Youth and adult literacy remains one of the key issues of our time. According to David Atchoarena, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), ‘An estimated 773 million youth and adults, two-thirds of whom are women, still lack basic literacy and numeracy skills.’ Moreover, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and accompanying surge in the use of digital technologies is changing requirements for both youth and adults to be considered fully literate.
NBA is proud to have worked with UIL and the Commonwealth of Learning to develop the newly published Guidelines on open and distance learning for youth and adult literacy. The Guidelines are intended to support literacy providers around the world in planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating their open and distance learning-based (ODL) literacy programmes.
The document consists of two parts. The first highlights steps for planning and implementing ODL in youth and adult literacy programmes. The second introduces the technologies commonly used in ODL for youth and adult literacy programmes, ranging from radio and television broadcasts to eLearning and online learning methods. It also includes practical ideas and resources that complement the general guidelines provided in Part 1. Among them are a planning checklist and a comprehensive list of open educational resources that can be used to incorporate ODL into literacy programmes.
