The Learner Chooses: adult hands arrange stone shapes in a plum-and-ivory painting about making meaning at one's own pace. An imagined editorial scene, not a depiction of a program participant.
Adult learners deserve useful teaching, practical support and a real say in how they learn, without having to surrender their privacy or self-respect.
By Arbab Naseebullah Kasi, Chief Executive Officer - CEO, Feel Worldwide Foundation Inc.
Before an adult literacy program chooses its workbook, it should examine its welcome. Can someone ask about lessons without completing a complicated form? Is there a private place to talk? Will the first conversation begin with what the person wants to do, or with everything a stranger thinks they cannot do?
Those choices establish the terms of the relationship. An invitation to learn can offer respect, useful information and room to decide. It can also recreate the exposure that a person hoped to leave behind.
Adults bring knowledge to a classroom long before they bring a reading assessment. They may know how to repair equipment, care for relatives, negotiate prices, organize community activities or judge a difficult situation. Literacy skills matter enormously, but they are not a measure of intelligence, character or the value of a life.
The purpose of adult literacy education is to expand what people can choose and do. That requires sound teaching. It also requires conditions in which learners can ask questions, make mistakes and return next week without being diminished by the experience.
Understand the scale without reducing people to a label
UNESCO reports that at least 739 million youth and adults worldwide lacked basic literacy skills in 2024. This is a global estimate for a specific year, not a count of people currently seeking a course, and it should not be repeated without its date. UNESCO’s International Literacy Day overview.
The UNESCO Institute for Statistics defines the adult age group for its literacy indicator as people aged 15 and above. Its basic measure concerns reading and writing a short everyday sentence with understanding. The underlying information commonly comes from census or household declarations, with some surveys using simple assessments. Definitions and methods can differ across countries, and estimates are used where data are missing. These limits matter when comparing places or describing change. UIS literacy indicator methodology.
A basic threshold cannot describe the full range of a person's reading and writing. Someone may recognize familiar words but struggle to follow a long instruction. Another person may read confidently yet find writing difficult. A new form, unfamiliar vocabulary or a different script can change the task substantially.
Difficulty using a country's dominant language also should not automatically be classified as a basic literacy difficulty. Someone may read and write fluently in another language. A respectful assessment asks about that knowledge rather than treating it as absent.
For a local organization, the practical question is therefore more specific than how many people fall below a national threshold. It is which adults want support, what they want to accomplish, and what currently prevents them from finding a suitable place to learn.
Give the learner a say from the beginning
A useful opening question is simple: what would you like reading or writing to make easier?
The answer might involve a qualification, a work task, a favorite subject, a personal letter or reading for pleasure. No one should have to present an employment goal to make their learning worthwhile. Nor should a program assume that a parent wants every lesson organized around their children.
Ireland's National Adult Literacy Agency, NALA, places learners' own goals and choices at the center of its good-practice guidance. It also identifies trust, confidentiality and participation in the organization of learning as core principles. This is practitioner guidance, not a promise that any single approach will work for every adult. It offers a clear starting point for designing a respectful service. NALA’s principles for good adult literacy work.
Turn that starting point into an agreement the learner can understand. Explain the available options, costs, likely time commitment and what happens at an assessment. Ask about preferred ways to communicate. Agree on an initial goal and a time to review it. Make clear which choices are genuinely available rather than presenting a fixed timetable as personalized learning.
Assessment can be useful when it helps a tutor select appropriate teaching. Explain its purpose before beginning, conduct it sensitively and discuss the findings privately. Avoid surprise demands to read aloud in front of a group. Describe specific skills and next steps instead of attaching a humiliating label to the person.
Learner agency also includes the ability to change direction. A goal that felt urgent at enrollment may become less useful. Someone may prefer a different tutor, a group rather than individual lessons, or a pause. A good service has a way to discuss those choices without making the learner feel disloyal.
