities" ( O & W 1987: 34).

This so-called backwardness is characterised by a number of factors: a low socioeconomic level, bad housing, illiteracy, a short school career, early entry into the workforce, long absence from the labour process, and little participation in social activities.

M o r e concretely it concerns people w h o — did not finish primary school — lost m u c h of what they learned in primary school — did not follow secondary education — did not profit from the first phase of secondary education — did follow special education but did not fully profit

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It is thus a rather broad category. The Adult Basic Education institutes are supposed to offer education to all the subcategories that can be distinguished in this range. In the curriculum guide, which is attached to the formal regulations, they are urged not just to recruit the "higher educated" of the target group but to seek an equilibrium.

Planning and financing

A B E planning is primarily the responsibility of the local municipalities. Every year they have to produce a plan which describes what A B E activities for what target groups are going to take place in the town, and which A B E institute is offering what. The plan is to be drafted by the local education council or in the case of cooperating municipalities, the regional education council for A B E .

O n the basis of the local or the regional plan the Ministry of Education, after a judgment by the inspectorate, grants the money for the activities. The total sum of m o n e y available for each municipality is fixed annually in a budget for A B E formulated by the Minister of Education.

The budget for each community or town is related to criteria such as the number of adults, the number of ethnic minorities and the number of unemployed. However , in the national budget there is a yearly fixed m a x i m u m . For 1990 this m a x i m u m is 115,000,000 guilders (equivalent to-about 58,000,000 U S dollars) for local activities. For provincial and national support (training, curriculum development etc.) the budget for 1990 is 17,200,000 guilders (equivalent to about 8,000,000 U S dollars) ( O & W 1989a).

The basis for the financing of the A B E institutes is the contact hour formula. This means that an institute has to plan h o w m a n y

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actual hours of teaching contact it is going to have with students. Per student contact hour the institutes receive in 1990 15.33 guilders (8 U S dollars). In this s u m all the costs for the institute are calculated. Negative differences between planned contact hours and realised hours are equalised in the next year's budget. In principle it is not possible to realise more contact hours than planned, unless there is another source of financing for these hours (Community council, industry, etc.). This system means that there is pressure on the institutes to meet their "production target" and to plan a m a x i m u m "production". In fact this can lead to the recruitment of "easy to recruit" students and of "loyal" students. Although there has been since 1989 some room in the formula for absence of students (10%) this is seen as a big problem.

The system also influences the size of learning groups. The formula is based on an average group size of about 10 people. This means that small groups, which are often the case in literacy classes, must be compensated by bigger groups elsewhere in the programme.

Other problems that arise out of the formula are the fact that the length of the course year is set at 40 weeks, which is for m a n y students hard to achieve (certainly for migrants w h o visit their families in their h o m e country) and the fact that for each group session five working hours are calculated. With in general three hours of actual contact with the group, this leaves only two hours for preparation, tutors' meetings and, if necessary, individual contact with the students. Most A B E tutors are thus under heavy work pressure and in fact most of them work far more hours than they are paid for.

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Professionalisation

The A B E regulations state explicitly that A B E is a professional job. In principle every tutor has to have a professional qualification as an A B E tutor before he can be allowed to teach. Volunteers are only allowed to assist in the teaching under the supervision of qualified personnel of the institute.

A global qualification profile has been formulated. It consists of the following elements: A . knowledge and experience in adult learning and group

work B . l . knowledge of teaching Dutch as a mother tongue to

adults B . 2 . knowledge of teaching Dutch as a second language B . 3. knowledge of teaching numeracy to adults B . 4 . knowledge of teaching social skills to adults B . 5 . knowledge of teaching in the mother tongue of ethnic

minorities B . 6 . knowledge of teaching elementary English to adults

(O&W 1987) T o reach the professional qualification a tutor is supposed to

have an A and at least one B qualification. For promotion to a higher salary scale the tutor formally needs one additional B qualification.

O n the basis of this qualification profile and of practical work in A B E , S V E recently published a professional profile for the A B E tutor. This profile is going to be the basis for the development of an initial training for A B E tutors which will be realised by 1991 (see chapter 5).

During the transition period from projects to integration in A B E institutes people working in the projects could apply for a qualification. About 9000 applications were received by the Ministry of Education. Criteria for the diploma were: having at

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least 300 hours of experience with group work in one of the previous projects, and having a suitable diploma in vocational or university education. "Suitable" here referred to a long list of diplomas related to the different subjects of A B E ranging from a primary school teacher's diploma to a degree in social sciences.

If the applicant matched these two criteria he was declared qualified to act as an A B E tutor.

About 3000 of the applicants, although working as tutors in one of the previous projects, did not match the criteria. They were advised to follow special training which was set up for them, the so-called "emergency programmes".

The training was offered in collaboration by Institutes of Higher Education (colleges of education or social work) and the provincial support units for A B E . The subjects of training and the number of training hours differed for each student. The m a x i m u m training time was about 300 hours. After completion of the training the qualification was granted.

This training programme can be seen as a first step towards an initial training for adult educators.

3.2. A B E programmes

The curriculum for A B E is primarily an open curriculum. That is to say that there is not m u c h central prescription. The curriculum guidelines attached to the A B E regulations offer m u c h room to local institutes and to students to formulate their o w n learning routes. This creates a broad variety of courses which are developed as a response to what are perceived as the needs of the different target groups. Curriculum development and the development of teaching methodologies will be described in chapter four.

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Before discussing these issues it seems appropriate to give the reader some insight into what is actually going on in A B E institutes by showing w h o is participating in the courses, what kind of courses are taken, and w h o teaches them. The following paragraphs are mainly based on a recent research survey by Doets and Huisman (1988) on students, courses and A B E institutes in the course year Í987/1988. This was the first year of operation under the Adult Basic Education regulations.

Doets and Huisman describe the following types of course that were offered: — Introductory courses in A B E and its possiblities for the

student: they are offered for allochthones and autochthones (usually separately).

— Integrated Adult Basic Education: courses in which the different subjects (language, numeracy and social skills) are offered in an integrated way. Courses of this type are the Open School (the integrative concept is mainly developed in the O p e n School project), general basic education courses and special courses for allochthones.

— Courses in Dutch language. This category contains intensive and non-intensive courses in Dutch as a second language for allochthones at different levels (including the literacy level, usually referred to as "literacy in Dutch"). Intensive here means a course length of 10 to 20 hours a week as compared to non-intensive with a course length of 3 hours a week. Also in this category are literacy, reading/writing courses for autochthones and "Dutch as mother tongue" which can be seen as a somewhat higher level than a literacy course. Sometimes language courses are combined with elementary English or numeracy, and sometimes courses for special language skills, such as debating techniques, writing poetry and prose, writing letters, etc., are offered.

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— Literacy in the allochthone's mother tongue. A s stated above it is supposed that for allochthones w h o are illiterate in their mother tongue it is necessary to make them literate first before taking the step to learning Dutch as a second language.

— Numeracy courses at different levels. — Elementary English courses, often offered as an "extra"

option within the student's programme. — Computer literacy: elementary courses in the use of

computers and the role of informatics in society. — Social knowledge and skills. — Linking courses to make possible the step from A B E to

other forms of general or vocational education. Usually they are offered as general orientation courses geared to the making of choices, and as upgrading courses to attain the educational level which is required.

— Courses for specific target groups such as allochthone w o m e n , nomads and gypsies, w o m e n , the mentally handicapped, youngsters and people of the third age. These courses differ according to the special group and the learning needs and wants of the students.

3.3. Students

In the course year 1987/1988 between 65,000 and 70,000 students took courses in Adult Basic Education. This population is characterised by the following data: Sex: 66% w o m e n and 34% m e n Age: 41% younger than 30

26% between 30 and 40 19% between 40 and 50 14% over 50

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In the youngest group there are students from 17 years and over, and in the oldest group there are students of over 70 years; 50% of the total poulation is under 35 years.

Ethnic background

58% are autochthones and 42% are allochthones. This last group is composed of:

— 29% — 24% — 13% — 11% — 9% — 6%

— 8%

Turkish origin Moroccan origin European origin Asian origin (excl. Chinese) Chinese origin Surinam or Antillian origin; about two thirds of this group are of Surinam origin a variety of origins

The last category has students with origins such as Moluccan (Indonesian), American (North and South), Australian, African and nomadic.

Educational level

For about two thirds of the population the amount of previous schooling the A B E students had when entering the A B E courses was registered: — 21 % had less than primary education — 32% had finished primary education — 22% had primary education and some years of secondary,

but no diploma — 25% had secondary education

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In the light of the criteria for A B E it m a y be doubted that this last group can be seen as a target group.

Labour position

Data was only available for 40% of the population with regard ib their position on the labour market: — 66% were unemployed — 34% were employed

Because of the lack of information on 60% of the population this figure can only give a very rough indication.

Sex

The male students tend to be younger than females. More than half of the male students are younger than 30 years, while only one third of the female students fall into this age category; 37% of the w o m e n are older than 40 years, but only 26% of the m e n fall into this category.

Only in the first age category (younger than 30 years) are the numbers of m e n and w o m e n more or less equal. In all other categories w o m e n form about three quarters of the population.

If the factors age, sex, and origin are combined, then it shows that in the group of m e n under 30 years the allochthones are strongly over-represented (63% of the male age group). For the total population it is true that the allochthones are in general younger than the autochthones.

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Previous education

Female A B E students tend to have a somewhat higher level of previous education than m e n : 61% of the m e n , and 48% of the w o m e n , had primary education or less.

There are no big differences in previous education between the age groups, but the older students tend to have less previous schooling than the others; over 60% had no more education than primary school. In the other age groups this percentage is about 50.

Allochthones do have less previous education than the autochthone students. Nearly one third of the allochthones did not receive or finish primary education whereas only 14% of the autochthones are in this situation. For Moroccans this figure even reaches 50%.

Origin

A m o n g the male students 51% are allochthones, but among the female students only 36%. A m o n g the autochthones the w o m e n are over-represented (72% w o m e n , 28% men) whereas among the allochthones the numbers of males and females are not so different: 42% male and 58% female. A m o n g Moroccans, however, 5 4 % are m e n , and a m o n g the students of Surinam/Antillian origin there are only 25% m e n .

Allochthone students take courses in cities or urban areas. The bigger the municipalities, the higher is generally the percentage of allochthone students.

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3.4. T h e A B E courses

The survey demonstrated that the group sizes varied according to the institute. There is a slight tendency for bigger institutes to have a larger average group size. Over half of the institutes have an average group size of less than 11. About 25% have an average group size of 12 or more.

Most of the A B E courses run for a course year of 37 to 40 weeks, but 11% took up to 20 weeks or less, and 19% were in the range of 21 to 37 weeks. The short courses were very often computer literacy (74%), orientation on vocational training (51%), introductory courses (46%) and social skills courses (45%).

Nearly all courses take place once a week for two or three hours, except for the intensive language courses for allochthones and some of the integrated A B E courses, which usually run twice or more per week.

There is a wide interest among students in A B E , as can be shown through the existence of waiting lists; 45% of the institutes have a waiting list with, in 33% of the cases, less than 11 potential students, 36% with between 11 and 25 students and 31% with over 25 students waiting to start tuition. The longest waiting lists are found in the big cities such as Amsterdam. Nearly 4 0 % of the students on the lists are allochthones w h o have come forward to learn Dutch as a second language.

Doets and Huisman registered which courses were offered and h o w many students participated in these courses. From this the relative distribution of courses could be seen as a percentage of the total hours of education offered.

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The courses offered can be described under the following categories:

Introductory courses: for allochthones for autochthones

Integrated A B E : allochthones O p e n School basic education

Dutch: allochthones intensified course literacy as mother tongue combined with numeracy combined with English

Specific elements: literacy in mother tongue of migrants numeracy English informatics social skills other courses

Linked with vocational education: orientation upgrading

Special target groups: allochthone w o m e n nomads/gipsies w o m e n mentally handicapped youngsters third age other groups other aspects

% students (n=52,441)

0.4 % 0.8 %

1.6 % 11.3 % 9.6 %

24.0 % 2.8 %

11.0 % 7.9 % 1.9 % 0.9 % 0.7 % 1.4 % 1.7 % 3.7 % 3.8 % 1.9 % 4.7 %

1.0 % 2.8 • %

0.7 % 0.1 % 1.6 % 1.9 % 0.5 % 0.4 % 0.6 % 0.4 %

% hours (n=394,520)

0.4 % 0.8 %

0.4 % 13.2 % 7.0 %

26.7 % 5.7 %

16.2 % 5.3 % 0.7 % 0.3 % 0.8 % 2.5 % 1.4 % 1.2 % 1.2 % 1.3 % 2.5 %

1.2 % 3.0 %

1.1 % 0.1 % 1.4 % 3.1 % 0.6 % 0.4 % 1.0 % 0.3 %

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From this table it is seen that over a quarter of the students are in Dutch as a second language courses, while about one third of the education time is spent on these activities. Especially the intensive language courses (average between 10 and 15 hours of tuition per week) take up much time.

