Literacy and social responsibility

Abstract

Few educational issues stir public debate and discussion more often and more volubly than literacy. Community interest in it seems high, given the range of newspaper articles that regularly report aspects of literacy: student literacy performance in school, literacy levels in the workforce, programmes to promote improved literacy teaching, and/or periodic laments about literacy standards. Moreover, governments throughout the English-speaking world devote significant financial resources to literacy education, while teacher education programmes, typically of some years’ duration, attach importance to the preparation of teachers to teach literacy. And, so the evidence suggests, with some frequency, governments call either for new inquiries into the teaching of literacy or for new policy and curriculum statements to do with the teaching of English, in which literacy has always an important role.