This was a study of rural community literacy practices in Uganda. I used the social practices theory of literacy as a theoretical framework to investigate literacy use in rural community life in Bweyale. The social practices theory of literacy sees literacy as variable social practice that can only be understood within the social context of its use. Consistent with the social practices theoretical perspective and following similar research traditions in this area of literacy study, I used ethnographic research methods to collect data and grounded theory methods to analyse data on literacy use in Bweyale. The study revealed that rural people, contrary to popular perceptions about their illiteracy and hence lack of literacy, actually use reading and writing in a variety of ways in different domains of literacy use. Literacy pervades most aspects of rural community life, making rural people use literacy in many rich and creative ways. Most people, regardless of their literacy status, participate in local literacy practices. The most prominent areas of literacy use in rural community life are livelihood activities, education, religion, bureaucracy, household life, and personal life. The study also found that the conception of literacy among rural people in Bweyale is similar to the dominant conception of literacy. In this conception, literacy is seen as equal to education and/or schooling and it relates to modernity. Rural people see literacy as a valuable and important aspect of life. The literacy they value most is the dominant English language literacy. This is due to the multilingual nature of Uganda and the national language policy that made English the dominant language of literacy even in rural community life. The use of English literacy is also reinforced by its use as the language of instruction in Uganda’s education system where most people learn how to read and write. This dominance of English complicates literacy use in rural community life because it brings in the need for translation, especially when people who do not understand English are involved in a literacy event. It also complicates local language literacy learning. The use of English is closely associated with the dominant non-traditional activities like school education, the police service, modern trade practices, and to some extent, Christian religious practices. Local language literacy is mainly used when communicating information relating to traditional activities, for example, traditional medicinal practices or for personal use. The study recommends that adult literacy education curricula should be tailored to the local literacy practices of the people for whom the literacy programmes are being developed. This will help to make the literacy programmes immediately relevant to the everyday literacy practices of the learners’ community. The programmes should promote literacy use in the community by exploring new areas of literacy use in rural community life. These are areas in which the use of literacy could lead to better management of some activities in rural community life. In all, rural people are literate in ways that are not acknowledged in dominant literacy thinking and hence even by rural people themselves. This way of thinking must be discouraged. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

This study analyses adult learners' perceptions of functional adult literacy provision in six centres in Kampala city. Specifically, what is analysed is adult learners' perceptions of what motivates adults to enroll; their views on the appropriateness of the providers' strategies, approaches, methods and materials used; the venues, facilities, equipment, quantity and quality of facilitators; the extent to which the programmes address the adult learners' needs and the use of the knowledge and skills by those who complete the functional adult literacy programmes. Interviews, observation and focus group discussions were used to collect primary data from forty one adult learners from programmes of government, NGOs and the private sector in Kampala city. On the whole, findings indicate that the programmes are relevant, can improve learners' standards of living in urban areas and can help enable learners to live as useful citizens in their communities. A major de-motivator to participation was identified as shame associated with attending FAL classes. Some of the recommendations put forward are that: • Start up capital should be availed to the learners as literacy skills alone will not help them get out of poverty. • Facilitators should be well trained so as to be able to correctly use the strategies, approaches, participatory methods and adapt the rural based materials in a way that best facilitates learning. • Conditions of learning should be enhanced by improving the quality and quantity of facilities, equipment and facilitators. • The integrated functional adult literacy approach should be strengthened as it is preferred by both the learners and providing agencies. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

This was a comparative study of FAL and REFLECT'S adult literacy facilitator training processes in Uganda. It was based on the government's Functional Adult Literacy (FAL) programme, and Action Aid Uganda's (AAU) REFLECT Programmes.The purpose of this study was to: Find out the similarities and differences between the FAL and REFLECT facilitator training process. Establish how FAL and REFLECT facilitator training is organised. Establish how FAL and REFLECT facilitators are selected for training. Identify the teaching and learning materials used for training FAL and REFLECT literacy facilitators. Find out how the trained facilitators of FAL and REFLECT feel about the training and the approach they have been trained to use. Establish the kind of post training support arrangements provided for the trained adult literacy facilitators under FAL and REFLECT. These issues were all raised in the form of research questions and answered by the study. A qualitative research study was used to address the research questions. This included the use of focus group discussions, key informant interviews, questionnaires, direct observation and documentary analysis. The findings of this study are presented in chapter four under various headings applicable to both FAL and REFLECT. These are: the ideological view of literacy, selection of trainees and trainers, the training programmes, the training materials, funding for the training, employment arrangements after training, post training support arrangements, and evaluation of the training programme. From the findings, a general conclusion was drawn that the training processes of FAL and REFLECT were similar in the areas of organisation of the training programmes, selection of trainees, the sources of funding for the training programmes, deployment of trainees and evaluation of the training. Differences were found in the ideology which informs the two literacy approaches and therefore the training programmes for the literacy facilitators, the training methods and materials used and the post training support arrangements made for the trained literacy facilitators. The study concludes that the FAL and REFLECT literacy facilitator training is different. REFLECT has a better approach to training their literacy facilitators than FAL, although both approaches have many areas which should be improved for better training of their literacy facilitators. It was also noted that the differences between FAL and REFLECT occur in areas which are crucial for the success of a training programme and the performance of the trainees. This could explain the difference in the performance and effectiveness of the programmes using the two approaches. The recommendations call for serious attention to be given to the training of adult literacy facilitators to ensure that only qualified people are entrusted with the work of teaching adult literacy. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Natal, Durban, 2002.