In the total of activities it is seen that literacy in Dutch takes relatively more education hours, certainly when compared to Open School, which has the same percentage of students.

It is noticeable that English and informatics seem to take up relatively little of the total time. This can possibly be explained for both by the fact that these subjects are usually at least partly integrated into either combination courses or social skills courses. They form the "extra" in those courses.

3.5. T h e institutes

In 1987/1988 there were 295 A B E institutes. These institutes differ in many points from each other.

For most the budget is not very big: 60% had a budget of less than 300,000 guilders (150,000 U S $); 25% even had a budget of less than 100,000 guilders. S o m e 30% had a budget of over 400,000 guilders. Most of the finances came from central government; 4 4 % of the institutes also received money from the municipalities but the amount of this funding did not usually exceed 50,000 guilders.

The institutes are well spread over the country. Nearly one third of the institutes are located in municipalities with less than 20,000 inhabitants.

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Educational staff

Measured in full time equivalents there are about 1000 staff members working in the 295 A B E institutes, but most of the jobs are part-time. In absolute numbers there are about 2800 paid A B E tutors and coordinators. In 72% of the institutes the average tutor works for not more than 16 hours per week. There is a relation between the size of the budget and the number of hours worked by tutors. About 70% of the tutors working in institutes with a budget of less than 200,000 guilders have an average contract of less than twelve hours, but in the institutes with a budget of over 400,000 guilders only 20% of the tutors have these small engagements.

Most of the institutes have a limited number of paid staff. Over half of them do not have more than seven paid tutors: 24% of the institutes have more than 10 tutors on their pay role.

Since volunteers have a subordinate role in A B E compared to their important role in the development projects on which A B E is built, it is interesting to see that in over three quarters of the institutes there are still volunteers working. In most cases their number does not exceed 10. Compared to the start of the first A B E year in August 1987 their numbers are decreasing. In M a y 1988 a decrease of 5% in the number of institutes working with volunteers was noted. With regard to the use of volunteers there seem to be three types of institute: a quarter w h o do not work with ' volunteers on principle as A B E is perceived as a professional task, one third with as m a n y volunteers as paid staff, and about 40% with more volunteers than paid staff. In total there are slightly more (52%) volunteers working in A B E than paid staff.

Although the number of volunteers is decreasing they still are very m u c h needed. The demand for A B E (as is shown a m o n g other things by the waiting lists) will go on rising. The number

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of available tutors with the proper qualification is too small to fill all the vacancies. The budget is not supposed to rise very m u c h in the coming years (except for courses in direct relation to the labour market and unemployment).

3.6. Assessment of the first year

The first year under A B E regulations can be characterised as a transition year. M u c h time and energy was devoted to the development of an organisational framework for the n e w institutes. The programmes of these n e w institutes were not m u c h more than the s u m of the existing programmes of the groups and organisations which formed the institutions. The education inspectorate noted in an evaluation report (annexe to O & W 1989a) that there seemed to be a relation between the quality of the programme, the variations of courses offered and the financial possibilities of the institutes. The inspectorate suggested that to provide for a broad, varied range of courses of good quality a m i n i m u m budget of 300,000 guilders is required. In the report, community councils and local institutes were urged to cooperate with institutes in the same region so as to reach this min imum level.

The report expressed the general feeling in the field that most of the programmes offered in the first year of operation lacked any coherence. The accent placed on thematic work (see chapter 4) and the lack of an overall conception of the A B E curriculum tended to lead to a rather fragmentary offer. It was argued from several sides that learning paths with clear goals must be developed.

The majority of the courses offered were language courses in different forms and at various levels, sometimes integrated with social skills and knowledge. Social skills courses as such were

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less frequently offered. Numeracy received little attention in the first year: compared to language and social skills fewer courses were offered and, if offered, their goals and methods were not very clear. Numeracy for adults is a rather n e w area. In the projects that preceded A B E not m u c h experience with this subject had been gathered and in the process of forming A B E institutes there was little time left for developing good numeracy courses.

Analysis of the programmes for the first year shows that the position of English and computer literacy in the total programme was unclear. Often they were offered as such and not integrated in language courses (for English) or social skills courses (for computer literacy) ( O & W 1989a).

It is noticeable that the number of linking or orientation activities (both as parts of other course elements or as separate courses), although seen as important n e w elements of the A B E provision, was very low.

It must also be noted that in this first year in-service and on-the-job tutor training hardly took place. Nearly all the energy went into the restructuring process.

The general impression of the first year of operation is that development of tutor quality and of n e w and better programmes stagnated because of the merging operation. The rethinking of the role of the different subjects in the total curriculum of an A B E institute and course development started after the organisational problems were more or less solved.

Whether this stagnation affected the students or the number enrolled is unclear. The survey by Doets and Huisman (Doets and Huisman 1988) gives the impression that the total number of students in the first year of A B E courses was no different from the number enrolled in the projects, but since there are no reliable statistics of the period before 1987 this impression cannot be verified. Others have argued that there has been a

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slight drop in the number of students with the lowest starting level (i.e., illiterates). This is attributed to the more formal character of A B E compared to the projects. However , sound proof cannot (yet) be given.

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4. CURRICULAR AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF ABE

T h e data presented above gives a general outline of the present state of Adult Basic Education. It m a y also serve to demonstrate the need for further development of a coherent curriculum and a related teaching methodology.

Fo r the purpose of development of a curriculum m o d e l the broad range of courses have been placed in t w o m a i n streams of ABE: I. a,stream for those needing better social competence, that is,

students with the primary wish to be able to cope better in daily life

II. a second stream for those seeking "educational" and/or "vocational" competence, that is, students with the primary wish to use A B E as a step towards a (new) job or towards further (vocational or secondary general) education ( S V E 1989: 12)

These two main streams, related to the students' learning perspectives, form the basis for the curriculum model for A B E that will be described in detail in paragraph 4.1. This model will be developed further in the coming years. O n e of the challenges will be to make the design in terms of learning goals such that the streams are linked with each other and that within the streams different types of course can be formulated according to the student's needs and wants. T o do this will mean the realisation of a coherent A B E curriculum which offers the student a m a x i m u m of learning opportunities: coherent in the sense that there is, behind all the courses, a set of general concepts concerning goals, methodology and forms of teaching,

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and open in the sense that the student can in the last instance define his o w n learning path.

Recently institutes and development agencies have started to develop new types of course related to the labour market and the problem of unemployment. Specific courses have been started for the long-term unemployed, to qualify them for a better position on the labour market, and in a growing number of factories and workplaces basic courses are offered in language skills needed in the workplace for migrant workers and for autochthonous workers w h o want to improve their skills in Dutch. Usually these courses are given in the workplace and partly during work-time. The linguistic content is related to the language used in the workplace. The Ministry of Social Affairs has released a large amount of m o n e y for the development of this type of course and for their execution. Their development will be described in paragraph 4.2.

T h e basis for the development of methodology and pedagogical practice is formed by a set of four related concepts that can be placed under the heading of learner-centredness. The concepts came from the Open School project and the Literacy project for Dutch speakers, and in the curriculum guidelines given with the A B E law they were quoted from the guidelines for the Open School project (see 2.2.). They were formulated as follows:

"a. students deciding on what to learn b. integration of formal and informal education c. experienced-based learning d. reciprocal learning or learning from each other."

(SPOS 1980). In the section on goal formulation (4.1.) w e discuss the role

of the student in defining his learning goals and the boundaries of this role given by the curriculum model and the nature of A B E provision itself.

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In paragraphs 4.3., 4.4. and 4.5. w e shall deal with the other three elements. The key to understanding the methodological and pedagogical practice of A B E and the projects that preceded A B E is the concept of experience-based learning, or experiential learning.

The concept was developed in the Open School and in Literacy for Dutch speakers (see 2.1. and 2.2.). The concept will be discussed from the viewpoint of Literacy praxis, but with some small adjustments the remarks made will hold for Open School as well. For the learning by allochthones the concept raises special problems which will be dealt with afterwards.

4.1. Curriculum development

Planning

Each year the national institutes involved in development work for A B E draw up a plan for curriculum development and related work. The National Study and Development Centre for Adult Education (SVE) is coordinating this plan and is one of the institutes that does development work and research. Also involved are the National Centre for Migrants ( N C B ) , the Foundation for Curriculum Development (SLO) and the National Support Agency for Education of Mollucans ( L S E M ) . Besides that some universities are doing development work at a national level.

The yearly development plan is based on a long-term plan for the development of A B E , which is produced by the coordinating institute.

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Both plans are produced after consultation with representatives of the A B E institutes and with the regional and provincial support agencies for adult education. The year plan forms the basis for government funding of the institutes involved.

The first long-term development plan for the period 1989-1992 states the following central points for development: — Coherence and integration in the curriculum.

In the development of A B E programmes attention must be paid to coherence between and within these programmes. It must also be taken into account that A B E programmes must be based on the learning wishes of a heterogeneous population of (potential) students. This will mean flexibility and diversity related to integration and coherence.

— Target groups. Within the population of A B E students different target groups can be defined by criteria such as sociocultural background, learning wishes and educational level. In the coming years research will be done to assess the actual outreach to different target groups. Developmental work will have to look into the possibilities of specific programmes and educational methods for specific groups and the possibilities for a coherent programme for specific groups.

— Development of flexible teaching/learning materials. There is a need for manuals concerning teaching methods and related teaching and learning materials which can be used flexibly. This need is felt especially in the subjects Dutch as second language related to follow-up education or work, English, numeracy, social knowledge and skills and literacy in the mother tongue of migrants.

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— Goal formulation. The need for coherent programmes and the growing need for evaluation and testing criteria creates the necessity to formulate clear goals for the different elements of A B E programmes.

— Information technology. The use of computers in A B E will grow in the coming years. It is necessary to assess the different possibilities of making use of computers in the educational process and to develop these possibilities further.

— Training of educational staff. M u c h attention will be given to the development of initial and in-service training after the initial phase for educational staff and management. (S V E 1988: 6)

In the year plan for development most of these central points are worked out in concrete development projects on different topics. This year plan can be read as an overview of the topics most of the A B E institutes are concerned with in the development of their provision.

T h e year plan for 1990 contains the following list of development projects: — Coherent curriculum model — Goal formulation for the various subjects — Recruitment of specific target groups — Programmes for specific groups (e.g. deaf students, the

mentally handicapped) — Curricula and course plans for:

• Linking courses • Workplace related A B E • Social knowledge and skills • Dutch • Dutch for students from the Antilles and Surinam • Dutch as a second language for allochthones

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• Education in Turkish and Arabic • Numeracy • English • Use of computers

— Development of the support structure — Development work for training of educational staff ( S V E

1989) In most of the development work there is an active

involvement of tutors and of staff of regional or provincial support agencies for adult education. They are gathered in so-called development groups, are actively contributing to the work and giving feedback to the developers at the national level.

If possible draft versions of the outcome are tested in one or more A B E institutes. O n the basis of the test evaluation the outcome is produced in a definitive version and offered to the field. In the implementation of the outcome the regional and provincial support agencies play an important role. Transfer of the outcome to the field is done in a variety of ways. The most c o m m o n are publication and announcement of the outcome, and conferences and training sessions (usually organised regionally or provincially).

During the period of development as m u c h information as possible is spread to the field through the A B E bi-monthly magazine.

Coherence and flexibility

Coherence between the different course elements is seen as one of the most important characteristics of A B E .

