Bullock (1975)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Foreword, Membership, Contents, Introduction

Part 1 Attitudes and standards
Chapter 1 Attitudes to the teaching of English
Chapter 2 Standards of reading
Chapter 3 Monitoring

Part 2 Language in the early years
Chapter 4 Language and learning
Chapter 5 Language in the early years

Part 3 Reading
Chapter 6 The reading process
Chapter 7 Reading in the early years
Chapter 8 Reading: the later stages
Chapter 9 Literature

Part 4 Language in the middle and secondary years
Chapter 10 Oral language
Chapter 11 Written language
Chapter 12 Language across the curriculum

Part 5 Organisation
Chapter 13 The primary and middle years
Chapter 14 Continuity between schools
Chapter 15 The secondary school
Chapter 16 LEA advisory services

Part 6 Reading and language difficulties
Chapter 17 Screening, diagnosis and recording
Chapter 18 Children with reading difficulties
Chapter 19 Adult literacy
Chapter 20 Children from families of overseas origin

Part 7 Resources
Chapter 21 Books
Chapter 22 Technological aids and broadcasting

Part 8 Teacher education and training
Chapter 23 Initial training
Chapter 24 In-service education

Part 9 The survey
Chapter 25: I Introduction
Chapter 25: II Primary commentary
Chapter 25: III Secondary commentary
Chapter 25: IV The questionnaire forms (not online)
Chapter 25: V Technical notes (not online)

Part 10 Sumary of conclusions and recommendations
Chapter 26 Conclusions and recommendations

Appendix A Witnesses and sources of evidence
Appendix B Visits made
Glossary
Index

Report of the Committee of Enquiry appointed by the Secretary of State for Education and Science under the Chairmanship of Sir Alan Bullock FBA

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1975
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Chapter 19 Adult literacy
[pages 277 - 283]

19.1 It is a disturbing fact that if a young person leaves school unable to read effectively he is quite likely to receive no further help for the rest of his life. For most adolescents the statutory leaving age marks the point at which in practice their literacy ceases to be a public responsibility and becomes purely their own. In the nature of things they are not well equipped to take on this responsibility, and even if they were they could not always count on finding adequate support. In the first year or so of their working life many young people may not find their lack of reading and writing ability a serious handicap. They are often in jobs which make no demands upon it, and in their private life they contrive to manage without it. But that does not mean it is matter of no concern to them. They often feel a sense of inadequacy, which reveals itself in pretended indifference or in attitudes of hostility. They adjust to their deficiency by a narrowing of their world to exclude print, but before long they find that this kind of rejection will not keep the problem at a distance. The need to be able to read and write intrudes increasingly upon their lives. Even if their job remains undemanding they may feel more and more exposed in their personal lives. Modern society assumes an ability to handle print, and the adult who does not possess it can feel vulnerable and alienated. Some young people never overcome their feelings of hostility, but many who would be glad to receive help have no idea where to go, or lack the confidence to take the first step.

19.2 There are three main tasks to be faced. The first is to remove the apathy, guilt, or hostility and convince the adolescent and adult that he need not resign himself to failure. The second is to make known to him where the right support can be found. These both imply the need for a counselling situation, since the contacts have to be more personal than can usually be afforded in normal enrolment for adult education. The third task is to provide this support on a much more comprehensive scale than is at present available.

19.3 It has to be acknowledged that when an adolescent leaves school with a long experience of failure the urge to put it permanently behind him can be very powerful. He is likely to have withdrawn in spirit while he is still there, but the act of leaving has a special significance. It marks the end of a way of life which, whatever its other compensations, has become associated with low self-esteem. This is a time, then, when he is least likely to want to return to a teaching situation, especially if the feeling of freedom is still relatively uncomplicated by serious embarrassments. For some this is the beginning of a long alienation from the idea of verbal learning, with a steadily diminishing prospect of ever returning to it. They will be conscious of the stigma, but will adjust to their deficiency through a life-style that entails as little exposure to it as possible. Others will be made aware of it more quickly, more painfully, and more often. Some of them will want to make good their loss, and succeed where they once repeatedly failed.