Make privacy understandable and consent meaningful
An adult should not have to disclose a painful school history to receive help with reading. Ask only for information that has a clear purpose, explain that purpose and make optional questions visibly optional.
Confidentiality needs an everyday explanation. Who can see assessment results? What information must be reported to a funder? Would an employer receive attendance details? What safeguarding or legal limits apply? Answer accurately rather than making an absolute promise that the service cannot keep.
Separate enrollment from publicity. Agreeing to lessons does not mean agreeing to a photograph, an interview, a fundraising appeal or a public account of one's earlier difficulties. Where an organization requests a story, it should explain the intended audience and use, offer a genuine choice, and clarify what can and cannot be withdrawn after publication. Refusal should not affect access to learning.
The same care applies to ordinary messages. Ask whether it is safe to leave a voicemail, send a text naming the service or post materials to the home. A shared phone or address can turn a well-meant reminder into an unwanted disclosure. Record the person's communication preference and honor it.
Support should preserve the person's decision-making role. When helping with an important form, explain the wording and check the intended answer. Do not quietly choose on their behalf. For medical, legal or financial decisions, connect the person with the appropriate qualified service rather than treating a literacy tutor as a substitute adviser.
Build flexibility around actual lives
Offering a free class does not remove the cost of attending it. Travel, caring responsibilities, foregone work, fatigue and the availability of a quiet place to study all affect whether a course is usable.
Ask about these conditions before interpreting absence as indifference. A person who cannot attend at six o'clock may be available at another time. Someone who misses several sessions may still want to continue. A punitive return process can turn a temporary interruption into a permanent departure.
NALA's teaching guidance describes a range of possibilities, including individual and group tuition, different times of day, distance learning and movement between options as needs change. It also stresses the importance of the learner-tutor relationship and a clear process for addressing difficulties. The relevant lesson for a small provider is to offer honest choices and dependable support within its capacity. NALA’s teaching and learning guidance.
Flexibility needs resources. It may mean transport assistance, accessible premises, appropriate childcare arrangements, scheduled telephone support or paid time for learning at work. These are possible supports to investigate with learners, not a universal package that every organization can promise.
Consider this illustrative design example, not a reported case: a provider advertises evening tuition, but the last bus leaves before the session ends. Moving the lesson by half an hour may be more useful than another recruitment campaign. The provider should check with learners and the transport service rather than assume that more advertising will solve low attendance.
Digital options also require a choice. A phone lesson may suit one person and be inaccessible to another because of hearing, privacy or communication needs. An online account can itself introduce a reading barrier. Let the learner try the format with support before making it the only route.
Listen to what learners say about the service
Published experience can make these design questions more concrete. NALA's June 2024 report, Learning with NALA, examined its tutoring and online services over March 2020 to November 2022. Two focus groups involved 14 learners and one tutor. Participants described confidence associated with directing their own learning and having achievements recognized. They also suggested practical improvements, including simpler login and printing processes and more positive wording about courses still underway.
These were volunteers from one service, with older adults and women over-represented in the groups. Their accounts are valuable qualitative evidence, not a representative estimate of all adult learners or proof that a particular format caused an improvement. Learning with NALA, focus-group findings.
The details are instructive. A program can celebrate personal growth while still making someone struggle to sign in. It can count certificates while describing unfinished work in ways learners dislike. Listening becomes useful when those observations lead to changes in the service.
Ask for feedback in more than a written survey. Offer a private conversation, supported response or another accessible method. Explain who will see the feedback and make it possible to criticize the service without having to confront the tutor directly. Where feasible, compensate learners for substantial advisory work rather than expecting them to supply unlimited expertise for free.
Do not reserve participation for the most confident speakers. People who leave early, decline a course or attend irregularly may identify barriers that the most satisfied participants never encounter. Seek their views only through appropriate, agreed contact, and respect a decision not to respond.
Combine respect with purposeful teaching
A friendly room is important, but adults deserve more than encouragement. Tutors need suitable preparation, access to good materials and support when a learner's needs exceed their expertise.
