Goal 4 - Literacy 11th EFA Coordinators’ Meeting Bangkok

Group members: Chair: Mr. Charon Souvong, Lao PDR Rapporteur: Raquel Castillo, ASPBAE Indonesia Malaysia Myanmar Lao PDR Philippines Cambodia Thailand Brunei Fiji Bangladesh Development Partners : DR. Hakeem (UNESCO), Room to Read (Joel Bacha) Facilitators from UNESCO Bkk: Ichiro and Roshan

Progress and Achievements : South East Asia Improvements but slow pace, and low achievement rates Promoting community education through CLCs Reaching those in the border areas of a number of countries Expansion of concept of literacy- functional, life skills and to lifelong learning More ways of service provision – not just one way of delivery and not limited to 3R’s More effective accreditation and equivalency programs

Progress and Achievements : South East Asia At least Philippines says they have reached their own targets on functional literacy for 2010 More collaboration with NGOs and private sector – grand alliance concept Integrating Goals 3 and Goals 4 in the national education plan Countries like Cambodia and Brunei showed increases in literacy rates from a decade ago, especially women Data collection system has been strengthened – workforce literacy survey in Thailand

Challenges Psychological barriers to access literacy (Indonesia) Children not fully participating in schools are those at risk of being illiterates later on – challenge of identifying them – Malaysia Data gaps, especially for rural areas Lack of ongoing assessments Geographical barriers compounded by income disparities – to reduce disparity among states and regions

Challenges Literacy for migrant workers’ children in receiving countries – Indonesia Irregular attendance of learners – Cambodia Lack of separate budget for non-formal education program (eg. Myanmar) Calamities and disasters, conflicts, increasing populations pose challenge Lack of community understanding of gender equality in literacy – Vietnam

Challenges Policies on literacy not given priority nor sustained Diverse cultural and ethnic contexts Lack NFE personnel and facilities to improve the literacy activities – Lao PDR; low salaries for literacy teachers and delays in contracting them – Cambodia Lack of funding, and in cases like Cambodia, changing funding levels from year to year

Challenges – South Asia (Bangladesh) Low investment Coordinating providers De-learning – reverting to illiteracy Variable textbooks Not able o reach remotew and hill areas Monitoring and evaluation Equivalency with formal education have not been established

Progress and Achievements : South Asia (Bangladesh) Established NFE and MIS system (Decrease in literacy rate) PPP approach has been followed to accelerate literacy achievement

Innovative Practices – South East Asia Linking lifeskills to income generating programs to address psychological barriers Involving other members of community like students and army people in the delivery – Indonesia and volunteer services from basic educ teachers and NGOs in Cambodia. ‘Love of Reading volunteers’ in Thailand Focusing on lifelong learning and more on functional literacy – short adult courses, esp. Women – Malaysia Skilled- based training – Institute for Rural Advancement – management skill for rural community (Malaysia)

Innovative Practices - SEA Summer literacy programs Implementing MLE in first levels of learning – eg Philippines Reading promotion campaigns towards Lifelong learning society – Thailand (providing quality reading centers in each tambon) Making use of celebrations and announcing national days, getting the support of royalty and prominent national persons - Thailand

Good Practices – South Asia (Bangladesh) Addressing Gender parity Minimising drop-outs in primary to stop increase in illiteracy Vocational educ Lifeskill programmes Basic Literacy Project Campaign to eliminate illiteracy by 2014 - developed a programme with consultants and development partners Involving of local governments

Good Practices – South Pacific (Fiji) E-community learning

Ongoing and Post 2015 Focusing on literacy in early grades and strong linkages to adult literacy over time Diversification of literacies  eg New literacy in ICT – come up with diversified learning activity designs – CDs, DVDs etc Disaggregated data collection Effective framework and training for programme evaluation Focus on those groups and local regions with lowest literacy rates More investment in this goal – (3% of education budgets?) Monitoring, assessments and evaluation of literacy skills

Post 2015 agenda Linked databases shared among different relevant Ministries (eg Labor or Workforce), which should be updated regularly (and so capacity building for this is needed) Framework of a continuum of literacy, not a dichotomy between literate and non-literate Developing literate environments

Shukriya Terima kasih Thank you Kop chai Kob-kun ka Maraming Salamat www.aspbae.org Chizu tinbartei Cam on Maraming salamat Shukriya Terima kasih