An examination of the difference between the contents of the FAL literacy curriculum/primers used in Uganda and everyday literacy practices in rural community life.

Abstract

Adult literacy learning programmes in Uganda and, I believe, in most African countries, are largely driven by national and community development concerns (see Carr-Hill et al., 2001; Fiedrich & Jellema, 2003; Wagner, 1995). These concerns are informed by the dominant theories of literacy. However, how the content of adult literacy learning programmes relates to literacy uses in everyday life is often taken for granted when developing adult learning programmes. In this article, I used the Uganda Functional Adult Literacy [FAL] programme as a case study, to show the difference between the content of the FAL curriculum/primer and what rural people read and write in their everyday life in Uganda‟s rural community life. I then recommend a social practices or the real literacy approach to adult literacy education as a better alternative that can reconcile literacy learning and literacy use in rural community life, and help the learner to make the connection between what they are learning in the literacy classes and the literacies that goes on outside the classrooms.