IMPLEMENTATION OF ADULT LITERACY PROGRAMME (EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Although Nigeria began its campaign against illiteracy during the colonial era, It was not until independence that literacy programmes gained increased momentum. In the 1950s, regional government launched a free primary education, programme to enable adult have access to primary education, and in 1976 the central government introduced a compulsory, free universal primary education (U.P.E) Scheme. The UPE programme ushered in an era of expanded growth for primary school and education as a whole. Many teachers were trained through distance learning by the national teacher Institute (N.T.I) In 1982 the government of Sheu Shagari launched a ten year adult literacy campaign which included the establishment of state agencies whose main objective was to combat illiteracy in Nigeria. In 1996, the UNDP began to assist the literacy programmes with equipment, technical and financial resources. This enables the government to transfer the U.P.E into the universal basic education scheme (U.B.E 1999). Unlike the U.P.E, which endeavored to promote access to primary education, the U.B.E sought to promote access to education for all, including adults, out of school, youths, children and people living in special circumstances, such as nomads. During the period 1995-2004, these programmes raised the national literacy rate to 84% 69% for youth and adult respectively. Other efforts are currently underway to use the media, especially the radio to reach the countries 60 million and the more illiterates.
The majority of the adults are farmers some are artism while others are petty traders. A close observation has show that since the introduction of mass literacy programmes in the country in 1982 by the federal government, the programme has not been fully felt by the adults in the local government area.
With far reaching experiences, it has been discovered that the implementation of adult literacy programmes is faced with a great number of problems and this is focus of this study.
