Where do we go from here?

Since we started working on this book, over three years ago, there have been several major changes in the area of adult education policy. In the Jomtien Education for All (EFA) discussions in 1990, adult education hardly featured, the emphasis being on increasing girls’ school attendance and enrolment. However, there has been growing recognition of the need to include adult education within the EFA endeavour and to stress the justification for women’s education on the grounds of human rights (see EFA Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO 2002). Since the year 2000, several of the major multilateral and bilateral aid agencies have written strategy papers on adult education, underlining the role that literacy support can play in relation to other sectoral activities (see DfID 2002; World Bank 2001).