Most of what is known about the effects and benefits of literacy training in Tanzania is based on the perspectives of policy makers, or researchers utilizing the official state perspective, while the participation of adult learners in the evaluation of adult literacy training activities has remained minimal. The response of adult learners to the state adult education and literacy training policies has not been adequately studied, while the impact of the latter on the former has tended to be overvalued. At the same time the scope of analysis has been too global to illuminate the actual practice at the grassroots level. Presenting the state of the art review on the contributions of literacy training to development in the context of Tanzania, this paper argues for more in-depth analyses of the social, political and economic consequences of literacy training, particularly at the grassroots level. Since in third world societies it is the state which plays a predominant role in managing societal learning processes, the paper underscores the need to make it an object of analysis as well. Then, participatory action research is considered to be the most appropriate research paradigm in such studies which seek to illuminate the more intricate social and political realities.
Read
