Practice and Challenges of the Implementation of Integrated Functional Adult Literacy Program in Jimma Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the practices and challenges of implementation of integrated functional adult literacy program in Jimma zone. This study employed Descriptive survey design with quantitative and few qualitative methods were employed. From the 556 population 167 participants were selected from Integrated Functional Adult Literacy facilitators with simple random sampling and all the 167 samples responded the questionnaires, whereas; qualitative data was collected from 4 woreda education office experts through interview and document analysis. After collecting the data, quantitative data was analyzed using, mean and standard deviation. The qualitative data interpretation was made with a narrative analysis of relevant incident of the respondents’ responses. The results revealed that the program implementation is not encouraging and there is coordination, and commitment to improving the Integrated Functional Adult Literacy program from concerned body. The curriculum is not implemented as it was stipulated in the textbook of the learners, only facilitators teach alphabets and numbers without the involvement of the agriculture and health extension facilitators. The study result showed that the current practice used to implement Integrated Functional Adult Literacy, could not bring change as the right way to escape from illiteracy problem. In the zone, despite the growth of formal education, adult education has been impeded and the program handling system becomes not hopeful. Hence, the responsible government offices have to restructure the fragmented system of the program that could minimize the gap between the policy and existing practice.