Imagine an adult literacy class in which the students write their own 'primer'. The idea is not strange to participants in the Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowering Community Techniques (REFLECT) adult literacy programme. David Archer and Sara Cottingham evaluated Actionaid's piloting of the REFLECT technique in Uganda, Bangladesh, and El Salvador. The evaluation found that the REFLECT approach achieved better results, both in teaching literacy and empowering communities, than the conventional literacy programmes used as control groups

The REFLECT approach is built on two pillars. The first is the Freirean approach to education. Paulo Freire advocated a process of education that builds on people's experiential knowledge, and which links literacy to gaining higher self-awareness and social consciousness. The second pillar of the REFLECT approach is Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), a participatory research methodology in which community members working in groups record their knowledge in the form of diagrams. Examples of PRA diagrams are: natural resources maps, or calendars recording seasonal changes in income or food availability.

The REFLECT process begins with participants using PRA techniques to record their knowledge visually. The diagrams generated are labeled using standardised cards with pictures on them, which are easy for local people to recognise and copy. Learners make their own copies of the diagrams in exercise books. Written words are gradually associated with the diagrams. Participants learn by actively writing, not passively reading. As they gain literacy, they also conduct systematic studies of their communities, oriented on analysing community problems and finding opportunities for action.

The REFLECT pilot projects were evaluated against conventional adult literacy programmes being conducted in the same country, as controls. Of the people who enrolled in the REFLECT learning circles, 65 percent in El Salvador, 60 percent in Bangladesh and 68 percent in Uganda achieved literacy as compared to 43 percent, 26 percent and 22 percent in the respective control groups.

The REFLECT approach successfully links literacy to empowerment, a link which the project evaluators emphasise is not automatic. Participants reported self realisation as a benefit of the process. In El Salvador, 61 percent of graduates went on to take positions in community organizations. The REFLECT process sparked community projects to solve economic, infrastructure, health, and environmental problems. The REFLECT approach can empower women. In Uganda, men assumed household tasks like collecting firewood that they had never done before.

The approach has proved to be more cost effective than conventional approaches, since expenditure is shifted from producing primers to training. Key points about REFLECT for policy makers to consider:

• it achieves higher success rates than conventional primer-based methods
• the process leads to community action for development
• it generates a detailed assessment of communities useful to development agencies
• it is more cost effective than conventional approaches
• literacy does not automatically empower people, unless linked to an empowering process.

Source(s):
Action Research Report on Reflect: Regenerated Freirean Literacy Through Empowering Community Techniques: the Experiences of Three REFLECT Pilot Projects in Uganda, Bangladesh, El Salvador. ODA Education Research Serial No. 17, David Archer and Sara Cottingham (1996). > For free copies of full report: ODA Education Division, 94 Victoria Street, London SW1E 5JL, UK.

Funded by: Actionaid, UK (1993-1995)

id21 Research Highlight: 1998-Apr-02

Further Information:
David Archer
International Reflect Network
Actionaid
Hamlyn House
MacDonald Road
London
N19 5PG
UK

Tel: +44 (0)171 281 4101
Fax: +44 (0)171 263 7599
Contact the contributor: davida@actionaid.org.uk

Actionaid, UK

Other related links:
UK Department for International Development (formerly the ODA)