ABSTRACT
This chapter will begin with some discussion of general issues relating to the emergence of mass education in the 20th century, and the significance attaching to literacy in this emergence, in both developed and developing countries. It will be suggested, first, that while the spread of mass education as a global phenomenon has not been uniformly successful, the aspiration to offer a literacy programme to all as an aspect of its emergence has become a concern in all countries, developed and developing. Second, it will be suggested that in the global trend towards extending literacy provision to all, a premium has attached to teaching what is sometimes referred to as ‘initial literacy’, where this has been understood as a phenomenon of the early years of primary schooling. Third, it will be argued that while the commitment to the teaching of initial literacy is itself a laudable thing, it is in fact misleading to see its teaching as the province only of the early years of schooling. While the research on literacy development in the various languages of the world no doubt remains to be fully undertaken, it is already clear, as I shall suggest later from available research on English literacy, that adequate provision of ‘initial literacy’ is a matter involving several years of education, and requiring considerably more than the rudimentary introduction to literacy that can be afforded in the first years of the primary schools. Initial literacy requires for its teaching all the years of a typical primary school education, and what might be termed ‘mature’ or ‘advanced’ literacy is a phenomenon whose mastery belongs at the earliest to the years of adolescence.