Coherence in the curriculum has three dimensions. The first dimension lies in the interrelatedness of the different A B E subjects. W h e n A B E goals are stated in functional terms, then

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language, numeracy and social skills teaching must be integrated. Even if the student's interest in the programme is focused on one of the subjects he will be offered a programme in which at least a relation with the social skills needed for the daily use of numeracy or language skills is made.

A second dimension of coherence lies in goal formulation. The goals of different courses must be related to one another in such a w a y that progression from one course to another is possible.This must m a k e it possible, for example, for a student to m o v e upward from a beginner's level to a level from which he can enter into vocational adult education.

T h e third dimension of coherence lies in teaching methodology. In the different types of A B E course there is supposed to be a comparable methodology of teaching. Variations are of course necessary, related to the character of the subject matter and the students, but there is a set of basic concepts for teaching in all the different courses. Central to these concepts is the notion of learner-centredness and the use of everyday experience in the learning process.

The fourth dimension of coherence lies in the relation of A B E with follow-up education. The A B E curriculum must create possibilities for students to m o v e easily from an A B E course to courses in vocational or secondary general adult education. This means a harmonisation of goals with the entry requirements of follow-up education.

Curriculum model

This rather complex concept of coherence is not yet a reality. Although m a n y A B E institutes are experimenting with elements of the concept there is still m u c h to do. O n e of the first problems to deal with will be the development of an overall concept of the

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structure of the A B E curriculum that can meet the demands posed by the concept of coherence.

Recently S V E , the National Study and Development Centre for Adult Education, produced a first draft for such an overall concept (Noordijk 1989).

This draft will have to be completed with sets of goals at the beginning of 1990, after- which experiments in various A B E institutes will take place.

Central to the concept is the notion that the student population of an A B E institute can be differentiated according to the following criteria: a. the students' perspective (why do they come?) b. the subject matter that they want or need (language,

numeracy, social skills, etc.) c. the intensity with which they want (or need) to learn

(measured in hours per week) d. the starting situation of the students, regarding level of

knowledge and skills (divided into three levels, "low" "middle" and "advanced")

e. the sociocultural backgrounds of the students (different variations possible)

A combination of these criteria provides us with an ideal model of all the possibilities that an A B E institute can offer (see Figure 3).

The model has, after level one, the two main streams noted at the beginning of this chapter, geared towards better social competence and towards "educational" and/or "vocational" competence.

Within all three levels there are divisions according to the learning needs or wishes of the students: A . a stream for students w h o want to put an accent on learning

one subject of A B E (the A stream)

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B . a stream for those w h o want (or need) to learn language, numeracy and social skills in an integrated programme (the B stream)

C . a stream for those w h o want (or need) learning in the integrated programme in combination with specific job skills (the C stream). This stream is supposed to start at level two.

This leads us to seven major learning paths at three different levels: A and B at level one, and IA, IB, IIA, IIB, and IIC at levels two and three. All paths can be organised in an intensive form (about 10-20 hours of teaching per week) or an extensive form (3 hours' teaching). In principle all paths can be split up into paths for allochthones and paths for autochthones. There is some discussion in the field and between the development institutes on the question at which point the split between autochthones and allochthones must be m a d e , and at which point integration m a y take place. O n the part of the development institutes involved in A B E development for allochthones a plea is made for a split right from the start of the model. This creates in fact two more or less separate models, one for allochthones and one for autochthones. In some of the bigger A B E institutes (where homogeneous groups can be formed along lines of language and cultural background) this splitting of the curriculum does exist and seems to function adequately. In smaller institutes there is for practical reasons a tendency to integrate as m u c h and as soon as possible. H o w e v e r , it is generally recognised that integrating autochthones and allochthones in the same course groups is only possible if the latter have adequate skills in Dutch. A n argument for integration at least in the highest level of A B E courses is that in follow-up education the allochthone students will have to work in mixed classes of allochthones and autochthones. Preparation for that is better done in mixed course groups than

fell DSL I Ï*

SKS

. .a» possible suiting point

^ possible suiting point or follow-up point

Figure 3 A B E curriculum model

IA

^

«1 s \Y

i

H'it

DM

DSL

Numoacy

"SKS

English

-m \.;M

3s\s

I \->i¡

IB

> — 1 1 -'ñ nA MMMMM1-

, 1 , 1 , T ' . T ' I . I . I . I J

^ • ^ ^ • i A ^ h ^ U i ^ ^

HB

nc-

K^SSN^i • ; i • ; i ' i ; i ; i ; i ¡ i ; 1 1

r • • ; • ? • ¡ • • . . . i

end level of A B E

participation in society

D M - Dutch as mother tongue D S L - Dutch as * lecond language O L - o w n language of allochthones S K S - Social knowledge and ikilli

1 A 3 » the different level*

A " path for students w h o put an accent o n one subject.

B - path for «tudenu w h o wantmced to follow a combination of language,

numeracy and locial knowledge andikilli.

C • ai B , but in combination with akill».

I • for students w h o expíen a* primary perspective participation in gociety.

II - for itudenti w h o have follow-up education or a job aa perspective.

I ll tt ^ l-

k^WWWVNi

w o r k

• for each path an intensive and a m o r e extensive c o u a e type is possible.

- the size of the boxes has n o relation to the duration of courses.

(¡!:!¡!:!;!¡!;!:!¡!¡J: • the B-paths will usually b e split up into courses for Dutch speakent and non-Dutch speakers.

Unking/ job practice

Vocational Qualification

preparatory level

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in course groups formed according to language or cultural background.

The learning paths in the model are related to the level of the students.

In the model three levels are foreseen. Level 1 is the lowest and 3 the highest. For every subject goals will have to be formulated at each level. The level distinction is rather arbitrary but has its roots in the current practice of A B E . It still leaves open the possibility of making a finer distinction in a specific course on the basis of the capacities of the individual student.

Level 1 is usually defined as the level on which literacy work is operating, level two is related to the experiences with the O p e n School and level three is seen as the m a x i m u m level for ABE.

The level distinction m a y be illustrated by the following review of goals related to the language skill "form filling" for students w h o speak Dutch:

Level 1. — Students can fill in usual forms and cheques with an accent

on: • their personal data (name, address, date of birth) • writing in the open spaces, boxes and/or dotted lines • writing out figures in letters

— Students can m a k e a short report of an informal conversation (with friends, relatives, the learning group, colleagues) on a subject with which they are familiar.

Level 2. — Students can fill in usual forms and cheques with an accent

on: • their personal data (name, address, date of birth) • writing in the open spaces, boxes and/or dotted lines

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• writing out figures in letters • writing in capitals • reading the instructions and the "small print" that go

with the form — Students can m a k e a report of a (group) conversation on a

subject with which they are familiar. They m a k e use of self-m a d e notes and the information is logically ordered.

Level 3. — Students can fill in forms and cheques with an accent on:

• all information asked • writing in the open spaces, boxes and/or dotted lines • writing out figures in letters • writing in capitals • reading the instructions and the "small print" that go

with the form — Students can m a k e a report of a group conversation, or a

meeting on subjects with which they are not completely familiar. They use self-made notes, order the information logically and this is complete and brief.(Noordijk 1989)

For all subjects, skills and levels in A B E , goals as above will be formulated and published early in 1990, with reference to the following three aspects: a. the character of the specific task b. the degree of competency required to accomplish the task c. the conditions for application of the task in daily life (e.g.

with or without help) T h e formulation of goals is in close cooperation with groups

of A B E workers and on the basis of the exisiting practice. O n e of the key problems is the question of the terms in which the goals should be formulated. There are two possible sets of terms. O n e set is formed of "functional" terms, which means

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that the social function of the skill is the central element in goal formulation, and the other set of terms is formed of the "subject" terms, which means that the skill itself is the central element in goal formulation.

In the example given above the goals are formulated in terms of the social function of the skill. T h e subject (in this case linguistic) aspects are subordinate to the functional aspects.

In general, functional terms are chosen as the central element for goal formulation. W h e n the goals are split up into subgoals, for the construction of actual learning steps in the different courses (usually referred to as the course curriculum or course plan) then terms from the subject come in.

W h e n the goal is "filling in forms" (the functional aspect) then one of the first subgoals could be writing one's n a m e in a legible w a y (the subject aspect). This subgoal then can be split up into learning steps as part of a course curriculum.

This deductive line of development (functions, goals, subgoals, learning steps) gives a clear structure and direction to the learning process. It clarifies what A B E is all about. It makes clear what the relation of A B E is to other aspects of adult education and, not least, it m a y give potential students insight into what they m a y expect from participation in A B E classes.

O n the other hand it seems, compared to the openness of the projects that formed the basis of A B E provision, a rather closed model that m a y easily lead to standardised courses with "obligatory" goals. Working from a structured set of goals has the danger of ending up with precise prescriptions for learning in which the student has not played any active role. This would conflict with the central principle of learner-centredness on which A B E is based (see paragraph 4.3.). For this reason the goals are not formulated as absolutes but as possibilities. Students have the right to accept these goals, but there is no obligation.

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This "trap" can also be avoided through offering a broad range of alternative goals, learning steps and learning materials in the different learning paths and course types from which the student in dialogue with the tutor can choose. The availability of m a n y alternatives related to the student's perspective and his level creates the possibility of a good choice.

In this sense the curriculum or course plan that is being developed at the national level and offered to A B E institutes is a "half-finished product". It has to be adapted and m a d e fit for the actual student or group of students one is working with. T h e tutor is, in dialogue with the students, the designer of the educational process, the course plan being his raw material.

Evaluation

Working with clearly formulated goals demands the availability of evaluation and testing procedures and criteria. Until n o w the development of these has been rather limited. This is understandable from the tradition of the projects that preceded the formation of A B E provision. T h e openness of the programmes and goals which was, certainly in literacy for Dutch speakers, seen as an important value led to informal kinds of testing and evaluation procedure. Diagnostic testing is not usually seen as something one should do in literacy.

Evaluation is also usually not done in a strict and formal sense at set times during the course and at the end. A rough outline of the existing diagnostic assessment and evaluation practice in literacy courses for Dutch speakers would be as follows.

Informal procedures are used to get an impression of the student's starting level. In the first few weeks of the course the student's achievements are analysed so that the picture of the student's capacities and his learning wishes will become clearer.

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Informal procedures are conversation with the student on problems he experiences in dealing with written material or with writing, offering a text out of daily life and asking the student h o w m u c h of it he can read, and discussing his previous experiences of learning to read and write. O n the basis of this type of information a student is placed in a learning group. Analysis of the student's work in the course and discussion about it with the student is an important aspect of assessment and evaluation. In principle this is done continuously during the whole course. O n the basis of the information gathered the programme is shaped to suit the particular problems and needs of the student.

This analysis has several aspects. The first is the student's o w n assessment of progress and his feelings about the course. A second aspect deals with the relation of what is learned to its use in daily life. The third element is the assessment by the tutor, w h o is confronted with the student's judgment. The tutor's evaluation is in principle done on the basis of a linguistic analysis of the literacy performance of the student and the types of fault and error m a d e in this performance. This evaluation then leads to the formulation of the linguistic problems that need to be worked on for the coming period.

It is becoming more and more c o m m o n practice to update this formative evaluation in a more summative way together with the student every semester or even trimester.

In general such a procedure is suitable for students w h o just want to work on short term learning goals that are defined by themselves. The "laissez-faire" character of the procedure gives m u c h room for the student to get a grip on his o w n learning process, but at the same time leaves it unclear where in the long run the learning will bring him.

A more systematic approach and goal formulation, such as is foreseen in the curriculum model presented above, creates the

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need for a more systematic and formal approach to this summative evaluation. If the final goals of a part of the learning path are defined by the entry requirements of the next part of the path then it becomes important to assess more precisely than before whether the student has reached the goals. In the coming years assessment instruments and procedures for this will have to be developed.

This can be done on the basis of more formal procedures that have already been developed for the teaching of Dutch as a second language. For these courses a set of diagnostic tests and self-evaluation tests have been developed which try to combine the advantages of formal testing (clear and precise information on the student's progress) with the importance of self-assessment .and evaluation by the student.

4.2. Relating A B E to w o r k and vocational education

Because A B E can be the first step for m a n y students to (re)entering the world of work and further vocational education it is important to relate these fields to each other.

