Digital strategies of Enhancement of the basic skills among adults as a ChancE to fight agaiNst functional illiteracy Erasmus Project

Project Title

Digital strategies of Enhancement of the basic skills among adults as a ChancE to fight agaiNst functional illiteracy

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

All the organisations that partnered for the preparation and implementation of DECENT project are providing adult education. From their current activities they identified one widely spread problem: many adults, especially the low qualified ones are facing functional illiteracy problems which prevent them to attend professional and personal development courses. This was the starting point of the collaboration of the 6 partners of the project. They also had in view that UNESCO study (I.2017) indicated that the level of functional illiteracy was very high among the adult population in their countries: 68,9% in RO, 51,8% in PL, 66% in BG, 43% in CY, 39,1% in ES, 62,2% in IT. At the same time it must be emphasized that adults who are affected by the functional illiteracy most often are not aware of it or displace it from their consciousness.
Director of Worldwide Education Strategy at Microsoft Corporation, Steven Duggan, stated that we need to view illiteracy as a health epidemic, and devote the same resources, we allocate to crises such as the Ebola outbreak, in tackling this issue. He also asks the question if given rapid advances in the ubiquity and power of mobile technologies, whether illiteracy is becoming an epidemic “for which the vaccine is already in people’s pocket.”
The main goal of DECENT project was to increase the effectiveness of the fight against the functional illiteracy among low qualified adults who are at risk of social exclusion in Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Spain and Italy.
Through the activities of the project, the six partners sought to raise the basic skills related to “learning to read”, “numerical calculation”, “effective communication”, “use of the modern technology”, as well as the general understanding and use of texts and numerical calculations for managing the daily living and employment tasks among the low qualified adults who are at risk of social exclusion in the partners’ countries. Meanwhile, the activities of the project were an awareness raising trigger for the adult educators who would have at their disposal a set of methods and tools that would allow them to contribute to reducing the functional illiteracy among the adults.
That is why the main target group of DECENT project consisted of low qualified adult individuals who were at risk of social exclusion (long-term unemployed, threatened by poverty, poorly educated). All project activities were geared to tackle their functional illiteracy problems and to improve the situation of this group. Furthermore, the project created tools for institutions which support and take care of adult who are at risk of social exclusion (adult education centres, social welfare institution, schools for adults, third age universities, associations supporting the fight against functional illiteracy and social exclusion, local and regional self-government education departments and adult educators).
Two outputs developed by the partners proved to be of real help for both target groups: the course “DECENT Life without Illiteracy” consisting of 6 modules to be used by the adult educators in their work with the adult learners facing functional illiteracy and the e-Tool/ interactive digital platform for fighting against functional illiteracy, consisting of 6 topics related to the results of the first intellectual output to be used both by adult educators in their work and by adult learners for overcoming their problems of functional illiteracy. All the results of the project can be found on its webpage (https://decent.erasmus.site/) and its Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/decent.project/). They are provided in 7 languages: English, Romanian, Polish, Bulgarian, Greek, Spanish and Italian.
For the partner organizations, as well as for trainers, the theoretical information, basic diagnostic exercises and methodologies for combating and limiting the consequences of functional illiteracy were gathered in one place. With the current job market situation, this tool, if properly implemented, could help many find a job, protect them from social exclusion, and help them deal with problems in their daily lives. It is also positive that people who chose not to share their problems of functional illiteracy have the opportunity to directly test their knowledge and skills on the platform and at least to be aware of the lack or presence of problems on the selected topics, as well as to start improve their knowledge.
An active dissemination of the project results as well as the succession of creation and validation of the outputs, ensured a high outreach of the project (over 180,000).

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 200826 Eur

Project Coordinator

Asociatia de Dezvoltare Economico-Sociala & Country: RO

Project Partners

• CENTRO PER LO SVILUPPO CREATIVO DANILO DOLCI
• Znam i Moga
• INSTALOFI LEVANTE SL
• STOWARZYSZENIE CENTRUM WSPIERANIA EDUKACJI I PRZEDSIEBIORCZOSCI
• CENTRE FOR ADVANCEMENT OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY LTD-CARDET