Failing adult learners: Why Rwanda’s adult literacy education is not delivering

Learning for adaptation and 21st-century skills: Evidence of pupils’ flexibility in Rwandan primary schools

“…Specifically, Rwanda aims to become a technology hub for sub-Saharan Africa, create 214,000 new jobs each year for its expanding private sector, and achieve upper-middle-income status by 2035 (Republic of Rwanda, 2020; Rubagiza et al, 2011;van de Kuilen et al, 2019). However, human development indicators remain low (157 out of 189 countries) (United Nations Development Programme, 2019), and with a young and growing population (54 per cent are under 20 (Abbott et al, 2015)), the country's workforce will need not just education for basic literacy, numeracy and employment, but also skills for enterprise and job creation (Abbott et al, 2020;Bamwesiga, 2013;Pells et al, 2014;REB, 2012).…”

“…First, the study and its focus on cognitive flexibility have provided a framework for understanding and quantifying children's emerging skills for adaptability. This is relevant for countries like Rwanda where the government attaches huge importance to evidence including measurable indicators, targets and outcomes (Abbott et al, 2020;Knutsson and Lindberg, 2019). By drawing on established assessments for cognitive flexibility and demonstrating that they can generate valid and reliable data from a range of primary pupils using basic and inexpensive materials, the study presents an option for researchers, educators and policymakers in Rwanda and elsewhere to track learners' development during a period when most children are in school and remedial actions could still be taken.…”

The imagined learner in adult literacy education policy research: An international comparison

“…The Afterthought character type is implied through insufficient funding for adult literacy education and low-quality service provision including educational strategies that do not focus specifically on adults, a poorly or untrained adult literacy teaching force, and curriculum and instructional materials that have not been written specifically for adults (e.g. Abbott et al 2020;Kazeem and Oduaran 2006;Maruatona 2011). For example, German adult education receives less than 1% of the country's overall education budget "and adult literacy education must be funded as a share of this already miniscule budget" (Jaich 2014, p. 56).…”

“…Even more of an apparent afterthought in Ethiopia, adult literacy education provision is described as "highly intermittent" by Ambissa Kenea (2009 ;cited in Abiy et al 2014, p. 646). Although the policy research descriptions focusing on lower-income countries that seem to frame adult learners as "the Afterthought" generally have a lifelong learning strategy in place as signatories of various transnational educational goal statements, their priority is on basic education for children (Abiy et al 2014;Abbott et al 2020;Bhalalusesa 2005;Kazeem and Oduaran 2006;Robinson-Pant 2010). At best, adult literacy education is marginalised.…”

“…For the purposes of this article, we take up the category of the adult with low literacy skills -the target of adult literacy education policy documents as interpreted by the authors of the articles we reviewed. While it is true that there is often a significant discrepancy between stated policy and actual implementation at the programme and classroom levels (Abbott et al 2020;e.g. Maruatona 2011;Smythe 2015), and comparing interpretive research on the policies creates an additional layer of distance between policy documents and practice, the characteristics of adult learners that seem to be imagined there matter because they construct and contribute to "truths" about adult literacy learners (Taylor 2008).…”