A B E institutes are more and more involved in the struggle against unemployment. A n important aspect of unemployment in the Netherlands is a discrepancy between the demands of the labour market and the nature and degree of training of part of the labour force. Another related aspect is the fact that m a n y of the unemployed (especially the long-term unemployed) lack basic knowledge and skills to function adequately in unskilled or semi-skilled jobs or to be able to participate successfully in vocational education.

In an aging society, in which fewer young people enter the labour market (because of demographic developments and the fact that they tend to stay longer in education), this creates a

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need for basic education related to the labour market and to vocational education.

For most of the A B E institutes this is a new area of work. The projects that preceded A B E were usually not directed towards jobs or vocational education. Literacy courses and language courses for migrants defined their goals as a rule more in terms of social participation and personal development of the students than in terms of preparation for a better position in the labour market. Links to follow-up education were hardly made . For the student w h o wanted to learn further this created problems. There was a big gap between the courses and follow-up vocational education.

T h e A B E law explicitly stated that this gap should be overcome. After the formation of A B E institutes m u c h energy has been devoted to realising a smooth progression from A B E courses to vocational courses.

Special courses have been developed to prepare students up to the level of basic skills needed for entering vocational education. Also special courses on job prospects and occupational counselling have been worked out in the last two years.

In general A B E institutes offer courses to make it possible for students to take the step from A B E to vocational education, and they offer courses as a preparation for low-skilled jobs. In both types of course orientation on job prospects and counselling (to make a better choice of job) form part of the content.

For the long-term unemployed a special policy in which A B E plays a role has been formulated by the government. Central to this policy is that long-term unemployed people (over three years of unemployment) receive special attention in the form of counselling and basic and vocational education to raise their level of competitiveness in the labour market. The government is providing additional finances for courses given under this policy regime.

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S o m e institutes are offering language courses for workers in the workplace. These so-called "shop floor Dutch" or "shop floor literacy" courses are mounted in response to the demand of employers.

From ABE to work or vocational education

In A B E students the following perspectives on work can be seen: a. students w h o want to get a job as quickly as possible b. students w h o want the same, but also want to learn further c. students w h o use A B E as a step towards vocational

education d. students w h o want to improve their basic knowledge and

skills to perform better in their job For the majority of these students intensive courses (8 to 16

hours per week) with a relatively short duration (less than one course year) are the most appropriate. For categories (c) and (d) more extensive courses with a longer duration are also possible.

The content of the courses is the same as the content of the general A B E courses. Depending on the student or student group, special elements can be included in the programme. Usually the learning of basic skills and knowledge is related to the job prospects (e.g. the use of "job-specific language") of the students, and the practice of job skills can be an element.

If necessary, elements such as orientation on .jobs, counselling, study skills and job interview training are added to the programme.

Depending on their entry level the courses will have a stronger or weaker relation with the job skills needed in the national, regional or local labour market.

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For low-skilled jobs basic knowledge and skills are the most important. The necessary job skills can be learned on the shop floor. The more the job demands practical skills, the more need there is to include them in the courses.

Courses are developed on three levels (same level distinction as in the "general" A B E provision: see 4.1.).

From the first and second level students are supposed to have the skills to enter the labour market for unskilled or semi-skilled work or to participate in specific job practice courses offered by the employment agencies. O f course moving on to the third level of preparation course is also possible.

T h e goals of the third level are related to the entry requirements of either vocational courses or of the so-called "connecting courses" that are offered by the institutes for vocational education.

In some cases the A B E institutes offer to students w h o m o v e to vocational education the possibility of extra support in the form of a parallel course in study skills and basic subjects related to the occupation they are training for, such as numeracy or elementary physics.

For the development of the courses it is important to k n o w about the demands of the regional or local labour market. T o get this knowledge more and more A B E institutes are developing contacts with employment agencies and other organisations responsible for the functioning of labour provision.

T o m a k e the connection or links with vocational and secondary general adult education provision it is important to develop local or regional networks of institutes that can provide for more or less individualised learning paths across existing institutional and curriculum borders. In the field of primary vocational education parts of such networks have been developed during the last few years (the so-called P B V E -

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projects). M o r e and more A B E institutes are entering these networks.

In the process of linking A B E with vocational education and with work, counselling of students is very important. T h e general feeling is that on the road from A B E to a job the student will need specific support designed according to his or her individual needs. In the courses this will mean the development of individualised learning materials and modules and more or less permanent guidance. This also means that courses from different institutions such as the employment agencies, the institutes for vocational education, the apprenticeship system and A B E should be linked in such a w a y that an unbroken learning path for the student is possible.

This calls for "learning path development" and "learning path management", concepts that have recently been introduced into the adult education discussion in the Netherlands. The core of the concepts is the notion that institutional, organisational and curriculum barriers between the different educational institutions must be m a d e as small as possible for the benefit of the students. The concepts also imply that counselling and guidance have to be part of the whole learning path, that they are not limited vto the educational part but that they relate equally to the employment agencies and employers themselves.

In the coming years m u c h attention will be given to the development of these concepts and of a practice of student guidance and counselling in relation to learning paths that cross the boundaries of A B E .

ABE and the long-term unemployed

In 1988 the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour decided to give special attention to the category of the long-term

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unemployed. There are, according to data provided by the employment agencies (1989), about 170,000 people w h o have been unemployed for more than three years.

These people were to be invited by the regional employment agency or the community social service bureau to a so-called "reorientation interview". The goals of these interviews are to gather information about the potential of these long-term unemployed and to devise a way of improving their chances on the labour market.

The answer m a y be vocational education, preparation for vocational education or basic education as such.

For the development and the execution of the basic education components the government provides extra funds. The first programmes started around the summer of 1989.

Students in the programmes

Hoffius describes the following four categories of long-term unemployed: — A (small) group which can return relatively quickly to the

labour market. — A group which lacks the proper qualifications and skills,

but which has the capacitiy to acquire these through (educational) action.

— A group that cannot be aided with the existing instruments of labour support mainly because of social factors. This group will need (intensive) personal guidance and (in the opening phase) "protected jobs".

— A group that cannot be placed on the labour market. This group mainly contains people w h o have little formal schooling or are elderly. (Hoffius 1989)

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A survey by Doets, Huisman and Huisman (1989) shows that the total group of the long-term unemployed equals the target groups for A B E according to the criteria of education and ethnic/cultural background.

They estimate that the total of potential A B E students in the population of the long-term unemployed is about 9000. In October 1989 over 1100 from this population were sent to A B E courses.

However, the survey m a d e clear that for the "reorientation interviews" a positive selection is m a d e by the employment agencies out of the total population. In the group interviewed, the age group between 20 and 40, the higher educated and allochthones are over-represented.

A s a consequence the group of people w h o enter A B E on the basis of these interviews is somewhat different from the regular students in A B E courses.

A m o n g those coming from interviews, 38% have been unemployed for less than three years. They are mainly allochthones, male, relatively highly educated and younger than 30 years. This clearly demonstrates the positive selection which is made for the interviews.

Besides the students entering via the interviews several A B E institutes have recruited students through their o w n channels for their special programmes or they have relocated students w h o were already in other courses. In total about 1600 students were estimated to have started the programmes in September 1989.

The programmes

For special target groups most of the institutes developed specific programmes, while some of them made adjustments to already existing programmes.

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These programmes can be placed in the following categories:

1. Orientation programmes. There are two variations in this kind of programme: — Programmes intended to place the students in vocational

education. The stress lies on information about potential and gaining insight into the student's capacities (motivation, level and interests). Usually these are short courses (15-20 hours).

— Programmes with an accent on counselling and guidance for making a good choice. Usually these courses take more time (45 to 60 hours). Attention is given to the different elements in the counselling process (self-concept, broadening the horizon, making choices, realising the choice). Often excursions to workplaces and/or vocational education institutes are part of the programme.

2. Programmes for allochthones. There are two types of programme: — Programmes with the accent on language and social skills.

Usually intensive language courses (16-20 hours per week) are reprogrammed for the special needs of this target group. In some cases numeracy is added to the programme.

— Programmes with a combination of language, numeracy, social skills, study skills, job orientation, orientation on society and attitude. Job interview training, English and computer literacy are added.

In the language part of the programme attention is given to "job-specific language" and job-related numeracy.

3. Integrated programmes. These programmes are comparable to the programmes mentioned under (2) but are usually for autochthones. In some

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cases autochthones and allochthones are in the same course groups. Allochthones then receive extra hours in Dutch language.

4. Parallel linking programmes. In these programmes the A B E institute offers a course to support the further education of the students (vocational but also secondary general adult education). T h e accent lies on improving language and numeracy skills and on guidance and help with homework. These programmes are offered to A B E students w h o have just entered vocational education, or they are offered as an extra possibility for those following vocational or further general education.

5. Preparation programmes. The programmes prepare the student for participation in a specific vocational course. T h e stress lies on language, numeracy, social skills and guidance and counselling.

ó.Specific courses. S o m e A B E institutes offer courses on specific subjects. Usually these are short courses that are not integrated or combined with a broader programme. Subjects can be: — Job interview training — Writing correctly — Computer literacy — English — Spoken Dutch for allochthones (usually including job

interview training and culture in Dutch workplaces) — H o w to look for work

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Since special attention to the long-term unemployed is a relatively n e w phenomenon for the A B E field the above-mentioned types of programme will need futher development. In this development it will be important to see which elements of the general A B E programmes can be used and where differentiation is needed. O n e of the main differences is the intensity of the courses. Usually most students attend A B E courses for about 2V2 to 5 hours per week. In the courses for the long-term unemployed and in some of the other courses that link A B E to vocational education students attend for at least 10 or more hours per week. Even then it is estimated that the majority of the students will need at least a year (40 weeks) to complete the course successfully (Doets, Huisman and Huisman 1989).

4.3. Experiential learning

, The concept of experiential learning is mainly based on the theories of Paulo Freiré, and in literacy there is also the influence of the French educationalist Célestin Freinet and of the so-called "language experience approach" which is used in literacy practice in Great Britain.

In the debate over the years two types of definition (and related options for practice) have appeared: one associated with formal education and one more goal-oriented.

Erkamp, as representative of the preferences for the more formal definition, states:

"Experiential learning is the acquiring of knowledge, attitudes and skills about yourself and your environment through o w n observation and participation in concrete situations and through the systematic reflection on this" (Erkamp 1986).

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The Open School development team described the concept as follows:

". . . knowledge and insights are acquired through the investigation of knowledge and experience that students have in their life situation. Critical appraisal of the meaning and relevance of this knowledge and experience, related to the situation out of which they arise, leads to the tracing of n e w areas of knowledge and insights which students want to enter.... Experiential learning is directed to the further development of perspectives for action, that is to say that students acquire more possibilities to engage in activities for change" ( I W O S 1984).

In line with this last definition Noordijk and Tubbing have stated that experiential learning should have the following characteristics:

" 1. It does not stop with exchange of experiences 2 . Students formulate their learning questions 3. Students work on change 4 . There is a search for c o m m o n experiences in the

group 5. It has no fixed model 6. It is group work 7 . It is tied to specific conditions in the learning

environment 8. It takes time and patience." (Noordijk and Tubbing

1983) Although experiential learning has no fixed model or set of

subsequent steps that must be taken it can be described in terms of a learning cycle. According to the above mentioned authors the cycle consists of four elements: 1. the exchange of experiences 2 . the investigation of experiences and the posing of learning

questions

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3. practice and gathering n e w information 4 . action

T h e cycle does not necessarily go from 1 to 4. At several moments in the process (new) experiences are exchanged and the practice as well as the final action on the basis of the newly acquired skill or knowledge create n e w experiences.

At the heart of this approach to experiential learning lies the notion that the experiences of students in daily life are the expression both of that life and of the problems they face because of the lack of basic skills. These experiences are not purely individual but they have a collective character in relation to the social, cultural and economic background of the students. The most c o m m o n element is the fact that there is a similarity in the w a y adult illiterates confront society and the w a y society confronts them. The c o m m o n denominators can thus form the core of the social content for literacy teaching. Individual experiences can be placed in order and related to each other as themes for learning for a certain timespan, to be determined by the student and the tutor.

T h e m e s that are chosen are usually related to problems the students face in everyday life such as housing, the school career of children, problems in dealing with bureaucracies (social services, community council, etc.), travelling and the like (see also the list of functional areas in 1.3.).

