ABSTRACT
The rapid discarding of fundamental education in 1958 and the gradual but steady adoption of new literacy stances, can only be understood in the context of these new multilateral arrangements. René Maheu was the first Director-General since Huxley to attempt a thorough re-formulation of the UNESCO idea. He brought to the organisation brilliant and sorely-needed intellectual leadership. For Maheu, the very existence of adult illiteracy was a scandal. On the recommendation of the Montreal conference, the Director-General was instructed to set up a UNESCO International Committee for the Advancement of Adult Education. The concept of functional literacy as it emerged can be seen to have been little more than a set of hypotheses, some more readily testable than others. Functional literacy looked beyond these problems, moreover, in that it saw literacy education as capable of radical transformation into a comprehensive program of non-formal adult education which saw functionality chiefly in vocational and developmental terms.
