ABSTRACT
Adult basic education is one of the most challenging and innovative areas of educational provision in Britain today. It covers basic literacy and numeracy for all adults, including those for whom English is a second language. Student participation in learning and management of programmes has always been a prominent part of the rhetoric of ABE in Britain, especially within community-based groups. Learners in ABE have as diverse backgrounds and needs as any other adult group, all ages, men and women, employed and unemployed, people with responsibilities for children, people from many different cultural and language groups. The adult literacy campaign emerged in Britain as a single issue problem, and the idea of a coherent policy and opportunities for adults to return to study at whatever level they need to have grown only sporadically since then. Apart from some work within the United States, Britain was the first of the industrialized countries to pay national attention to adult literacy.