19.4 In a survey conducted by the National Association for Remedial Education (NARE) (1) an attempt was made to find the specific causes impelling people to seek help. Most of the men gave reasons associated with their jobs. They found that their deficiency robbed them of promotion prospects or exposed them to constant embarrassment where any kind of documentation was involved. One voluntary scheme told us that men applying for tuition gave such reasons as 'I've turned down promotion to foreman because I can't cope with the reports', 'When I go for a job and they give me a form I just walk out', 'The wife has to do my time-sheet'. The NARE survey showed women to be chiefly concerned with 'self-improvement', and they made frequent reference to the prospects of finding and keeping a boyfriend. Married members of both sexes are sometimes distressed at the difficulties to be faced when their children come to start school. The kind of remark they make is eloquent of their disturbance of mind: 'The kids keep asking questions, and I can't read to them', 'My child must never know'.

19.5 Evidence such as this, and the experience of the voluntary schemes, suggests that there are strong motives driving non-reading adults to remedy their disability. What is not known is the proportion who do anything about it. Recent research (2) conducted at Reading University showed that since 1950 adult literacy programmes in England have provided at least 30,700 adults with instruction for a period of 6 months or one school term. The figure for 1972 alone was at least 5,170. This is almost a sixth of the total, and it indicates that there has been a considerable increase in the number enrolling for instruction. The growth of opportunities has been particularly rapid since 1967, and indeed 38 programmes began during 1973 alone. These are encouraging developments, but there are no exact figures to reveal what proportion of the total need is being met. It is impossible to say with complete accuracy how many adult illiterates and semi-literates there are, but we have examined some of the indications in paragraphs 2.2 and 2.4. One thing is certain: the 5,170 or so receiving instruction in 1972 were only a fraction of those who stand in need of help at one level or another. The Russell Report (3) acknowledged the importance of improved provision in its comment that adult education included a concern for basic literacy. 'First there is the improvement of general education from the point where initial schooling ceased. For some this may go back to basic education of an elementary kind, including functional literacy and numeracy'. Another expression of the growing concern is the interest aroused by the initiative of the British Association of Settlements (4), which has rightly pressed for adult illiteracy to be made an immediate objective for action.

19.6 As a source of help the school often finds itself in an anomalous position. At the point of leaving, these young people are not always likely to heed advice on how to keep up the process of learning, which to them means failing. Nevertheless there is evidence that some schools do successfully guide their pupils to post-school opportunities, and more could be done in this respect. The evidence of our own visits to schools suggests that large numbers of pupils with very low reading ability leave without any kind of guidance. While realising the difficulties we think this an unfortunate omission. If a young person reaches the end of his statutory school life unable to read the education system has failed him in one vital respect, and that should not be the end of the matter. Every step should be taken to provide continuity, and with its knowledge of the pupil's learning difficulties the school has the first responsibility.

19.7 The indications are that most of those receiving instruction are persuaded to it by relatives and friends, who are often guided by Adult Education publicity material. Press, radio, and television play a substantial part by drawing attention periodically to the problems and the available solutions, and it would be valuable if references could be worked into popular programmes with large audiences. Local radio and the Public Library Service could be useful sources of immediate guidance, and specific publicity could be regularly featured in local newspapers. The local authority should inform employers and the various social agencies of opportunities. The latter are particularly well placed to give advice, since their role and contacts put them in a good position to recognise adults with reading and writing difficulties. They include the Social Service Departments, Youth Service Departments, probation officers, and officers of the LEA Careers Service and of the Employment Service. All have an important part to play in helping the adult illiterate. To fulfil this properly they need to be able to guide him to an efficient referral point, where counselling is available and where he can be introduced to the kind of tuition best designed to suit his needs. All this suggests carefully organised coordination on a scale not at present available.

