Accra, Sept. 20, GNA – The absence of a policy document governing the delivery of youth and adult functional literacy in Ghana, is said to be down-playing the importance of literacy education in overall national development.

Pamoja Ghana’s country level analysis of the Provision for Non Formal Education in Ghana had also shown low level of budgetary support to that segment of education in the country.

Pamoja Ghana is a network of youth and adult education practitioners who use mainly “REFLECT” and other participatory methods for literacy and development work.

REFLECT is an acronym, which stands for Regenerated Freirian Literacy Empowerment and Community Techniques, which is a right-based approach to development and a participatory tool to literacy, poverty alleviation and community development

At a dissemination forum in Accra on the report on Tuesday, Professor Kate Adeku formerly of the Institute of Continuing and Distance Education at the University of Ghana said, the report indicated that even though the 1992 constitution identified education as a right for all Ghanaians and that all persons shall have equal educational opportunities, no specific legal document exists in Ghana on literacy activities.

Pamoja Ghana, therefore, called for a policy to guide youth and adult functional literacy in the country and in addition Government needed to increase the share of Non Formal Education (NFE) sector of the budget for education in order to meet the international benchmark of at least three percent (3%). Currently the budget for the sector is less than one percent (1%).

The forum on Adult Literacy Policy Analysis, formed part of activities to mark this year’s UN International Literacy Day Celebration.

Another major issue the Pamoja Analysis identified was lack of collaboration among Ministries, Departments, and State agencies pursuing adult literacy programmes.

According to Pamoja, it was also important to establish an umbrella body to coordinate NFE activities in all sectors to avoid duplication of task and also mobilize resources to achieve greater impact.

The private media, Prof. Adeku said, should be brought on board to develop and broadcast youth and adult functional literacy programmes at least once a week in the country, adding the state media though were doing well they could improve.

Prof Adeku concluded that the recommendation would go a long way to help to contribute greatly to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

Touching on the importance of literacy, the Education Minister, Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu in a statement read for her said it is a right that expands people’s freedom, and constitutes the very foundation of human development.

“As we strive towards the ‘Education For All’ goal by 2015 the Government in its principles recognizes that all people irrespective of age, sex and culture, need education more than ever in today’s era of knowledge explosion.”

She said Government was committed to providing functional literacy to the youths and adult population, especially women, in order to ensure the achievement of human rights and total development.

“We are looking forward to adopting a more cost effective youth and adult literacy approach that would bring education to the door step of every youth and adult who missed out or dropped out of school, probably through no fault of theirs.”

She called for increased networking among civil society groups to exchange ideas and share experiences on innovative approaches to children, youth and adult literacy development.

She congratulated Pamoja Ghana Reflect Network and her collaborators on the efforts to bring policies on youth and adult literacy education to the limelight.

Providing background to the rationale of the forum, the National Coordinator, Pamoja Ghana Reflect Network, Mrs Millicent Akoto said various evaluation reports of progress towards the Education For All (EFA) goals showed that those related to literacy education, particularly for the youth and adults were being neglected and if nothing was done they would not be achieved by the 2015.

Hence, she said, Pamoja decided to undertake an analysis of Adult education policies in member countries to establish facts on policy provisions for youth and adult literacy.

Mrs Akoto said the forum was therefore to discuss the issues presented in the Report and be able to learn important lessons from it as well as contribute to what could be made out of the findings and recommendations, for the benefit of Ghana.