Experiential learning and allochthones

Following from the definiton given above an important condition for experiential learning is that the student can express his experience and analyse them. For allochthones in courses for Dutch as a second language this is problematic. A s stated

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by a group of national and regional experts in Dutch as a second language:

"Communication on the basis of insights into the structures of society, boundary situations, and one's o w n position, and into the possibilities for change (....) demands elaborate language skills and study skills: analysing, formulating opinions and comparing them, summarising, wording of emotions - and all that using an advanced (and abstract) vocabulary." (Consulentenoverleg 1987)

Hart states that experiential learning by allochthones m a y take place in the courses for mother tongue literacy and probably in the last phase of A B E , the condition being that the language of instruction is mastered adequately both passively and actively (Hart 1988).

Even if experiential learning is possible then there are specific problems in education for allochthones. T h e fundamental differences in culture between allochthones and autochthones can easily give rise to m a n y misunderstandings and to neglect of the cultural richness of the students. These differences lead to the attribution of different meanings and connotations to concepts, words and texts which seem to be of a general nature. If not properly recognised this will produce miscommunication instead of learning.

This type of problem can be overcome if tutors are very m u c h aware of these differences and have knowledge about the cultural backgrounds of the allochthonous students. T h e best solution to this problem seems to have tutors w h o have their roots in the culture of the allochthonous students.

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The nature of experiences

Most publications about experiential or thematic learning aim to offer a model for practice. Little attention is given to the specific nature and contents of experiences and themes. N o answer is given to the question from what type of experience students learn most in regard to the goal of change. It can be inferred that experience usually means those experiences that are related to the self-image and the image of society the student holds. In this respect experiences with hobbies are less relevant than work experiences or experiences with a high significance for the construction of the self-image and the image of society.

A second criterion for the value of experiences is that they must be the reflection of collective experience, that is to say they have to be related to c o m m o n characteristics (in a sociological or social psychological sense) of the student group.

A third criterion which is often neglected is that the experiences must be connected in a sensible w a y to the skills that are to be learned. For the learning of language skills this criterion does not create m u c h difficulty. But for numeracy it is far more restrictive given the fact that all experiences are related to language, because they need language to be expressed, but they are not at all automatically related to numerical or mathematical operations. In this case the choice of experiences and themes must be m a d e more carefully.

T h e first and the second criterion create s o m e specific problems. Since the student population for literacy, let alone for A B E , is not really a homogeneous population, it is hardly possible to say anything general about the value and significance of experiences for certain groups or individuals. In general A B E students have experiences in c o m m o n that can be related to their "low" position in society and the fact that they lack certain basic skills. M o r e specifically, literacy students have in c o m m o n the

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experience of being illiterate in a society in which literacy for everyone is supposed to be self-evident. But that is about all that can be said about the student population in general.

T h e implication of this c o m m e n t is that the "usefulness" of experiences has to be decided in the student group in a dialogue between students and tutor. This also implies that the development of curriculum and course plans and the learning materials that go with them must leave room for this procedure on the "shop floor".

Experiential learning and literacy

The concept of experiential learning has consequences for the process of learning to read and write. O n e of the most obvious consequences is that the themes chosen more or less define the content of what writing and reading exercises are done. The experiences (thematically ordered) and the language in which they are expressed are the starting point for learning. This means a different type of organisation of the learning process compared to the procedures used in primary education. Bohnenn and others (1986) developed for literacy work with Dutch speakers elements of a theory and related practice for literacy, based on a critique of procedures in primary education, on the psycholinguistic theories formulated by Smith (1978), and on the language experience approach formulated by M a c e (1979) and McFarlane (1979a; 1979b).

T h e theory of Bohnenn et al. is based on four essential notions: — The student is at the centre, not the learning content. — Learning to read and write is related to the use of these

skills in everyday life. — The meaning of text is central.

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— The goal of learning goes beyond practical application; reading and writing is also a w a y to reflect critically on one's o w n life.

O n the basis of these notions proposals for literacy practice are m a d e in which the key element is the use of meaningful text material. Meaningful in this context means that textual material should be related to the students' interests, experiences, questions and/or wishes and that it must be related to the level of language performance of the students. Preferably this is textual material which is produced by the students themselves, or if the students cannot do this, by the tutor on the basis of what they have to say.

A n important criterion for the selection or production of the text is that it must be able to contribute to the improvement of reading and writing skills. The technical difficulties in the text must be within the grasp of the student.

W o r k on these texts is done systematically. The reading and writing performance of each student is carefully analysed, progress and problems are recorded and form the basis of the next steps to be taken. The work always starts from the text as a whole, and on this basis specific aspects of reading and writing are practised. Specific attention is given to the learning and use of a variety of strategies to deal with the information in the text, and in the individual sentences, words and letters.

This last notion originates from the psycholinguistic theories of Smith (1978), according to w h o m reading is a combination of the use of visual and non-visual information. T o read well means to use as m u c h information as possible and to organise an interaction between the different information types such as semantic, orthographic and visual information.

A non-literate, w h o speaks the language, has available m a n y aspects of the non-visual information, which is usually unconscious and not related to the act of reading. In reading,

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this information must be used consciously to decode the meaning of the text.

In this sense the notion gives an additional argument for working from textual material that reflects the students' reality.

Writing

For the learning of writing, which must be done in parallel to the learning of reading, the same principles are applied. Because of the somewhat different nature of the writing act and the kind of problems that students face in writing, technical aspects (such as spelling and grammar) need to receive more attention. However, the notion that writing is primarily the conveying of messages and meaning implies that these technical aspects are always embedded in aspects that have to do with content (what I want to say) and structure (how I say it) of what is written. T h e technical aspects are secondary, but cannot be neglected. T o analyse problems with writing Bohnenn et al. (1984) developed a system of error analysis. Texts produced by students can be analysed to show which types of error they m a k e . O n the basis of this analysis specific learning action can be taken. W h a t action is taken depends on the specific nature of the error and on h o w important it is for the student to solve the problem: "If a student is very m u c h worried about spelling and thus prevented from writing freely, the tutor m a y propose not bothering about spelling for a while" (Bohnenn et al. 1984). Writing is therefore seen as more than just spelling.

In this methodology student writing is an important feature. O n e of the tutor manuals produced by the S V E literacy team gives m a n y tips and ideas on h o w to realise "self-writing" (Bohnenn, Curvers and Noordijk 1984).

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The writing d o w n of experiences gives support to the process of change in the individual. A s a literacy student once said, " Y o u come to look at it from a different angle" (Legierse 1985).

Besides the technical problems literacy students will have in producing text, an important problem is the fear of writing. Students are not used to writing and they usually k n o w very well that "the others" look d o w n on written material with faulty spelling and grammar. A related aspect is that many students do not have a very clear yiew of the function of writing in their o w n situation. This means that in literacy courses m u c h attention must be given to the overcoming of the fear of writing: one of the means is the creation of an atmosphere in which the making of faults is possible. Equally, it is necessary to clarify which functions writing can have in the daily life of students. O n e of these functions is that it will m a k e them less dependent on others. T o recognise this dependency, analysis of experiences in daily life is necessary.

4.4. Learning problems

In a learning process which is structured according to the principles sketched out above, the creation of a favourable learning environment is of great importance. It is necessary to create an atmosphere of trust and mutual understanding. Students must train themselves in speaking openly and freely and in questioning the other group members and the tutor. This will require a n e w vision of learning by the students, w h o will have to become aware of the fact that this type of learning is more effective (in terms of functional goals) than the learning they were used to in school. The "school vision" of learning (structured material, teacher as authority, little relationship with daily life) is internalised in most students, even though they

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usually have negative school experiences and a fear of everything which is connected with learning. These fears and experiences are in m a n y A B E literacy classes a starting point for the creation of a good learning atmosphere, v,

T h e explicit statement by the students, through group discussion, of their beliefs, norms and fears related to learning is shown to be an effective w a y to start building up the self-confidence that is needed for successful learning.

T h e notion of self-confidence as a key to literacy has been developed out of the recognition that m a n y Dutch-speaking literacy students see themselves as stupid people w h o cannot learn anything. The fact that they themselves have decided to c o m e to a literacy course can be seen as a first step towards more confidence, but it is felt to be a minor step ("I will give it a try but I do not really believe in it" is a c o m m o n attitude). This problem is usually embedded in a wider context of social and personal problems. Literacy is seen as a means to deal with social and personal problems, and thus appropriate counselling is part of literacy work. T h e other side of the story is that the existence of the problems creates barriers to effective learning. Curvers has analysed these barriers and concluded that they arise out of two feelings: fear and uncertainty:

"Understanding the influence of fear and uncertainty and learning to control them are unavoidable steps in reaching the goal of students: independent action in life situations which they feel to be important." (Curvers 1986: 26)

This reduces the problem in a way. Literacy does not have to solve the problem directly, but must produce understanding, and the nucleus of the problem is named as fear and uncertainty. These are not individual problems, so that they can be dealt with collectively in the learning group. Thus the learning group can

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become a self-help group. Curvers gives three important aspects of fear and uncertainty: — not knowing (what the situation is)

— not being able to use a skill (or more skills)

— not having the courage to use the skill (or skills) (Curvers 1986).

These three elements can be m a d e into a learning theme when they are related to a concrete and recognisable situation, and practice in reading and writing can then be brought in. However , it must be clear that literacy itself cannot provide answers to all the social and personal problems a student is confronted with. It can provide some help in the form of more self-confidence, a reduction of fear and uncertainty, and literacy skills, but in the last instance the student has to tackle his problems himself.

4.5. Group work

In this process group work has great value. H a m m e n -Poldermans formulates the functions of group work as follows:

"— Group work offers the possibility of translating the illiteracy problem from an individual problem with individual "guilt" to a collective problem...

— The group offers chances to investigate the life and work situation of students better than a one-to-one situation.

— In a group situation more equality between students and tutor can be realised. Since students are all in the same position and have similar feelings this m a y make them more independent of the tutor.

— Group work creates positive motivation: it is good to be with the others.

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— Group discussion gives the student the opportunity to act as a subject, somebody w h o has an opinion, w h o m a y agree or disagree. The conversation in the group invites the student to abandon his silence and gives the chance to give order and voice to his thoughts. It creates the opportunity of coming to conclusions about the students' position in society and about h o w to realize their potential." ( H a m m e n -Poldermans 1981: 83)

T o achieve these goals the tutor must, among other things, know about the norms, beliefs and values held by the students, and their actual position in society. H e must be able to make a sociological and social psychological analysis of the student group. H e must also be capable of creating a safe atmosphere and of assisting students to express themselves.

4.6. Learning materials

The concept of experiential learning and student-centredness brings with it a need for another type of learning material than what is used in more formal forms of education.

Learning materials must be flexible and must be able to be adapted to the needs of individual students and/or learning groups.

This view led in Literacy and the Open School to the Be-lief that the best learning material was developed in cooperation between the tutor and the students. In a certain phase of both projects standardised material was taboo. Neither the development team for the Open School ( I W O S ) nor the team for Literacy (SVE) produced standardised learning material that could be used without the tutor reworking it for his group. Wha t was developed were manuals for tutors with some theory, but

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with m a n y practical tips and ideas h o w to give shape to lessons and h o w to collect, rework or produce material.

The start of A B E provision m a d e it necessary to rethink the production of learning materials. In a more professional setting with more structured learning paths the d e m a n d for "ready-made" learning materials is rising. O n e of the reasons is that the tutors do not have enough time to develop their o w n material. For every class of three hours they have about two hours available for preparing the session, contacts with colleagues, individual contacts with students, participation in the organisation of the institute and development of materials.

Another reason for this rethinking is the recognition that m u c h of the "home-made" materials was not of very good quality, seen in the light of the learning goals it was to serve. In fact m a n y tutors just copied from school books. A n d w h e n the material was good it was so time-consuming to produce that the tutor did not have any time left to design the course and the actual lesson.

This led to the conclusion that for the tutor to design good courses and lessons he will need not just tips and ideas but also materials that he can fit into his design. These materials must be flexible and adaptable to the actual situation of the learning group.

Both reasons led the S V E to start in 1990 the development of concrete learning materials to go with the most widely used manual for literacy for Dutch speakers, which was developed between 1984 and 1987 (Bohnenn et al. 1984-1987). For other subjects production of materials is also starting in 1990.