19.8 We have remarked on the expansion of facilities for adult literacy instruction. The questions to be asked are: are there enough of them, and are they effective? The answer to the first can only be that provision nationally still falls far short of what it should be. There must be many young people, particularly in small towns and rural areas, who are without ready access to facilities. The majority of local education authorities offer, or are prepared to offer on demand, some form of instruction to adult illiterates. Most of the provision is in classes in evening institutions and adult education centres or in colleges of further education. Occasionally they are based on schools, and a few authorities offer individual help on a one to one basis. There is a relatively small number of voluntary schemes, of which the Cambridge House Literacy Scheme in Camberwell was the influential pioneer. They have established the value of a one to one approach with adults and are exercising increasing influence over general thinking about ways of dealing with adult illiteracy. In February 1973 prisons and borstals accounted for 116 programmes between them, and the Army School of Preliminary Education provides a very thorough course for entrants in need. Of the programmes described in the Reading University research report 40 per cent averaged two hours' instruction per week, and 36 per cent between three and six hours'. As might be expected, certain of the prisons and borstals were able to exceed this amount. One possibility which has not yet been sufficiently explored is that of using the work situation as a place where literacy improvement could be achieved. Part-time day education is a device which could be particularly effective with young employees. Certainly there is scope for greater involvement on the part of employers, unions and the industrial training agencies.

19.9 We are not able to comment on the quality and effectiveness of the courses, which lie outside our terms of reference. However, we are in no doubt that very great credit is due to the organisers of many of these programmes, official and voluntary, and to the teachers involved in them. Of course, facilities and circumstances vary enormously from one situation to another. Many pupils are taught in groups of up to fifteen, though a considerable number of programmes keep the size to a maximum of five. A minority manage to achieve individual tuition, and this is usually the aim of private schemes. In the USA adult literacy programmes operating on the group principle have been found to achieve disappointing results. The Committee on Reading of the National Academy of Education reported that pupils make very slow progress and frequently drop out before the goals have been reached. The failure of the courses has been attributed to a shortage of well-trained instructors, ineffective teaching techniques, inappropriate teaching materials, and difficulty in 'protecting the privacy and dignity of the learner'. One cannot infer from this that similar problems in this country would necessarily produce the same incidence of failure. But these difficulties also exist in the English situation, and it would be surprising if they did not substantially reduce the likelihood of success, particularly where they occur in combination. Some experienced witnesses were severely critical of the pattern of much group instruction. They identified the shortcomings as absence of proper training for instructors, lack of cohesion in the teaching groups, and a high rate of student turnover. The instructors, they said, were often drawn from local primary schools and had no experience of working with adults. Adolescents and adults, differing widely in age, appearance and intelligence, and each with his own individual problem, were all in the same room with the same tutor. Class registers at the end of any session showed that a large number of students attended irregularly and dropped out before the end of the course. This picture is not necessarily representative, but one or more of these shortcomings must be true of many adult literacy courses.

19.10 The 'basic' class is faced with three built-in difficulties. The problems of the non-reader are deeply personal, and for a variety of obvious reasons the group experience is often quite unsuitable for him, at least in the early stages. His teacher, however competent, is accustomed to a different learning context, and cannot without further training be expected to be expert in the special needs of the adult or post-school adolescent. Finally, the class is likely to be held in a school building, the ambience and associations of which are scarcely right for a fresh start. Despite these limiting conditions a great deal of devoted work is done, but it is reasonable to ask whether it is fair to teacher or taught that they should continue to be restricted by them.

