Learning together across generations: guidelines for family literacy and learning programmes

Learning together across generations: guidelines for family literacy and learning programmes
This resource pack offers an introduction to the concepts of ‘family literacy’, ‘family learning’ and ‘intergen-erational approaches to learning’ as well as relevant guidelines for setting up and piloting a family literacy and learning programme, and examples of materials and tools. It is developed for stakeholders – mainly in sub-Saharan Africa – who are interested in piloting a family learning programme. These stakeholders include policy- and decision-makers, governmental departments and institutions, non-governmental and civil society organizations, community leaders, teachers, educators, facilitators and learners, among others. The pack has resulted from a process of identifying and analysing promising practices and from consulting resource per-sons from selected family literacy and family learning programmes in all world regions.

Family literacy and family learning are approaches to learning that focus on intergenerational interactions within families and communities. This, in turn, promotes the development of literacy, numeracy, language and life skills. Family learning recognizes the vital role that parents, grandparents and other caregivers play in their children’s education. Furthermore, it values and supports all forms of learning in homes and communities. It seeks to break down artificial barriers between learning in different contexts: in formal or non-formal settings in schools or adult literacy courses, on the one hand, and in informal home and community environments, on the other. Very often, the desire to help children with schoolwork motivates parents or caregivers to re-engage in learning themselves and improve their own literacy, numeracy, language and other basic skills. For this reason, family literacy and family learning initiatives support adults, whose own education has been limited for various reasons, in helping their children with learning. The focus of family literacy and family learning is therefore on both children’s and adults’ learning.

Year:
Organisation:
UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning
Keywords:
literacy, family learning, intergenerational approach
Marginalized & Vulnerable group:
All
Topic:
System wide approach, Language of Instruction
Level of Education:
Across the education sector, Lifelong learning, Non-formal Education
Type of Resources:
Guidelines and Tools
Country/Region:
Africa
Language of Publication:
English