What is Adult Foundational Skills Education?

Hello LINCS Professional Development colleagues,

It's the start of a new year and a good time to re-consider many things: one of them is the name for our field. There is a discussion taking place in the LINCS Teaching and Learning Community that you may wish to participate in. I am copying my initial post below.

We have many terms to describe our field. I have probably used them all: adult education, lifelong learning, lifelong and lifewide learning, adult literacy, adult English language learning, adult basic education, adult education and literacy, nonformal education, adult basic skills education, as well as variations on these and probably others. However, none are unambiguous, comprehensive and well defined as a usable definition within our field and for others who want to understand what our field is and does.

Recently, I have settled on a term adopted by the Open Door Collective, adult foundational skills education. I like that it has the words adult and education and that foundational skills distinguishes our field from higher education. I also like that, so far, it has not yet been defined, widely discussed, or officially adopted by the field,  that there is time for members of our field to weigh in on the definition and its use.

LINCS may be a good place to introduce discussions about this. Below is my proposed definition for your consideration. You may feel that one of our current terms is fine, that it it isn't worth the effort to adopt a new one. Consider, however, that there may be advantages in adopting a new term, especially now that the Barbara Bush Foundation has launched its Literacy Action Plan, that the pandemic has raised political, economic and social awareness about the lack of digital literacy skills for many in our country, that many educators and public health advocates are concerned about health literacy skills and that a majority of adult education and literacy learners are immigrants pursuing English language skills.  I think it's time to consider this new term used by the Open Door Collective, how it can be defined broadly enough but also how it can distinguish our field from the PreK-12  and post-secondary education fields.

Here's what I propose as a definition for your consideration, questions, and comments:

What is Adult Foundational Skills Education?

Adult foundational skills are basic skills adults need for work, further education, helping their families, and functioning effectively in their communities. These include:

• English language skills for non-native speakers
• Basic literacy for adults who cannot read and write well, or at all
• Numeracy
• Adult secondary education leading to an adult high school diploma or high school equivalency certificate
• Preparation for post-secondary education
• Digital literacy
• Financial literacy
• Health literacy, and
• Other lifelong and lifewide skills.  

They may be offered by community-based programs, public schools, community colleges, volunteer tutoring programs, public libraries, employers, labor unions, faith-based organizations and other kinds of organizations and institutions.

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