Keiko Yasukawa

Adults with low literacy skills are perhaps best known by many researchers, and most policy makers and the public, through statistics. These are trumpeted in international reports and country‑speci...

Numeracy, along with literacy and increasingly digital skills, is trumpeted in policies as a core skill for adults internationally. Yet, in policy advocacy and the “naming” of the field that is concerned with supporting the literacy and numeracy development of adults, numeracy is often a hidden face, a shadow following literacy. One needs to dig beneath the names of policies, education providers or professional associations to notice that they are also concerned with numeracy. Against this backdrop, this paper explores the views of expert informants from the adult literacy and numeracy practitioner community on the importance of numeracy development for adults and factors supporting or hindering adults’ participation in numeracy learning. The findings suggest that, notwithstanding the invisibility of numeracy in adult education, there are other barriers that limit greater participation and the realisation of the wide range of benefits that numeracy development can afford. The paper contributes to a greater understanding of the link between the environment for numeracy development and the range of benefits that can be accrued from participation in numeracy programmes.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), launched by the United Nations in 2015, established ambitious targets to be achieved by 2030, including in education. SDG 4, which focuses on ensuring “inclusive and equitable quality education and promot[ing] lifelong learning opportunities for all”, attracted attention from the adult education sector for the role that adult learning and education (ALE) can play in its realisation, and the potential for the SDGs to boost the visibility and support of ALE. This article reports on a study that explored the role of ALE in lifelong learning in eight case study countries (Australia, Brazil, India, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, South Africa, Thailand and Ukraine). It explores the literature and examines the supports for and challenges of ALE to better understand its potential in helping to realise SDG 4, using a mega-, macro-, meso- and micro-level theoretical framework. Twenty-seven experts in ALE from across the eight countries were interviewed, and data analysis was undertaken using a grounded theory approach. The findings indicate that while SDG 4 was not a strong driver for ALE activities in these countries, initiatives were focused on the same issues targeted by SDG 4. The analysis also points to the unequal policy support given to formal and non-formal ALE activities, and the critical role that ALE networks and associations can play in addressing some of the most ambitious SDG 4 targets.