Abstract:
The National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education (NMEC) under
the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Education implemented the Revitalisation of Adult
and Youth Literacy Programme in March 2011 with the intention of increasing the nation’s
literacy rate as a complementary pathway to realising the goals of quality education and lifelong
learning for over 65 million young persons and adults who have missed out on the formal
system. However, available documentary reports have been self-reporting, without much
empirical evidence. This study therefore, was designed to evaluate the implementation of the
NMEC literacy programme, with a view to ascertaining the extent to which the programme
impacted on the attainment of the National literacy goal.
The Context Input Process Product Model guided the study, while the descriptive survey design
was adopted. The six Local Government Areas (LGAs) (Ibarapa North in Oyo State, Odeda in
Ogun State, Dukku in Gombe State, Yankwashi in Jigawa State, Bende in Abia State, and
Ughelli North in Delta State) where NMEC’s revitalisation programme was held were
purposively selected. Stratified random sampling was used to select 270 literacy facilitators and
220 literacy beneficiaries across the six LGAs. Ninety-six officials of NMEC zonal offices and
states agencies and 30 personnel of International development partners were enumerated.
Instruments used were NMEC Literacy Impact Assessment Questionnaire (r=0.88) and NMEC
Institutional Assessment Scale (r=0.79). These were complemented with six sessions of Focus
Group Discussion and seven sessions of Key Informant Interviews with literacy beneficiaries, as
well as NMEC’s Executive Secretary and state agencies directors respectively. Data were
analysed using content analysis, descriptive statistics and Pearson product moment correlation at
0.05 level of significance.
The beneficiaries of the NMEC programme were: adult non-literates (peasant farmers, market
women, nomads/migrants, and low-skilled workers) (53.0%), out-of-school street children and
youths (38.0%) and Quranic school children (9.0%). Basic literacy (58.0%) was the most
dominant and covered programme of the commission, followed by post-literacy (31.0%) and
vocational education (11.0%). The objectives (78.0%) and contents (76.0%) of the programme
were highly rated. With the exception of financial commitment (5.0%), the mobilisation of
resources: human (71.0%) and instructional materials (76.0%) were commended; while the
programme’s publicity (48.0%) was rated slightly below average. NMEC’s literacy programme
had positive significant relationships with the inauguration of state agencies promoting literacy
activities (r=0.70), networking with development partners (r=0.46), establishment and
monitoring of literacy centres (r=0.39), provision of instructional materials (r=0.26), advocacy
(r=0.24) and facilitators’ recruitment (r=0.21). Inadequate funding, difficulty in accessing
counterpart funding from Universal Basic Education Commission, recruitment of nonprofessional facilitators, and delayed payment/under-payment of facilitators by state agencies
were the major challenges to NMEC’s literacy programme.
Regardless of its financial constraints, the literacy programme of the National Commission for
Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education impacted positively on the attainment of the
national literacy goal. However, increase in funding, prompt payment of facilitators andxiv
recruitment of professional facilitators would improve the Commission’s capacity to implement
the Education-for-All literacy goal in Nigeria.
