Participants at a recently-concluded two-day family learning symposium held on October 13 and 14 in Gros Islet, Saint Lucia, unanimously agreed on the need for the swift drafting and implementation of a regional family literacy policy.
The symposium, dubbed, ‘Making the Connections: Adult Literacy, Family Literacy and Early Childhood Development, organised by the Caribbean Child Support Initiative, through its Family Literacy Programme (FLP) and UNICEF’s Kingston Office, saw representatives from eight Caribbean islands gathering to discuss the way forward for family literacy in the Caribbean.
The forum was organised within the context of the Belem Framework for Action, which was adopted in Belem, Brazil, on December 9, 2009, by participants at the Sixth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA). This framework affirms that literacy is the most significant foundation upon which to build comprehensive, inclusive and integrated lifelong and life-wide learning for all young people and adults.
Most key note presenters, including Dr Didacus Jules, registrar at the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) and board chairman for the Foundation for the Development of Caribbean Children (FDCC); Fortuna Anthony, regional FLP coordinator; and Martina Augustin, dean of teacher education at the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College in St Lucia, spoke to the urgent need for the region to abandon the practice of defining literacy as simply the ability to read and write.
Instead, they argued that literacy should be seen as the process whereby children and indeed families are provided with the tools they need to function effectively in all aspects of life.
St Lucian Minister for Education and Culture, Arsene James, in his opening remarks, said literacy should be redefined as “the ability to function in a globalised world.”
Another key point raised during the symposium was that any attempt at family literacy in the Caribbean must be rooted in the region’s culture.
Executive director of the St Lucia Folk Research Centre, Kennedy ‘Boots’ Samuels said the Caribbean, through its history of struggle and hardships, has a vast reservoir of culture, spanning unique traditions and indigenous Creole languages. These he said, were vital tools that must be included in any literacy attempt in the region.
He underscored the importance of storytelling in literacy, and also emphasized the need for local languages to be used in this process.
“The harder it is for children to speak their natural language, the more they go silent,” he said.
Jules urged the participants to create a groundswell and generate interest in family literacy even as they attempt to appeal to governments for policy changes.
“This demands the creation of alliances”, he said, “We need to create a groundswell that will leave them no choice.”
Realising the severe need for an inter-generational approach to literacy in the Caribbean and the immediate end to programmes which attempt to educate children and adults separately, it was concluded that a policy relating to the specific needs and context of the region needs to be drafted.
This is especially important in light of research showing that children who learn along with their parents do better in school and that allowing parents to learn with their children, engenders a sense of hands-on parenting, which is key to the development of the region’s youngest citizens.
Since parents are often children’s first teachers, it was determined that they too need to be included in any attempt to make children literate.
The need to create a model that is particular to the Caribbean and which is sensitive to the region’s realities and culture and which builds on the Caribbean perspective of literacy was also established.
Augustin charged the participants to come together even outside of the symposium to draft a policy that addresses family literacy in the Caribbean, focusing on what needs to be done and how to go about doing it. She also urged them to develop a research agenda that focuses on family literacy policy, training and support.
Source-Caribbean News Now
