Abstract #179  -  Getting ready for Inclusive Education: Addressing teaching learning material needs of young neoliterates in non-formal education settings
Authors:   Presenting Author:   Dr Shankar Chowdhury - UNESCO
Additional Authors:
Aim: Young people with low literacy skills are a vast constituency in India. They too need access to knowledge and skills related to HIV and AIDS for self protection. The National Literacy Mission of the Department of Education, Government of India provides a ready infra-structure for inclusion. The challenge is production of culture and language sensitive materials that are acceptable to writers, illustrators and literacy functionaries.
Method / Issue: Adult literacy and lifelong education materials on various social themes are written by authors who may not necessarily have had any orientation to concerns around HIV and AIDS, gender and sexuality. As a first step, a content- analysis workshop was organised to review the existing materials and identify the gaps. The materials were not only dated but were judgemental and the illustrations were demeaning. As a next step, the authors and illustrators were trained in a workshop on HIV prevention, care and other local issue, such as migration, inter-personal relations, stigma and discrimination, tattooing etc. The booklets, games thus produced were pre-tested with the target group for both content and illustration. The challenge was how keep the young learners, especially the males, engaged in the teaching learning process?
Results / Comments: A multi-sectoral partnership was established with the Departments of Education and Health and other civil society organisations. The process of integration was easier in the non-formal education sector than in the formal education sector. Field level literacy functionaries were able to facilitate the learning proceess through small group discussions. The booklets were much appreciated. A "Literacy for Health Kit" was produced with the theme 'Literate people, Healthy people'. Interestingly, some of the field level workers moved on to better jobs in HIV related projects. Treatment seeking behaviour for many reproductive health concerns including voluntary testing increased improved. Learners are asking for more reading materials.
Discussion: As a spin off effect, the literacy and continuing education programme got a boost and some of the non-active continuing centres got activated. Finally, in order to achive Universal Access, Government needs to take this programm to scale, so that quality multi-lingual education materials including mother-tonguelanguages are produced to reach out to ethnic minorities and other marginalized communities. Additionally, there is a continuous need to undertake capacity building and skills upgradation of the functionaries.
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