A few years ago, Jane Nakitto, 57 could not read or write her name, a situation that prevented her from pursuing her life's ambitions as a community leader. But thanks to the government's free Functional Adult Literacy programme, Nakitto has seen her fortunes turn for the better. For instance, she was elected the publicity secretary for Kisenyi parish in Kampala a few years ago in addition to being able to start her own crafts shop in Kisenyi.

Nakitto is one over 300 students who were this week receiving certificates from the Ministry Of Gender, Labour and Social Development on Functional Adult Literacy during a function at the National Theatre.

Interesting, Nebbi, Apac and Lira emerged as the three best performing districts in Uganda, despite their recent history of suffering as a result of 20 years of war and displacement.
However, despite the fact that the government subsidizes FAL, no many eligible Ugandans are joining it.

FAL started with 8 districts in 1992 but has now spread to all the 114 districts of Uganda.

However, seen from the view that millions of Ugandans still cannot read and write, the number of students (300) who enroll annually still reflects less than expected performance.

Since the programme begun in 1992, only 300,000 people have attained skills in writing and reading, entrepreneurship, art and craft under the scheme, according to Osinde Owor the Commissioner for Community Development and Illiteracy in the Ministry of Gender.

According to Nakitto, school dropout is one of the commonest problems that hinder people from attaining higher skills under FAL.
"They (students) come but when they learn a little bit of English then they disappear thinking they have got enough knowledge," said Nakitto.

Owor added that FAL also faces additional challenges coming from the cultural stigma attached with learning when someone is aged. He also cited lack of reading materials, civil wars and pastoral ways of life as major hindrances affecting functional adult education.

The government introduced adult literacy to empower people to combat poverty by equipping people with various skills.

Owor noted however that men generally perform worse than women because of their big egos. "Men have shown a poor attitude towards the FAL classes because when they sit together in class with their wives and a woman answers the questions, they feel ashamed and never return to class,"

By Brian Muhumuza blog comments powered by Disqus

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