2. We consider specially propitious the setting and the moment created by the 6th International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VI, Belem, Brazil, 1- 4 December 2009) to be held for the first time in the southern hemisphere and specifically in this region.

3. We feel ourselves moved by the call to advance “from literacy to lifelong
learning” set out during CONFINTEA V (Hamburg, 1997) and repeated in the
case of this region in the preparatory regional conference, held in Mexico in
September 2008.

(a) The predominant emphasis which has been given to literacy, to the point of once
again reducing adult education to literacy. In addition, the traditional
dichotomies between illiterate and literate and between “pure” illiterates and
“functional” illiterates, widely questioned by abundant research as well as by
the very development and complexity of the written culture in the world, persist.

(b) Literacy activities which are implemented in a vacuum, both at national and
regional levels, ignoring the rich and lengthy history of adult literacy for which
Latin America and the Caribbean are well know internationally.

(c) The persistence of a simplistic and facile conception of literacy seen as a
process which can be executed in a short period of time, in precarious
conditions, by educators with little or no training, using just one method, with
scarce reading and writing materials, a feeble use of modern technologies and
without taking into account the linguistic and cultural diversity of the students.
Precisely because they are illiterate people or with low levels of schooling these
poor sectors which have for years been denied the right to education, deserve
contemporary educational provision of the highest quality.

(d) The absence of learner assessment, often considering as literate those people
enrolled in programmes or who declare themselves as literate, without verifying
what they have really learned and without creating conditions in which they can
use what they have learned and continue learning. This way of proceeding not
only ignores the centrality which should be attributed to learning in the whole
educational process but also the very experience of rigorous evaluations of mass
literacy campaigns and programmes carried out in the same region in the past
and in the present, by which as a result instead of advancing, in many cases we
witness regression.

(e) The political use of numbers and literacy rates, including the declaration of
‘territories free of illiteracy’ or ‘literate countries’ on the basis of a purely
statistical estimate. Instead of facing up to the problematic with the integrity
which this deserves, the illusion is created of having solved illiteracy in a record
time. This contributes, on the other hand, to the contrary effect which is the
greater marginalization of those people and groups who are declared as literate
when they are not.

(f) The continued separation of illiteracy from its structural conditions of
reproduction, principally poverty and the denial of the right to a public free
quality education for the whole population, without which it is unthinkable to
solve the question of literacy in a sustainable fashion.

5. In this context, we make a renewed call to the international organisms to
coordinate inter-agency actions and to carry out their technical role, assuming
their responsibility in the face of the indispensable seriousness, transparency and
credibility of those government actions which they support. It is not an
exaggeration to record that organisms like UNESCO and others dedicated to the
tasks of international cooperation, were created to offer support to governments
for the benefit of their peoples.

6. Finally, we request that CONFINTEA VI deals in a critical and reflexive manner
with the question of illiteracy and the literacy of young people and adults in this
region and in the whole world, encouraging government initiatives but within
the framework of a sincere and not demagogic dialogue, open to the
participation of social organisations and to the diverse national and international
actors who intervene in this field.

Adult and Youth Education at the Santo Domingo Technological Institute (INTEC),
member of the Latin American Council of Adult Education (CEAAL) Working Group
on Literacy and Adult Education), ex-General Director of Adult Education, State
Secretariat of Education.

UNESCO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC), in
Santiago de Chile, and founding member of the Peruvian National Council of
Education.

Group of Studies and Research in Continuing Education (GEPEC) at UNICAMP and
coordinator of projects at the Abaporu Institute of Education and Culture,
Campinas/São Paulo.

in Literacy and Written Culture (GLEACE). Coordinator of the Latin American
Pronouncement on Education for All. Ex-Adviser of the Education Section at UNICEF-
New York and editor of the bulletin Education News. Ex-Minister of Education and
Cultures. Ex-Pedagogical Director of the National Literacy Campaign “Monseñor
Leonidas Proaño”. Moderator of the virtual networks E-ducative Community and
Ecuador-reads-and-writes.