The Role of Adult Basic and Literacy Education Essays -- Adult Educati

The Role of Adult Basic and Literacy EducationWith the passage of the 1988 Family Support work out (FSA), adult basic and literacy education was linked to welfare reform. Based on experimentation with welfare reform during the previous decade, the FSA created the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills procreation Program (JOBS). JOBS, which requires states to make educational services available to welfare recipients, was created in response to the general consensus that welfare recipients are not well prompt to enter the work force (Cohen et al. 1994). One of its major underlying assumptions is that a strong foundation of literacy and basic adroitnesss is critical to the successful transition to concern and self-sufficiency for AFDC parents-especially young parents (National Institute for Literacy 1994, p. 2).The educational and skill levels of welfare recipients as a group are lower than that of the general adult population. For example, compared to 27 percent of the general adul t population, nearly 50 percent of welfare recipients do not have a high school sheepskin (NIFL 1994). Also, 30 percent of welfare recipients have basic skills below those of the stripped skill level of all women in the lowest occupational skill areas (Cohen et al. 1994). Thus, to the architects of the FSA, a logical avenue for assisting welfare recipients in achieving economic self-sufficiency was to provide those who needed it adult basic and literacy education services done JOBS. The need for this assistance has subsequently been supported an estimated two-thirds of JOBS enrollees require basic skills enhancement before they are able to enter the work force (ibid.). The early(a) third are placed in employment more immediately, all in the private secto... ...elfare as We Know It? Summary Briefing Paper. Washington, DC NIFL, June 1994. (ED 372 279)Pauly, E. Long, D. A. and Martinson, K. Linking Welfare and Education A Study of unfermented Programs in phoebe bird States. Ne w York, NY Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, May 1992. (ED 346 266)Pauly, E., and Martinson, K. Adult Education-A New Stimulus from Welfare Reform. Adult Learning 5, no. 2 (November-December 1993) 15-16.Reder, S., and Wikelund, K. R. travel to Success Literacy Development in a Welfare-to-Work Program. Portland, OR Literacy, Language & communication Program, Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, November 1994.Wikelund, K. R. Motivations for Learning Voices of Women Welfare Reform Participants. NCAL technical Report TR93-10. Philadelphia National Center on Adult Literacy, University of Pennsylvania, October 1993. (ED 364 748).