ABSTRACT
The Functional Literary Programme (PAF) for adults developed by MOBRAL, an Agency of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Brazil, was started in 1970. The law establishing the objectives and operations of MOBRAL dates back to 1967. The main alterations over a ten year period were through programmes set up to complement or support functional literacy activities. Although it gave priority attention to the fifteen to thirty-five year age group, the programme was not devised in terms of ethnic groups, religious faiths, minorities, etc. Aimed at the masses, it was established in favour of lower-income groups (those of slender means, those left ‘on the side-lines’, the needy, the ‘lower classes’, etc) who had not had adequate opportunities of access to the school system or of achieving fairly in that system. In economic and social terms, illiteracy was seen as a barrier to development, its abolition a condition necessary, though not in itself sufficient, to Brazil’s economic and social development. For the individual, literacy training and the more general process of continuing education (formal or otherwise) appeared as a key to better income and improved living conditions.
When the PAF programme got under way in 1970 there were 18.1 million adult illiterates in Brazil, 55.6 per cent of the adult population. That was taken as a benchmark for action. The goal was to reduce illiteracy to levels comparable with those of the developed countries, about ten to twelve percent, within the decade. During the seventies, 14,456,678 persons received diplomas as completing PAF courses out of 55,810,122 enrolled. The percentage of approved to enrolled students was 45 per cent.[ 1 ]
12The objectives and basic structure of the PAF were not significantly modified, although supporting programmes were generated and modifications introduced to adapt to particular clienteles or groups. These generally related to the modes of action, leaving the main methodological aspects unaltered, for example, utilisation of means of mass communication and greater functionality of content in relation to local characteristics. The mass nature of the programmes and the scale of effort make description, analysis and evaluation of interest but difficult. Insufficiency of data and survey results precludes full answers to some questions about the programme. We therefore give only an approximate reply to the question, what is the impact of the programme on the reduction of poverty; and deal more fully with questions for which we can rely on the experience of MOBRAL, and on available information and survey results, concerning the successes and failures of adult literacy training activities.