19.11 We believe that individuals taking the first step towards renewing their contact with education should be able to expect privacy. Enough has been said of the vulnerability felt by many of them to make it obvious that the first impression may determine the success or failure of their whole venture. Individual tuition will result not only in a better adjustment to the learning process but in a positive attitude to the task. The right kind of personal relationship will give the student the support he needs to persevere. Research (5) has indicated that with schoolchildren a sympathetic individual relationship can in itself result in improved performance, even where no actual tuition is involved. It cannot be emphasised too strongly and too often that what the failing reader most needs, whatever his age, is the encouragement which will change his image of himself. With adults this has a much better chance of occurring in a one to one situation than in a group, where there may be other students who come with higher standards or make faster progress. It is, of course, simpler to recommend individual tuition than to create the number of tutors needed to make it available. The various voluntary schemes are making an excellent contribution, but they are still few in number and are to be found only in certain centres of population. Some authorities have already given a good lead by making grants to them, and some provide individual tuition themselves. We believe that more should do both and that they should help organisations into existence where local people show an interest in forming one. These schemes are an example of the community service at its best, and whenever a new one is founded it attracts a large number of offers from people who are willing to act as tutors. While it is encouraging that such schemes are supported by voluntary financial contributions, we do not believe that this source alone is sufficient to provide a sound foundation. Too often the organisations are forced to expend excessive amounts of time and energy in fund raising. Moreover, it is vitally important that once tuition has been started there should be no possibility of its being discontinued for lack of financial support. We therefore believe that local authorities should provide generous grants to these schemes and should help them maintain and extend their activities.

19.12 Local authority provision and voluntary private schemes hold the key between them. In their cooperation lies the opportunity for help on a new scale, with an extension of individual support and better counselling services. The major contribution will continue to rest with the local authority, and the new authorities will have the opportunity to take stock and assess what can be done to improve provision. We have already talked of the need to coordinate information services. The authority must reach out to more people, telling them what kind of help is available. An expansion in publicity would inevitably result in the need for more staff. The work of one of the private schemes received a good deal of attention in the Press, on radio, on television and in a large circulation women's magazine. There was an immediate and large increase in the number of self-referrals, and this response has been maintained ever since. One brief item on adult illiteracy in a BBC regional programme resulted in 300 enquiries in a single local authority. A local authority stepping up its 'open' publicity and at the same time making the various social agencies more aware would need to prepare for the resulting pressure on its facilities. Any further enterprise by the broadcasting organisations to provide televised courses, such as the series recently introduced by the BBC, would be almost certain to create a follow-up demand with similar effect. There would already be need for a considerable expansion of resources if a policy were adopted for a degree of individual tuition. We accept that an authority could not provide a private tutor for every student. Nevertheless, flexibility of staffing would allow private tuition where it was most needed or as an introduction for all students. There should be links between trained volunteers and trained teachers, and a mixture of one to one tuition and group work. In short, there should be a range of individual and group provision at different levels to meet different needs. Ideally, the personal relationship once formed should be maintained, and whatever grouping arrangements might later supervene the student should have the continuing support of this contact with his tutor-counsellor. Some authorities might have difficulty in providing accommodation other than in schools, but as far as possible it should be in surroundings which do not carry the disadvantage of earlier associations (6). The voluntary schemes work on the home learning principle, and go to some lengths to match tutor and student. This seems to us an excellent principle, since it presupposes a careful study of each entrant's individual needs. A reading age is simply not enough, for the student's condition involves far more than a given level of mechanical ability, and the approach and methods should be matched to his previous experience and present needs.

19.13 Some of the volunteer tutors in the private schemes are trained teachers, but the majority are from other and various walks of life, in the main unconnected with education. Most receive some training for the work, but the organisers say there is often a problem in finding experienced people to teach the tutors and to give them follow-up advisory support. There is no doubt that the ability to make the right relationship is the most important quality a tutor can possess. Nevertheless, he will operate more effectively and his own confidence will be the greater if he receives a good grounding in the skills of teaching reading. Not all trained teachers will have had the advantage of this, and even where they have they will need some help in adjusting their approaches to the situation of the adult or post-school adolescent. The local authority should make provision in its in-service training programme for all who are acting as tutors in adult literacy work.

