Selection of Effective Adult Literacy
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Ghana

GILLBT Literacy Programme

Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT)

Context

Ghana’s official national policy, as outlined in Vision 2020 (1996), states that all children have a right to ten years of primary education from the age of six to sixteen. Teaching should be in the local language for the first three school years, followed by seven years in English, the official language of Ghana. The central objective of Vision 2020 is to reduce poverty and improve people’s quality of life, as well as increase citizens’ awareness of their rights. Unfortunately, however, it has encountered some major obstacles. Despite the Ghanaian government’s commendable effort to promote literacy, only fifteen of the 63 local languages are currently supported in terms of materials and language training provisions for teachers.

Since 1973, the Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT) has been carrying out a successful, community-based literacy programme among 34 language groups in the poorest and least educated regions of Ghana. The situation in the northern and central parts of the country is considered to be worse than elsewhere (with an adult illiteracy rate below the national average of around 30% and a proportion of out-of-school children in excess of the estimate of 25% nationwide), and for this reason, GILLBT activities specifically target these regions.

Programme

The goal of the GILLBT literacy programme is to facilitate the empowerment of the rural adult population in order to free them from their social, economic, spiritual and political exclusion. It focuses on 22 language groups that are mainly located in the less developed rural areas of Ghana, in the northern part of the country and in the North Volta region. 3000 local volunteers, teachers and supervisors carry out the activities. A total of 37,000 learners pass through its programme annually.

The literacy programme provides basic skills in reading, writing and numeracy. Functional literacy training is followed by advanced literacy in the local language and English to provide further learning opportunities. Other components include HIV/AIDS-prevention, income generating activities, a rights-based approach to empowerment and gender promotion.

GILLBT has developed a Five Phase Model to manage the programme. The aim of this model is to raise the level of education of rural minority language groups. Once enough learners and organizers from each language group have acquired literacy skills, they will become self-sufficient. The goal is to devolve responsibilities progressively to local communities, thus preparing them for independent, self-sustaining management.

GILLBT has also evolved a programme structure that specifies the functions of the programme’s stakeholders and main participants. This structure makes local people the main decision-makers at the project level. Regional Coordinators liaise between the organization’s headquarters in Tamale and the local projects. Their role is mainly to monitor and supervise progress. The head office also solicits support, and networks with donors and other organizations. As a result of the devolution of responsibilities to local people, GILLBT’s headquarters are relatively small. In addition to the National Literacy Manager, the Literacy Department has 12 national and regional members of staff coordinating all language projects.

The communities targeted by the GILLBT programme are mostly dependent upon subsistence farming, with a little additional income from cash crops. Local people and community leaders have expressed a desire to become literate in their mother tongue since GILLBT programme was first launched. The communities have supported the programme by making people available to be trained as volunteer supervisors and teachers. Moreover, they have also provided different incentive packages to the volunteers in the form of food or by providing free labour on their farms.

The facilitators are trained in their local language (including its grammatical structures), as well as in adult learning techniques and participatory approaches (PRA), among others. Annual courses for facilitators are also part of the programme. Apart from teaching, the courses for learners include discussions and participatory sessions, exchanges of ideas on issues of interest, and drama activities. Each graduate receives a certificate after passing a final test.

The functional literacy classes incorporate business practices such as book keeping and appropriate techniques from the initial start-up stage to the marketing phase, together with information that raises learners’ awareness of citizen rights and peaceful ways of reform. The aim is to enable literacy to play a functional and meaningful role in daily life, thereby:

• facilitating community-based adult functional education for the purpose of enabling local sustainable development;
• improving literacy skills (including numeracy) of rural minorities to introduce new ideas that improve their overall welfare, and later extending their literacy skills to English to facilitate their economic, social and political integration into mainstream Ghanaian society;
• facilitating income-generating activities so that learners can become self-sufficient in the long term and acquire managerial and administrative skills;
• improving the status of women in their communities and increasing female involvement both as learners and organizers. This is supported by the Gender Promotion Programme (GPP) component of the literacy programme; and
• using skills gained in literacy to address issues such as health (HIV/AIDS and other STIs, malaria, etc), responsible citizenship and gender.

Since it was inaugurated in 1973, the GILLBT programme has achieved the following:

• Over 500,000 people have become functionally literate and passed the test prescribed by GILLBT.
• Three language groups have reached the fifth phase and become autonomous NGOs.
• 10,000 of the literacy programme graduates have made the transition into formal education, with 500 securing job opportunities, 6 going on to university and 100 continuing their education in other tertiary institutions.
• In conjunction with the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Ghana’s abridged constitution of 1992 has been translated into 30 different languages.
• Overall enrolment in schools in the three northern regions in which GILLBT activities are concentrated has increased remarkably over the last few years.
• Over 1000 booklets have been written in local languages to address current issues. In 1991, UNESCO awarded GILLBT for its efforts in developing African literature.

GILLBT literacy activities possess the characteristics essential to ensuring a successful literacy programme. The organization has a committed staff, an effective administrative and management system, strong local involvement and support, and appropriate and culturally sensitive instructional methods and materials. There is a large volunteer force of teachers and supervisors at grassroots level that contributes to programme sustainability. However, GILLBT does not have long-term guaranteed sources of funding, and there is an over-reliance (70% of the annual budget) on a small number of external donors. These benefactors have continued to support GILLBT largely because of the good reputation it has acquired over the years for its prudent management of resources.

The programme’s main donors include SIL International, the Oikonomos Foundation (Netherlands), Wycliffe Australia, and the Tearfund (UK). GILLBT is also working in close cooperation with the Non-Formal Education Department of the Ghanaian Government, as well as with the Institute for Adult Education in the University of Ghana (Lagon).

Lessons learned

Despite the success of the GILLBT projects and efforts by other programmes in the field, illiteracy remains a problem in Ghana, especially in the poorer northern regions. The government’s leadership is essential for the promotion of functional literacy and it is hoped that it will continue to provide the same level of support in future.

The voluntary services provided by the communities have contributed to the expansion of the projects as these enabled GILLBT to use its limited resources to purchase essential teaching and learning materials. As the programme involves local community members in the management of project activities, it has managed to continue even without guaranteed long-term funding.

The use of volunteers has also proven to be an efficient way of achieving community participation, ownership and support. The general view is that the involvement of volunteers at different levels of the project has helped to reduce the overall project costs. The volunteers have also provided committed persons to take charge of the GILLBT literacy programme.

However, the programme cannot rely indefinitely on volunteerism alone. The community-based nature of the project, together with the social recognition gained from voluntary work, has thus far guaranteed the running of activities. However, the project must be economically prepared for demands for some form of remuneration from teachers and supervisors in the future.

The Institute’s ability to sustain large-scale literacy projects for this length of time is a major achievement. Over the past decades, GILLBT’s literacy efforts have stood out from those of other national actors that have been largely supported by major international donors.

Contact

George Maalug Kombian
National Literacy Manager
Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT)
P.O.BOX TL 378
Tamale
Ghana
litadmin_gillbt@sil.org
george_maalug@sil.org