Resource centres

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The promotion and development of local, regional and national resource centres is seen as an important task. Practical aids for building up resource centres have been developed and distributed, and training has been offered to both course organisers and officers of public libraries. The public libraries felt and still feel that they have a task in either hosting or supporting resource centres for A B E . In m a n y places there is a close cooperation in this respect between the A B E institutes and the public libraries. At the national level a resource centre was developed in cooperation between S V E and the National Support Organisation for Public Libraries ( N B L C ) . This centre holds most of the learning materials for the different aspects of A B E and also has a large collection of background information on adult education. Through a computerised data system tutors can search the collection, or they can visit the centre.

Easy-to-read materials

The literacy team of S V E produced between 1982 and 1987 some easy-to-read materials for students. A national magazine with student writing appeared for some time until its function was taken over by local or regional magazines, and a series of 25 easy-to-read books was published. Local literacy projects and some provincial support agencies also produced easy-to-read books, but with the start of A B E provision in 1987 all this production practically came to a stop.

In the coming years it will probably start again, since there is a growing interest on the part of A B E for allochthones in the availability of easy-to-read materials both in Dutch and in the mother tongue. In 1990 the National Organisation for Migrants

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( N C B ) will m a k e a start with production. Recently also commercial publishers and the National SupportOrganisationfor Public Libraries have shown an interest in the production of reading materials for A B E students. The National Consumers' Organisation and organisations for the protection of the environment have published learning materials for A B E too. It is supposed that this trend will grow and that more organisations will start producing learning materials for A B E in their area of concern, as A B E provision receives more public recognition.

The National Support Organisation for Public Libraries ( N B L C ) and S V E have done some work in the last few years on the promotion of reading for "new" readers. This will be taken up again in the near future. This activity is two-sided. O n the one hand programmes are developed for A B E to stimulate reading pleasure «and reading Rïïbits, and on the other hand public libraries work at becoming more accessible and providing better services to people with little formal schooling.

4.7. T h e use of information technology

For A B E and for the projects on which it is built information technology is a n e w phenomenon. Until 1988 hardly any experience in this area existed. S o m e A B E institutes had experimented with the introduction of elementary computer literacy courses related to social skills and knowledge. These courses gave an introduction to computers, their functions and effects on society, and offered the possibility of practice with computers. At a later stage these computer literacy courses were embedded in courses with an accent on "learning to deal with information and information flows", still under the heading of social skills and knowledge. Others were experimenting with the use of computers and word-processing as aids in the language

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learning process. Most of this experimenting with programmes was done on an ad hoc basis by enthusiastic tutors in various A B E institutes. In 1988 the S V E brought together these tutors and started a more systematic development. The first aspect for development was computer literacy, but later the emphasis was laid more on information as a subject and the use of computers therein. A second aspect was the start of the development of software for computer-assisted literacy.

In the course of 1988 adult education was one of the last sectors in the educational field that was taken up in the government policy on information technology. The government decided to let adult education join in a project to promote the use of information technology in the educational system. Additional financing started and a structure for coordination was created. From then on development for A B E also began.

There are three lines of development. The first is the automation of the organisation and management of A B E . The second is the development of computer-assisted learning, and the third is the provision of hardware and the training of the educational and organisational staff of A B E institutes.

Besides this, a computerised information system for regional and local counsellors, with information on educational opportunities for adults, is in development. There are plans to develop a national communication system between A B E institutes and national, provincial and regional support agencies in the form of a "bulletin board", which m a y be linked to the data system of the national resource centre.

Computer-assisted learning

For computer-assisted learning a number of programs for A B E have recently been developed. There are specific wojd-

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processing programs with which language practice can be m a d e and which can be related to information that is stored in the computer. There are framework programs with which the tutor can build up a literacy program, using a student's text in both a written and a spoken form. O n the basis of this text the program can generate a number of standard drills, and the tutor can add specific drills. The program gives feedback to the student and records progress. H o w e v e r , this progress report is only accessible to the tutor. The speciality of this program is the use of speech. If the computer has a "built-in speech module", spoken instructions can be given and the computer can at the c o m m a n d of the student read the text or parts of the text which he is practising.

Another framework program has been developed for vocabulary training for Dutch as a second language.

Computer-assisted instruction has some advantages for A B E . It creates more variation in the learning process. For m a n y students it is fun and an adventure to work with a computer. It can also stimulate the student's independence of the tutor.

Problems with the introduction of computer-assisted learning lie in the fact that m a n y tutors are as computer illiterate as their students, that it takes m u c h energy to give computers a place in the course design, and that the use of computers is rather expensive and presents organisational problems.

The development of computerised learning in A B E is at an experimental stage. M u c h still has to be developed, not primarily n e w software but manuals and materials and training of educational staff.

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4.8. Research in A B E

Research in A B E , still a relatively new area, is undertaken by a variety of institutions. It is conducted under different paradigms and based on a variety of theoretical approaches. In the period before 1987 the projects were not intensively researched, except for the Open School. Most of the research that was done in that period was related to development work or was descriptive research. Recently university researchers and research institutes have been paying more attention to adult education and A B E . The Dutch Organisation for Research in Education ( S V O ) prepared a programming study in 1989 (Houtkoop and van der K a m p 1989), and the organisation is financing several research projects. The Ministry of Education is financing a variety of research projects, among them the research needed for the parliamentary evaluation of the functioning of the A B E regulations, which is to take place in 1991. S o m e universities (notably Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Tilburg) are doing research for A B E also.

The most relevant research projects are concerned with questions regarding the implementation of A B E , the defining of basic competence in several areas, the linking of A B E to vocational and other forms of further education, tutor training (see chapter 5), the characteristics of potential A B E students, and the continuous gathering of statistical data on A B E , for which instruments still have to be devised.

Specific research projects are in the areas of literacy for illiterate w o m e n , learning strategies in second language learning and, a special project in the city of Rotterdam, to find out the number of illiterates and semi-literates in the city and their characteristics.

The researchers involved and the financers of the research are looking for ways to c o m e to a more coordinated research

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programme for the A B E field. S V E recently m a d e some proposals for this coordination to the research community and the Ministry of Education. In a European perspective there is also growing cooperation between research centres. T w o examples m a y illustrate this. The University of Angers hosted a conference for European researchers in the spring of 1989 (Writing in A B E , Angers 1989), and in 1990 A L B S U , from the United Kingdom, the University of Leuven, Belgium, and S V E hope to start a comparative research project into the basic skills needed in different job sectors (SVE 1989).

4.9. Accreditation

Accreditation is a subject which has until n o w hardly been discussed.

Participating in A B E courses does not lead to any kind of officially recognised certificate. S o m e institutes offer students a certificate which describes which courses they have followed and what subjects they have learned, but these certificates do not have any official status. In the field and among the students w h o want to "use" their basic qualifications in the labour market a need is felt for a more official form of accreditation. For Dutch as a second language work is under way to define the criteria for an officially recognised certificate.

Probably this will be a first step in certifying participation in A B E , but which form this certification will take is unclear.

4.10. Concluding remarks

This chapter has described in broad outline some of the major lines for the future development of the curriculum and of

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teaching methodology. M a n y of the experiences of the projects on which A B E provision is built can be traced in recent development. However , m a n y things have changed. O n e of the striking differences is the trend to give a more formalised structure to the overall curriculum. The other is the growing attention to A B E related to work and/or vocational education.

In itself the structuring of the overall curriculum has positive effects, both for students and for the quality of education. For students it becomes m u c h clearer which educational needs can be fulfilled by participation in A B E , which learning paths are feasible and h o w large the investment will be. The quality is improved through the possibility of offering a broader programme than the projects used to do, and of relating subjects more closely to each other and to the social functions of the various basic skills. In this sense one can speak of a professionalisation of A B E .

O n the other hand this structuring m a y lead to the situation where the student has to adapt to a given programme, instead of the programme being designed according to his wishes and needs. The curriculum model described in 4.1. tries to avoid this problem by building in flexibility, and by not prescribing goals but by offering m a n y alternatives as possibilities for learning. The concrete listing of these possibilities has to be done in dialogue with the students during recruitment and in the learning groups. Even then it is a structured system of learning which m a y easily be associated with "school" by potential students, an association which has m a n y negative undertones for the potential students w h o are illiterate or have least education.

H o w e v e r m u c h flexibility is desirable, it is clear that the number of possibilities has to be limited. The availability of qualified tutors is one reason. The linking of A B E to other, more formal aspects of adult education can be another reason. In

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this case goals tend to be defined by the entry requirements of follow-up education.

Political reasons m a y also play a role. In the A B E law the subject matter of A B E is described, but not fully defined. However, elements that go beyond the interpretation of this description by the education inspectorate are not accepted. In this interpretation there is a tendency to limit the possibilities offered.

T w o concrete examples m a y illustrate this. In the O p e n School m a n y students followed courses in English. English is, through an intervention in parliament, included as an A B E subject in the A B E law but is described as "elementary English". N o clear definition of "elementary" was given. This has led in practice to problems between A B E institutes and the inspectorate. The inspectorate interprets "elementary English" as the English which a student m a y meet in everyday life in Dutch society (English words used in Dutch, advertisements etc.), while the A B E institutes interpret "elementary English" as the English one could need in simple conversations with Englishmen. The position of English in the A B E programme is not yet very clear.

Another example is the position of education in the mother tongue of migrants, especially in Turkish and Arabic. It is supposed that someone w h o is literate in his mother tongue will learn a second language with more success, and the law therefore stated that "mother tongue literacy" m a y be offered as an initial course to support the teaching of Dutch as a second language. Again there was no definition of the level of literacy required in the mother tongue. The inspectorate tends to define this level as very limited and in general does not approve of mother tongue literacy courses when they do not have a clear relation to the learning of Dutch as a second language. However, practical experience shows that far more teaching in

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the mother tongue is needed than just that which is related to Dutch. First of all, the advocates of mother tongue literacy see it as a right in itself (see 23.). Second, it is seen that social skills and orientation on Dutch society and job prospects can be learned more easily if the teaching is done in the mother tongue, even for students w h o have elementary skills in Dutch (Gelauff-Hanzon 1988).

O n both aspects the discussion between the field and the inspectorate is lively. What the results will be is not yet clear.

T h e growing attention given to the linking of A B E to vocational and secondary general (but most of all vocational) education can be seen as positive for those students w h o want and are able to learn more than just basic skills. T h e development of unbroken learning paths is creating new chances and opportunities for m a n y students. It will also have positive effects on the unemployment figures and the functioning of the labour market. This is of course one of the reasons w h y the government is promoting this linking.

The negative side of the balance m a y be that more and more energy from A B E institutes will go into the development and execution of courses related to the labour market and that there will be less room for those students w h o do not wish or are not able to take up a job-related type of course. Generally speaking, these are the students with least formal schooling, older people and w o m e n . Such students c o m e forward to improve their basic skills and their functioning in personal life and society.

There is the danger that A B E will not be seen any more as an educational opportunity in its o w n right but as just a stepping stone to further education or the labour market.

A B E institutes and the development institutes are aware of this danger. Priorities in development work are seen on both sides of the picture, because both sides reflect the intentions of A B E .

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5. TRAINING OF EDUCATIONAL STAFF

Before 1987 no official qualification or training for tutors in the projects existed. Tutor training was done at different levels, the most important being that of the job and the organisation itself. The core of training consisted of reflecting on practice and improving the practice in consequence. This on-the-job training was supported by the provincial or regional support agencies. It was seen as very important because it related practice directly to the improvement of tutors' skills. T h e national, provincial or regional agencies also offered a variety of training courses on themes related either to practical problems as they were experienced by tutors, to organisation or to themes for further development. In fact in m a n y cases training was embedded in the work of the national development organisation and seen as a factor in the implementation of innovative practices.

Initial training for volunteers (and occasionally paid staff) was provided by the regional or provincial support agencies or by the organisations themselves. Usually initial training consisted of an introduction in the field, the theoretical background of practice and the development of a proper attitude towards students. These courses were short. For the literacy project for Dutch speakers they did not last for more than 20 hours. Trainers were people with experience in the field.

After initial training the n e w tutor started working with a more experienced colleague and learned through observation, on-the-job training and training sessions offered by support agencies. This ongoing training in close relation to actual practice was highly valued. It kept the tutors' feet on the ground and prevented them from acquiring formal knowledge without relation to the needs and wants of the target groups.

