ACAL Forum

Beyond Training: Locating Literacy in Social Policy

2 May 2003

View full brochure including timetable and registration form (pdf, 26k)

ACAL’s first forum for 2003 will examine the ways adult literacy and numeracy practices are entwined with many aspects of day-to-day life, resulting in the need for literacy policy responses to extend beyond the training sector into the broader social policy arena.

In the same way that literacy and numeracy cannot be described or understood without reference to social practice, so too responses to people’s literacy and numeracy learning needs must be grounded in a wider social policy landscape. Literacy issues need to be explicitly addressed in social policy that covers areas such as housing, employment, physical and mental health, finance, and community participation. Literacy practices embedded in these areas need to be highlighted as a vital part of living, training and lifelong learning. Furthermore, there is an urgency to locate issues of cross-sectoral involvement at the centre of the literacy policy framework.

ACAL will use the forum as an opportunity to gather advice to inform its broadening agenda for the coming years as well as to develop strategies for including adult literacy and numeracy concerns as a written part of social policy.

Suggested reading can be found at: http://www.staff.vu.edu.au/alnarc/onlineforum/AL_pap_spierings.htm

You can browse through our archive of meeting, seminar and workshop notices to see the range of activities QCAL organises.