19.14 Members of immigrant groups, usually men and boys, add considerably to the numbers of those requiring help with literacy. Many of them are non-native speakers of English who have acquired a fluency in speech - often at work - but have never learnt to read or write the language. Some of these may be illiterate even in their mother tongue and need help at the most fundamental level. Others come to literacy classes when they should properly be attending language classes, for they have very little knowledge indeed of spoken English. Then there is the adult of Caribbean origin, who may speak a form of English heavily influenced by the grammar and lexis of his own dialect. With the probable exception of the first group to be mentioned it is hard to see how the varying needs of these different kinds of illiterates can be met within a class of native speakers. They require tutors who have an understanding of the language difficulties of members of the different immigrant groups. These tutors should maintain close contact with those responsible for other types of language instruction at adult education level. Several voluntary schemes exist which deal exclusively with home tutoring for immigrant families; these are supported in some cases by the LEA and in others by such organisations as the local Community Relations Council. We urge that this support should be strengthened.

19.15 One of the most pressing needs of people involved in adult literacy work, under whatever auspices, is more suitable teaching materials. Many would like to make greater use of audio-visual aids, and all would welcome a wider range of reading material appropriate to the interests and needs of adult students. These do not exist in anything like the quantity that is necessary, but an expansion in provision is likely to lead to a correspondingly greater interest on the part of publishers. There is also a need for conferences for tutors at regional level. The Advisory Councils for Further Education could play a significant part in the development of such work. The effectiveness of the various forms of provision and of methods and materials should be evaluated, and the results widely disseminated. There is at present a lack of adequate centrally collected information on adult illiteracy. Our own information was gathered from a variety of sources, both individual and institutional, and we believe that provision should be made nationally to develop and evaluate materials and resources, give advice, and organise seminars and conferences. We recommend that the Secretary of State should consider ways in which these functions might be carried out most effectively.

19.16 Adult illiterates are not necessarily the best placed to say what caused them to fail at school. Understandably, they sometimes rationalise or seek reasons which put them in the best light. On the other hand they may denigrate themselves to avoid criticism. Nevertheless, the reasons they do present are instructive and they tend to follow a common pattern. Principal among them are illness during childhood, problems of hearing and sight not diagnosed early enough, frequent absence from school including truancy, repeated change of school, family disharmony or break-up, and poor teaching. Many of them reveal a long history of poor motivation, and from their stories it is clear that neither their parents nor their teachers were able to get over to them the value and rewards of learning to read: 'I didn't do anything at school. I just sat'. 'We did the same useless things, year after year'. A surprising number do not know whether their brothers and sisters are literate, and many maintain that their parents are not aware they have left school unable to read properly. In their homes the subject is simply never discussed. Those who have recently left school are often critical of the 'remedial' teaching they received, saying that it was skimped and that the teacher was not trained for the work. Whatever the bias of the respondents these causes are all real enough. In the long term the solution to the problem of adult illiteracy lies in preventive measures, and these paragraphs should therefore be read in company with what we have said about children with reading and language difficulties. But we again emphasise that the young person who leaves school with these difficulties unresolved should not be left to his own devices. The day of his leaving school should not be a dividing line beyond which further help is a matter of chance.

References and notes

1. Adult Illiteracy National Association for Remedial Education: 1972.

2. Survey of Provision for Adult Illiteracy in England RM Haviland: Centre for the Teaching of Reading, Reading University School of Education: 1973.

3. Adult Education: A Plan for Development HMSO: 1973.

4. See, for example, A Right to Read: Action for a Literate Britain British Association of Settlements: 1974.

5. Lawrence D The Effects of Counselling on Retarded Readers Educational Research, Vol. 13, No. 2: 1971.

6. In the USA the Right to Read Effort has recommended that public libraries should accommodate adult literacy work, and that where these are not available community centres, community schools, churches and office buildings should be used.