Current debates and policy initiatives dominantly look at mitigating COVID-19 impacts on formal schooling, such as the effects of the shift to online learning. Against this backdrop, less attention is given to adult learning despite being widely recognised as having a vital role to play in the post-COVID-19 community strengthening. This webinar will explore the (potential) effects of the pandemic to adult learning and education programmes in contrasting contexts of Afghanistan, the Philippines, Uganda, and the UK. Drawing from these reflections, we hope that a better understanding of how COVID-19 affects ALE programmes will open up discussions on how academia, governments, and civil society actors could better engage with opportunities and challenges in the sector post-pandemic and beyond.

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The British Association for Literacy in Development (BALID) partners with the UNESCO Chair in Adult Literacy and Learning for Social Transformation at the University of East Anglia to deliver another virtual Informal Literacy Discussion (ILD)! ILDs have been running since 2011 and are led by literacy practitioners and academics on a range of current ‘hot topics’ in literacy.

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BALID is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) promoting adult and family literacy and numeracy as a basic human right, in the context of development. We aim to bring together organisations and individuals who believe that sharing experience about learning and literacy can help enrich workers and citizens in both the industrial and the developing world.
https://balid.org.uk

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This UNESCO Chair at the UEA programme aims to develop understanding about how adult learning – particularly for women and young adults – can help address inequalities in the poorest communities of the world. Through investigating how or why adult literacy might facilitate or respond to processes of social transformation, including women’s empowerment, the Chair programme sets out to strengthen the interaction between formal, non-formal and informal learning in research, policy and programmes.
https://www.uea.ac.uk/education/research/areas/literacy-and-development/unesco-chair