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O n the other hand this last aspect formed one of the weaknesses of the training system, certainly in the initial phase of training. There was little attention given to the theoretical notions behind the practice. The resulting qualification of the tutors was thus merely practical and closely tied to the target group they had to deal with. Projects tried to avoid this weakness by attracting tutors with a higher education diploma, preferably in social work or education, but these were not always available.

In due course, however, it became more and more clear that to be able to teach well, theoretical training was needed.

5.1. Tutor profile and initial schooling

W h e n A B E provision was established it was explicitly stated that the A B E tutor must have a proper qualification at a higher education level. This led in the first instance to the development of special training for those paid and volunteer workers w h o did not match the qualification criteria that were set by the government, the so-called "emergency programmes" (see 2.2.).

A next step was the development of initial training for this "new" profession of A B E tutor.

O n the basis of an analysis of the work of A B E tutors the qualification profile has recently been renewed (Molenaar 1989). This profile will form the core of a recommendation that will be given to the government on the content and structuring of the initial training.

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The profile is based on the tutor's several roles:

The role of the tutor as researcher. — at the micro level:

analysing his/her o w n learning analysing his/her o w n norms and values analysing learning processes analysing functioning in groups/teams and receiving feedback tracing shortages in his/her o w n skills using learning theories and learning styles

at the meso level: making target group analysis (psychological and sociological) doing elementary social research and social mapping (nature, needs in the local situation) using evaluation techniques

at the macro level: analysing developments and trends in society that affect the target groups of A B E analysing developments in adult education policy

2 . The role of the tutor as designer of learning processes and materials. The tutor is the creator of learning processes and the designer of learning materials. K e y points are: — using of analysis and research data for the

development of the programme — knowing the subject and related didactics; access to

professional literature — developing a vision of the functions of the subject for

adults — assessing the starting situation of the students

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— creating a rich and stimulating learning environment — formulating goals at different levels — formulating content and working methods — developing individual learning paths and schedules — choosing, reworking and producing creative learning

materials — using and making test materials — evaluating the programmes — adapting programmes

3 . T h e role of the tutor as facilitator of learning. K e y points here are: — executing the programmes — adapting the programmes to the specific situation of

the group and/or individuals — relating the subject to other subjects — teaching on the basis of the principles of experiential

learning and thematic learning — using a variety of working methods and learning aids — recording and evaluating progress — handling group dynamic processes — giving attention to individuals — testing — finding out possible follow-up activities and

counselling students

4 . T h e role of the tutor as organiser of learning. K e y points here are: — knowing the variety of programmes in A B E — recruiting students — motivating students — interviewing students at enrolment and placing them in

groups

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— assessing the initial level of skills of the student — transferring students to the right programme — defining criteria for group formation or regrouping — counselling for transfer to follow-up activities

(education or social activities) — participating in the policy development of the

organisation — having an elementary knowledge of m a n a g e m e n t

problems — having an efficient work attitude (time and information

management)

These roles and the different aspects that are mentioned are, in the study by Molenaar (Molenaar 1989), related to the subjects of A B E and thus translated into subject matter for initial training. The proposal has c o m e from the field to develop a broad initial training instead of the training of tutors w h o are specialists in one subject. This, it is said, does injustice to the notion that subjects in A B E are related and have to be offered in a coherent and functional whole.

This means that for qualification as an A B E tutor knowledge and skills in at least three A B E subjects are necessary. M o r e specifically a plea has been m a d e that of these three one must be language and another social knowledge and skills.

According to a draft version of a recommendation which will be presented to the government by the group that coordinates training for A B E qualification, initial training is to be conducted by institutes of higher education in close relation with the working field. These are institutes of teacher training (both primary and secondary general education) and institutes of social and cultural work.

T w o models are presented. The first model sees training for the A B E tutor as an option in the training of either teacher or

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social worker. O f a four-year learning period at least two years would have to be specially geared towards the qualification for A B E . O f this two-year period several months would be spent in apprenticeship in A B E institutes.

The other model is that of a two-year training after the tutor has finished his higher education as a teacher or social worker, or after finishing university in subjects that are related to the subject matter of A B E (Baarveld 1989).

5.2. In-service and on-the-job training

Most of the forms of in-service and on-the-job training that were developed in the projects period remained in existence after the formation of A B E institutes. A wide variety of short courses is given, usually defined by the actual demand in institutes or among workers. There is, because of this "customer orientation" (the customer being A B E institutes and workers) no systematic approach. Courses are offered by provincial and regional support agencies, in some cases in cooperation with universities and institutes of higher education.

A n interesting approach has been developed in the province of North Brabant where around several A B E subjects so-called "quality circles" are formed. A quality circle is a group of tutors w h o meet regularly under the supervision of a very experienced tutor or a specialist w h o knows the field very well. H e is a m e m b e r of the group but acts as a "primus inter pares". In the circle working problems are discussed and related to theories, and possible solutions are formulated and tried out by the tutors. Both theory and practice have in principle equal importance in these circles.

The first circles started early in 1989 and seem a w a y to develop some systematic ongoing training for tutors, although

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participation in the circles demands m u c h energy and time from the tutors involved.

In general the courses offered for in-service or on-the-job training are not related to the specific training for the formal qualification, and as yet little thought has been given to this relationship.

This creates the danger that the development of initial training will lose its relation to the actual practice of A B E , and at the same time that learning which takes place while at work will not be related to previous knowledge gained in initial training. O n e of the challenges in this respect for the coming years is the development of a system of ongoing training that starts with initial training and has related components of in-service and on-the-job training, a system in which experiences from in-service and on-the-job training can be fed back to the initial training.

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6. REFLECTIONS AND REMARKS

In this monograph the development of A B E has been presented. M a n y aspects have been described and in some paragraphs comments have been given. In this chapter w e will reflect on this development and make some remarks regarding the future.

6.1. Professionalisation and structuring

The development of A B E can be read as a development from more or less spontaneous amateur work to a professional education industry. This reflects the way m a n y welfare state institutions have developed. They start with concerned citizens w h o want to relieve the hardships of their fellow m e n and are gradually taken over by the state and by the professionals. This is in itself not a bad development. It serves to improve the quality of the provision and to bring it within the reach of a far bigger population than the former amateurism could do.

O n the other hand there are some negative effects in this process of professionalisation and institutionalisation.

In the development of A B E it can be seen that some of the openness that was characteristic of the projects on which A B E was built disappeared. In chapter four the tendency to structure the overall curriculum was discussed and it was noted that, because of the nature of the A B E law and of the professionalisation of tutors, it will lead to a limitation of educational possibilities. This tendency is countered by the development of flexible curricula and learning materials, but it cannot be totally undone. Professionalisation of tutors will lead to a different relationship between tutor and student. The tutor

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becomes more the specialist w h o k n o w s what is good for the student. T o a certain degree this was also the case in the projects that preceded A B E , as tutors were usually from the higher strata of society whereas students were from the lower strata, but the basic philosophy that guided tutoring was one of equality between students and tutors, and the hierarchical position of the tutor did not have any official approval. For professional A B E tutors their position is officially certified and they are paid for it.

A s was shown in chapter five, tutor training can be developed that takes these facts into account: tutors are not trained as specialists in one subject, and m u c h room is m a d e in the training for student-centred methods and experiential learning, etc. However , this does not take away their professional status and the attributes that go with it (salary, social status, jargon).

In short, A B E becomes more and more comparable to other types of school. Although the quality of the provision m a y improve, one can ask h o w this will affect some of the target groups. Does the structuring and the professionalisation prevent some of the potential students from coming forward? O n this question only speculations can be m a d e . There are no figures available to show a dramatic fall for certain target groups. There are some fragmentary indications that between 1985 and 1988 the number of Dutch-speaking illiterates in literacy courses did fall a little after a steady rise in number between 1977 and 1985. This can partly be explained by the fact that in the period of transition from literacy projects to A B E institutes not m u c h time was spent on recruitment activities.

A more fundamental question is whether the educational nature of the provision prevents illiterates from engaging in courses. If w e assume that illiteracy is a facet of a complex set of problems related to the daily life of the individual (poverty being one of the most important of these problems) then it m a y very well be that m a n y potential students do not identify their

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social and personal problems as related to a lack of literacy and thus will not ask for a literacy course but for help with what they see as their problems. This is to say that the educational nature of the provision itself demands of potential students that they have already (re)defined their problems with social participation as educational problems.

T o reach the people w h o have not (yet) defined their problems in this w a y other activities in relation to their definition of their problems will have to be created. This m a y mean the building in of elements of literacy and/or language learning in other welfare provisions (such as social work) or cooperation between A B E institutes and a variety of social care provisions and organisations not unlike the cooperation for the job-related courses described in chapter four.

6.2. Relation to the world of w o r k

The aspect which makes A B E quite different from the earlier projects is the attention which is given to job-related and vocational education courses. In chapter four positive and negative aspects of this attention were described. In the coming years A B E will have to find the right balance between courses in this direction and courses for students w h o just want to improve their basic skills for participation in daily life. If it does not, the students with the least education will gradually disappear. O n e of the problems here is the tendency to judge the effectiveness of educational provision more and more on the basis of measurable output. For primary education and the first three years of secondary general education (which is compulsory education), criteria (learning goals) and a methodology are being developed for just such measurement.

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For A B E , where students enter voluntarily, output measurement of the provision is difficult, not for technical reasons but because of the fact that students define their o w n learning goals. T o avoid this difficulty one can of course measure output in terms of the number of students w h o enter follow-up education.

Output in terms of entering follow-up education is far easier to measure than output in terms of the realisation of personal and functional goals, although both of them m a y be of great value for the persons concerned.

If this type of measurement, and judgments about the quality of the provision are going to be made , then this will lead to the admission in A B E of only those students w h o have a reasonable chance of reaching this follow-up goal. A B E will then end up as a system of preparation either directly for the labour market or for further vocational and secondary general education.

A s noted in chapter four, the field is aware of this problem, and development priorities are placed on both aspects of A B E provision. But the direction of educational politics and the pressure of the labour market are pushing in only one direction, as m a y be illustrated by the fact that for courses for the long-term unemployed, the younger and relatively highly educated were sent from the reorientation interviews to A B E institutes. Others w h o did not share the labour market perspectives, were not sent. They had to be recruited by the A B E institutes themselves.

6.3. A B E as an instrument for social participation

A s is said in the introduction, one of the key questions that must be put in reflecting on the development of A B E provision is the question of effectiveness in meeting the primary goal of

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promoting and improving the social participation of adults with litde formal schooling.

Since A B E is a young service hardly any empirical data on success or failure are available. Doets and Huisman estimated that in the course year 87/88 between 85% and 92% of the students finished the courses they started (Doets and Huisman 1988). O f course this figure has no more than an indicative value. T o gain a proper insight into the rate of success and failure a whole generation of A B E students must be followed during their " A B E career". This has not yet been done.

However , there has been some evaluation work in Literacy and O p e n School projects. Brandsma and Wijnen tried to assess the effects of participation in these courses by interviewing students w h o participated for two years or more. They were especially looking for changes (in the person and his surroundings) that occurred as a result of participation in the courses (Brandsma and Wijnen 1985).

For literacy students two types of result were recorded. O n the positive side was the reporting of an average of about 50 concrete changes per student. M a n y of these changes were related to a higher quality of personal life such as more self-confidence, more social activities, more self-dependency and more courage to engage in conversations and to speak up if necessary.

O n the negative side is the conclusion that some goals were not realised. These are: — political activation of students — overcoming the feelings of shame about the fact that one

cannot read and write — overcoming fear of making writing faults

Most of the students interviewed had hoped that their technical skills (writing without any spelling faults) would improve more than was actually the case. At the same time they felt great

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satisfaction with the changes in their personal life. F r o m this one m a y conclude that "change" here means improvement of the quality of personal life. Self-dependency and some vigilance towards others in daily life (relatives, colleagues, bosses, etc.) did occur, with some reduction in uncertainty and fear. But fear and shame did not vanish completely.

T h e same type of positive changes apply to the O p e n School students w h o were interviewed by Wijnen and Brandsma. But there is more. Students report a widening of their horizons and a m o r e critical outlook towards information. M a n y students conclude that they are thinking and judging with more nuances than they did before attending O p e n School. However , these changes in attitude are hardly translated into action and more participation. O n e could say that in terms of the goal of social participation, the effects of attending literacy courses or O p e n School are limited, however important they m a y be for the individual students.

