PROGRAM DELIVERY

Most ABE programs are delivered by community colleges and school boards -- institutions which are designed to meet the educational needs of young adults and children respectively. These institutions tend to provide most ABE programs within the same kind of time schedule developed for children in school and young adults in colleges, and fail to offer flexible programming geared to the needs of adult women. Many personal and financial responsibilities make it extremely difficult for adult women, especially those with young children, to pursue the upgrading of their education within rigid youth-oriented schedules.

Furthermore, these youth-oriented institutions do not provide adequate supplementary services to help women deal with the personal responsibilities which prevent them from regularly attending the programs. The services least likely to be provided is childcare, yet the lack of childcare is a major barrier to women's regular attendance in the programs. The second least provided service is transportation which, like childcare, is necessary to help women to physically get to the ABE programs.

Those supplementary services which are provided tend to be available mostly during the day. Consequently, women who work during the day and can only attend programs in the evening are deterred from so doing.

INSTRUCTORS

Under-educated women need to learn to read, write, and do simple arithmetic. They also need to acquire knowledge in such areas as mathematics and science in order to have meaningful access to the technical, non-traditional occupations, for which there is growing economic demand. The majority of ABE instructors in the survey do not have a science degree. Many tend to have a degree in education or in the general arts at the bachelor level. This is a problem with respect to the teaching of science to under-educated women. ABE instructors need skills in teaching the science and mathematics education required by the women. It is this kind of education that the women urgently need if the range of occupations accessible to them is to be expanded.

CURRICULUM

The under-educated women included in this survey described themselves as students and unemployed persons. As students they need and want to learn the three R's; as unemployed persons they need to acquire job-related skills such as knowing how to look for a job, how to fill out job application forms, how to read their pay slips, and so on. These, too, are basic educational needs of adults in society. Clearly, the three R's are not sufficient for under- educated adult women.

The major focus of ABE programs is reading and writing, followed by basic mathematics. This is compatible with the providers' definition of ABE as education which provides the three R's. Yet, as has been pointed repeatedly in this report, under-educated women need more than this. They need to be aware of the declining demand for traditional female jobs and the growing demand for technical, non-traditional occupations. They need to be encouraged to enter these occupations, and to acquire basic training in science. No respondent mentioned a basic knowledge of science in her definition of ABE.

There is no ABE curriculum for women. One is needed. Data were provided in this report which support the position that adult basic education comprises both basic literacy and post-literacy or pre-occupational programs. Each type of program appears to require a somewhat different curriculum and both should incorporate support services -- childcare, transportation, and counselling -- as an integral part of the educational program and curriculum.