Shaping Their Own Destiny: Understanding Scotland's Approach to Adult Literacy Education

Abstract

Scotland has a strong learner‐centred system of adult literacy and numeracy education. Examination of the Scottish system can usefully highlight the issues associated with application of this approach in adult education more generally. Two important aspects are the need for highly skilled educators and the difficulty of evaluating such systems. The authors conclude that the Scottish system is at a critical point in its development and may move closer to a more traditional model if the current approach is not deliberately maintained and developed.