Adult basic education and other matters: what skunks behind the rose?

Abstract

In August 1980 Professor J. D. Turner of the Department of Higher and Adult Education of the University of Manchester, at a conference at the University of Cape Town, announced that the term ‘literacy work’ “had accumulated somewhat derogatory associations of non-professional charity work — apart from its inaccuracy” — and recommended that the activity of teaching adults with little or no schooling experience in future be named Adult Basic Education.² This event is recorded in the HSRC's survey of illiteracy in SA, and Turner is clearly used here as an authoritative source, to legitimise and to launch the change of nomenclature in South Africa.² Writers on the topic quickly fall into line, and ABE becomes the correct term to use when talking seriously about these things, despite the fact that both terms had been around for ages.

This paper was originally read at the 1985 Kenton Conference, and has also been published in Perspectives in Education, Vol 9 No 1.

This paper was originally read at the 1985 Kenton Conference, and has also been published in Perspectives in Education, Vol 9 No 1.

Notes

This paper was originally read at the 1985 Kenton Conference, and has also been published in Perspectives in Education, Vol 9 No 1.