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2004 marked the 30th anniversary of the first high-profile campaign
for adult literacy. On 4 July 1974, the Wilson Government announced
funding of £1 million for adult literacy and later that year
the Adult Literacy Resources Agency was formed to run a national campaign,
which was supported by the BBC, local education authorities and voluntary
organisations.
The announcement of the first £1 million was made by Gerry Fowler
MP, then Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science,
while his boss, the Secretary of State Reg Prentice, was on holiday.
Fowler had persuaded Joel Barnett, who was then chief secretary at
the treasury, to transfer the money from the university capital equipment
budget to fight adult literacy problems.
From the start, the campaign was run on a shoestring. The target was
to train an army of volunteers to start giving literacy tuition to
100,000 adults in the first year. A recent report had indicated that
two million adults lacked basic literacy skills. But the campaign
took off, with the BBC's 'On the Move' series, starring Bob Hoskins
the comedy actor, in humorous short sketches on prime time television.
The campaign put adult literacy on the political and educational map
and ALRA (the resource agency) established itself as a permanent arm
of NIACE under the leadership of its first head Bill Devereux and
his deputy Alan Wells. Two years later researchers discovered that
the adult literacy problem was much more serious, and the remedies
were likely to take much longer to work, than had at first been thought.
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A research project by Mary Hamilton, Lancaster University; Yvonne Hillier,
City University; and Samantha Parsons, Institute of Education, London has
examined the history of adult literacy, numeracy and ESOL from the 1970s
to the launch of the Skills for Life strategy in 2001. Visit the project
website at www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/projects/edres/changingfaces/
or read an article from Literacy
Today, December 2004.
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