Build learning activities around agreed goals while identifying the component skills that need attention. If the goal concerns understanding a notice, useful work may involve unfamiliar vocabulary, locating key information and checking what action is required. The tutor should choose the teaching sequence through an appropriate assessment rather than assuming that repetition alone will solve every difficulty.
Use adult materials with clear layouts and manageable language. Straightforward content need not be childish. A short article about a subject the learner enjoys may provide a better starting point than a worksheet whose tone tells an adult they do not belong.
Accessibility should be discussed individually. Some learners may benefit from larger print, text-to-speech, additional time or another adjustment. Ask what has helped before, try suitable options together and review the result. Do not diagnose a learning disability from a brief encounter or assume that one adaptation fits everyone with the same diagnosis.
Keep practice safe. Use sample forms instead of real identity documents when possible. Remove personal details from materials used in groups. A learner can practice understanding an official letter without having its private contents displayed to everyone in the room.
Offer specific feedback: what became easier, what remains difficult and what the next lesson will address. Ask permission before sharing work or celebrating an achievement publicly. Quiet progress deserves as much respect as a presentation at an awards ceremony.
Measure learning without creating another source of shame
Programs need evidence that they are useful. Learners also deserve to understand their progress. Those purposes are best served by measures that are clear, relevant and proportionate.
Use an appropriate skills assessment where it serves the learning plan, alongside the person's own goals and examples of work over time. Record the level of assistance involved. Completing a familiar exercise with extensive prompting is different from applying a skill independently to a new task.
Keep confidence and demonstrated skill distinct. Both matter, but a confidence survey cannot establish how much reading ability has changed. Equally, a test score may miss the significance of choosing to write a message that someone previously asked another person to compose.
Attendance, enrollment and certificates each answer a different question. Report them with clear denominators and periods. If only people who completed a course answer the follow-up survey, say so. Do not turn their experience into a claim about everyone who enrolled.
Review what the organization can change. Are wait times long? Are materials hard to use? Do people know how to return after a break? Discuss findings with learners and protect privacy when reporting small groups. A detailed account of one recognizable person may disclose more than a name-free chart suggests.
Treat adult learning as a continuing public responsibility
UNESCO's 2015 Recommendation on Adult Learning and Education frames literacy as a continuum and calls for inclusive policies, participation and quality. The Marrakech Framework for Action, adopted in 2022 by representatives of more than 140 countries, renewed the commitment to lifelong learning. These are international policy commitments and guidance. They do not establish that a suitable, funded place is already available in every community. UNESCO’s 2015 Recommendation and Marrakech Framework for Action.
The practical test is what those commitments make possible locally. Sustainable provision needs trained educators, reliable funding, accessible entry points and routes into further learning for people who want them. A short campaign may attract attention, but learners need to know whether support will still exist after the campaign ends.
Employers can examine whether learning time is genuinely usable and whether participation is handled respectfully. Libraries and community organizations can help people locate verified services without exposing them. Funders can ask about learner participation, accessibility and continuity alongside enrollment totals.
Organizations should also improve their own communication now. People should not have to finish a course before they can understand a service notice or get help with an application. Clear documents and human assistance can coexist with opportunities to develop literacy skills.
A practical first step is to invite adult learners to review the route into a local service, from the first advertisement to the first lesson. Ask where the process becomes confusing, intrusive or difficult to fit into everyday life. Choose a change, make it, and ask whether it helped.
Adults arrive with experience, responsibilities and ambitions of their own. A worthwhile literacy service gives them useful tools and room to exercise judgment. Dignity should be present in the first conversation and remain present when learning becomes difficult.
If you have experience in adult education, accessible materials or practical learner support, consider proposing a clearly scoped contribution through Feel Worldwide Foundation’s partnership inquiry. Describe the support you could offer, the setting it would suit and its limits, without including private learner records. You can also support Feel Worldwide Foundation’s mission with a donation.