This raises the question whether A B E has the capacity to function as an instrument for the promotion and improvement of social participation.

Participation in social activities has three dimensions: 1. objective possibilities for participation 2 . motivation to participate 3 . capacities or skills to participate

T h e objective possibilities for participation are defined by the nature and the social status of the activity one wants to participate in and the w a y this nature is defined collectively. People with little formal schooling are denied access to m a n y social activities because they do not belong to the layer of society for which the activity is meant. Education plays an important role in this process as allocator of social positions. These objective possibilities are thus closely linked to the socioeconomic and cultural structure of society and have a

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collective dimension. T h e opening of m o r e access to possibilities can hardly be done through individual action. In the course of history this has been done by political and emancipatory movements such as unions, political parties and the feminist movement.

The motivation to participate in different social activities is of course related to the w a y the objective possibilities are seen by the subjects concerned. For people with little education this view of possibilities is often unrealistic, both through overestimation (according to the liberal ideology that if one has the will everything is possible) and through underestimation (according to the view that this is no good for our kind of people). T o c o m e to a more realistic view of possibilities it is necessary to have some understanding of the power structure of society and the mechanisms involved in allocation processes. This can partly be done through individual learning, but it is also an element of emancipatory movements , where collective learning takes place as an aspect of their action.

T h e capacities and skills to participate are the field in which A B E probably can do something. It seems the most individual dimension of the three aspects of social participation. People can learn these capacities and skills to a limited degree through A B E , which can give the student the tools for participating in society at a basic level. These tools are basic skills, a realistic understanding of possibilities for the future, and more self-confidence and courage in daily life. Whether participation is realised is dependent on other factors, both on the part of the students and their direct environment and on the part of society at large. These factors are completely out of the reach of A B E provision as it is constructed n o w .

It will be clear that no educational provision, however structured, can handle all the factors that define the possibilities for social participation, but it is also clear that the more the

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provision is individualised and organised in a separate domain, the more the relation to the more objective factors and to some of the motivating factors will be lost.

For A B E this seems to be the case. It is seen as individual education which is hardly related to other sectors of society. Even when there is a relation, such as in the development of job-oriented learning paths, it is an individualised relation which creates possibilities for participation for the individual but leaves the allocation mechanisms of society more or less intact.

A B E started off with emancipatory goals, and it seems that in the course of development these goals, or at least the collective dimensions of them, have been disappearing. The more it has become structured in an official education policy framework the more it has lost its relation to society at large. Is it possible to cross these boundaries?

In the coming decade A B E should start the search for the possibilities of making organisational and programme links with social movements and organisations of target groups such as unions, the feminist movement , organisations of unemployed people, organisations of allochthones and the like.

If it does not, A B E will become an isolated form of "compensatory education" for individuals w h o missed their first chance for whatever reason. This is a worthwhile function, but more seems possible in the light of the goals that were formulated for A B E .

H o w this "more" m a y be realised is one of the paramount questions for further development in the coming decade.

6.4. A B E in international perspective

The development of A B E described in this monograph is part of a broader development that has been taking place in Europe

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since the 1970s. The "discovery" of functional illiteracy in the Netherlands was strongly stimulated by the experiences with the B B C campaign in the United Kingdom. In die early years, between 1977 and 1981, Dutch adult educators studied the British experiences intensively (Dirks 1981). M a n y of the concepts that were evolved across the North Sea were thus introduced in the development of literacy work in the Netherlands. The most important of these concepts were the language experience approach and the idea of student writing.

Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany and Ireland were influenced in a comparable way by the experiences in the United Kingdom, although at a somewhat later stage than was the case with the Netherlands.

Between diese countries many relations have been established between development and research centres such as A L B S U in England and Wales, the Padagogische Arbeitsstelle of the Deutscher Volkshochschulverband in the Federal Republic of Germany, Alfabetisering Vlaanderen in the Flemish part of Belgium, Lire et Ecrire in the Walloon part of Belgium and S V E in the Netherlands, but also between literacy tutors.

At the beginning of the 1980s attention to literacy grew also in other European countries such as France and Switzerland.

In Southern Europe there was already a somewhat longer tradition, with its ups and downs and usually not so centralised as was the case in the countries mentioned above. Around 1985 Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy sought more contacts with literacy in North-west Europe.

Over recent years there has been a c o m m o n development in policy and practice in North-west Europe. In the United K i n g d o m , Belgium (Flanders), the Federal Republic of Germany and the Netherlands a shift in focus has taken place from literacy to the broader concept of A B E , of which literacy is an element. This has gone hand in hand with a tendency towards

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professionalisation and structuring of A B E in a primarily educational setting. This tendency is especially strong in the Netherlands, as has been shown in the preceding chapters, but can also be traced in other countries in North-west Europe. There is also a shift from an accent on personal development and social participation to a stress on A B E in relation to vocational education and job training.

In Southern Europe and France there are somewhat different lines of development. The tendency there seems, more than in North-west Europe, to link literacy to community development and/or other aspects of broader social and welfare policy. In France, for instance, this has led to a literacy policy in which m a n y different government institutions are involved. T h e struggle against illiteracy is seen as a multifront struggle in which education, welfare, employment services and culture are involved.

Since developments in France are still n e w it is too early to say anything definitive about the effects of this broad policy concept on actual literacy practice.

A n in-depth comparison between these two tendencies and their effects on literacy and A B E m a y teach us more about the ways and means to conduct the struggle against illiteracy in industrialised countries. For this, cooperation between organisations and persons engaged in literacy and A B E in the different states of Europe is necessary.

T w o of the factors that have already stimulated cooperation were the resolution of the European Parliament accepted in 1983 on the struggle against illiteracy in the European Communi ty (Viehoff 1982), and the statement by the Council of Ministers of Education of the E C regarding the fight against illiteracy, m a d e in 1984.

These political statements reflect the growing attention given to the problem of illiteracy in the E C countries. They also reflect

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the need for more cooperation between organisations and persons involved in literacy work.

Following the statement by the Ministers of Education, the European Commission brought together in 1984 a working group of experts that was to formulate recommendations for a European policy on literacy. This working group focused mainly on the prevention of illiteracy, through measures that can be taken by schools and parents. A comparative action research project was started in 1988 on the prevention of illiteracy, in which 17 projects in E C countries are participating.

Beyond this the Commision gives very limited support, in the form of grants for conferences and meetings for people engaged in literacy work with adults.

Another factor that has stimulated cooperation and exchange can be seen in the feeling among those responsible for the development of literacy practice with adults that they are all engaged in creating something new and that they could learn from each other. This was not only the case in Europe but also in other industrialised countries, as was shown by a Unesco meeting of experts on literacy in industrialised countries in 1986. This c o m m o n feeling was underlined in several conferences between researchers, developers and tutors which have taken place in the last few years (e.g. a Unesco-sponsored conference in Oldenburg in 1985, the Unesco expert meeting in Hamburg in 1986, an EC-sponsored conference in Angers in 1987, a meeting of the European Bureau of Adult Education in Barcelona in 1989 and smaller meetings organised by national organisations).

The cooperation that has developed in the field is between organisations and persons that are involved in development, research and actual teaching of literacy for adults. A European network for Literacy and Adult Basic Education has, for example, been formed under the wing of the European Bureau

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of Adult Education. This network and a network which resulted from the conference held in Angers in 1987 are being integrated in the coming years. They could be further linked with the network which is developing around the E C action-research project mentioned above and with the Unesco network for functional literacy.

Because developments in Europe have m a n y links to those in other industrialised countries, notably Canada and the United States of America, more intensive contacts with these countries m a y be realised through the Unesco network and the network of the International Council for Adult Education.

Another European cross-national research project will start in 1990, involving A L B S U (United K i n g d o m ) , S V E (Netherlands) and the University of Leuven (Belgium).

The project aims at defining a level of basic skills which is needed to function adequately in different sectors of work (industry, services etc). O n the basis of this definition work-related basic education programmes will be developed.

This project is only the beginning of more cooperation on a practical level. Other items for cooperation that are under discussion are tutor training and teaching methodologies.

Such cooperation is m a d e possible because of the congruence in the fundamental concepts of literacy in the countries involved. Basic concepts such as student-centredness, the functionality of literacy for daily life, the use of students' experiences and the language in which these are expressed, seem to be widely shared throughout Europe. In actual practice there will be differences related to culture, nature of the provision and national policies, but the fact remains that there are important elements in c o m m o n . These form a good basis for exchange and further development in a European (or even wider) perspective.

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6.5. A B E and lifelong learning

In the development of A B E policy broader educational concepts such as that of lifelong learning or éducation permanente have not played an important role in the Netherlands. In some of the policy statements lip service has been paid to these concepts, but in the formulation of the policy they have vanished.

At the beginning of the 1980s there were some experiments with educational leave, and there were debates about the establishment of a learning right for everyone, but this did not find its way into policy measures.

In general adult education is seen, at least by the policy makers, as second chance education and not as an aspect of continuing education. Adult education, and certainly A B E , is not an integrated part of educational policy as a whole. This m a y be demonstrated by the fact that in a recent report on the state of Dutch education and the challenges facing it in the near future drawn up for the purpose of an O E C D review of education in the Netherlands, adult education is dealt with in no more than two pages out of 250 ( O & W 1989b).

The acquisition of basic skills is still primarily seen as the responsibility of primary education.

The existence of illiteracy among the adult population, the rapid changes that are taking place in modern industry, and the growing complexity of society make clear that primary education cannot be the sole provider of basic skills. It must play an important role, and improvement and constant renewal are therefore needed, but it must develop in the perspective of the need for people to learn throughout their life. The place of adult education and A B E in this process also has to be fully recognised.

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Bohnenn, E . , M . Curvers and J. Noordijk. 1984. Zelf Schrijven. Amersfoort: S V E / D e Horstink.

Baarveld, J. 1989. De eindtermen voor de initiële opleiding. Amersfoort: Coôrdinatiegroep Urgentieprogramma Basiseducatie.

Bohnenn, E . et al. 1984, 1986, 1987. Leren lezen en schrijven. Hartstikke moeilijk? 4 volumes. Amersfoort: S V E .

Brandsma, J. and M . Wijnen. 1985. Dat zal ik je nu eens precies vertellen. Amersfoort: S V E .

Broer, G . A . 1987. Over Televisie kijken en Lezen. Bibliotheek en Samenleving. vol. 15 mei 1987.

Consulentenoverleg minderheden. 1987. Doorgaan met ethnische groepen in de basiseducatie. Een handleiding voor het maken van een educatiej"plan. Zeist: Projektgroep educatie minderheden.

Coumou , W . 1988. Een eerste balans (vervolg), de positie van buitenlanders in de basiseducatie. Basiseducatie no. 1 1988.

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RESOURCES

Here are listed some useful resources for those interested in further study of A B E in the Netherlands.

Resource and documentation centres

1. S V E , landelijk studie- en ontwikkelingscentrum voor de volwasseneneducatie. P .O .Box 351 N L - 3800 AJ Amersfoort tel. (0)33-631114

2 . N B L C , Netherlands Library and Literature Centre. P .O .Box 93054 N L - 2509 A B The Hague tel. (0)70-141500

Research and development institutes

1. S V E , National Study and Development Centre for Adult Education. P . O . B O X 351 N L - 3800 AJ Amersfoort tel. (0)33-631114

2 . N C B , Netherlands Centre for Migrants. P .O .Box 638 N L - 3500 A P Utrecht tel. (0)30-334531

3. National Support Organization for the Education of Mollucans. P . O . Box 13375 N L - 3507 U Utrecht tel (0)30-333900

4 . S L O , National Foundation for Curriculum Development. P . O . B O X 2041 N L - 7500 C A Enschede tel (0)35-840840

5. C IBB, National Centre for the Innovation of Vocational Education. P . O . Box 158 N L - 5200 B P 's-Hertogenbosch tel. (0)73-124011

Policy organisations

1. Ministry of Education and Science. P . O . B O X 25000 N L - 2700 L Z Zoetmeer tel. (0)79-534927

2 . R V E , Advisory Council on Adult Education. Mariahoek la N L - 3500 L D Utrecht tel. (0)30-332939