Archived Information

Adult Education, Migration, and Immigrant Education

## 

## **Roger Díaz de Cossío**

## 

##  **National Institute of Adult Education**

##  **Mexico**

# 

# Summary

Mexico is in the midst of a huge reform in the field of adult education.
At the same time, Mexico has been far and away, the largest producer of
immigrants into the United States at least during the last 50 years. Due
to the peculiar pattern on Mexican migration, Mexico and the United
States should work together more in adult, children, and bilingual
education as a whole and in relation to the needs of immigrants and
their families.

This paper describes briefly, the reform in adult education in Mexico
and possible parallels with other countries. Next, useful figures and
data are offered on Mexican migration to the United States. A few
references will be given to successful cases in immigrant education.
Finally, some comments will be made on the problems of immigrant
education in the United States and further cooperation from Mexico, the
sending country, as an example of what other country-pairs can do.

### 

### Introduction

There is universal agreement on what children and youth should learn
during the years of

compulsory education (9 to 12 years, depending on the country). It took
the world almost a century to reach this consensus. The 20th century was
the century of universal basic education for children and youth, even
though there are still a few countries, especially Muslim, where a large
proportion of girls do not go to school. Adult education will become the
topic for the 21st century.

Developed countries reached universal education early in the century,
while the rest of the world only recently achieved educational coverage,
but the aspiration of every country is the same: to reach every school
person within the compulsory age bracket.

Education has thus become a gigantic industry in every country, the most
labor intensive of all. It is composed of hundreds of thousands of
individuals in every country, with their own traditions and manner of
doing things. For many years the educational systems did not accept
responsibility for those that abandoned the system before finishing.
From here derived the famous and ugly words *drop-outs*.

The need for adult education was recognized later in the century. For
example, in Mexico the first adult education law was passed in 1975; it
defined as an adult any Mexican over 15, who had not covered at least 9
grades of compulsory education. Other countries have different target

groups and definitions. Adult education is seen as vocational training,
not just literacy and numeracy for members of the workforce. The concept
of lifelong learning appeared later and encompassed almost all
categories of adult education.

Developed countries who thought they had solved the literacy problem
because the great majority of their populations had gone through
compulsory education, suddenly found that it was not so. Large portions
of the labor force were functionally illiterate because in their lives
they did not have any use for what they learned.

Simultaneously, the elderly populations of developed countries are
rising while in some of them the school is decreasing like in Spain.
Sooner or later many more young immigrants will be needed to perform all
tasks and they will need to be integrated to the older societies,
recognizing their cultural and linguistic differences. This is a
colossal challenge for society, its educational systems, and especially
for immigrants. The problem will become more and more acute as the years
go by.

Mexico has sent the largest number of migrants received by the United
States in recent decades. As neighbors with a 2,000-mile common border,
which is crossed yearly more than 300 million times, both countries
offer through their multiple experience and practices in adult
education, very good examples for countries with similar problems.

##### Adult Education in Mexico

#### Background

# 

# Like in almost any country, we can find isolated efforts to educate adults in Mexico at the beginning of the century. There were night schools for workers and some efforts related to the training of the laborers with a low level of schooling. In 1900, more than 80 percent of Mexicans were illiterate and the main priority of all successive governments since that time, especially after the Mexican Revolution, 1910--20, was to develop a national school system. In 1998, less than 10 percent of persons older than 15 were illiterate, and the school system offers basic education to 95 percent of the school-age population. During the decades of construction of the educational system, many Mexicans were left behind; they either did not have the opportunity of going to school or the system did not yet offer full cycles of study.

# 

# Starting in 1945, colossal national literacy campaigns were mounted with the elementary purpose to teach how to read and write through volunteers and few written materials. All of these efforts failed because adults learned how to read and write simple texts in a few months, nothing changed in their lives, and they reverted to illiteracy, because they had no use for it, or did not perceive any use for it.

# 

# It was not until the mid-1970s when the government assumed responsibility for the education of adults. First, in 1973, the National Education Law was changed to allow open education. The 

# old law did not permit any person except a teacher to examine and accredit their students. Next, in 1975, an Adult Education Law was enacted. For the purposes of the law, an adult was defined as a person older than 15 who had not finished at least 9 grades of compulsory education.

The Law ordered the establishment of a national system for adult
education where literacy, open primary and secondary--which means in
Mexico grades seven through nine--was offered through the study of
specially developed materials, and accredited in a diverse succession of
independent and partial evaluations until the adult completed primary
(grade) school and secondary school (grade nine). The adults gathered in
study circles, received the texts they had to study, had a
quasi-volunteer external advisor, not a professional teacher, and were
examined periodically. The system was based in self-study and social
solidarity.

In 1975, special texts were developed for adults in literacy and four
other areas: Spanish, Mathematics, Social Science, and Natural Science.
In 1981, a special institution was created exclusively for adult
education in the sense described above: *Instituto Nacional para la
educacion de los adultos, (INEA)*, the National Adult Education
Institute. INEA was developed separately from the regular and formal
education system, which has only a few night schools for workers whose
presence is required, a certain number of workday hours, and follow the
curricula set for youngsters.

#### Present Situation

During the eighties, employers required a basic education school
certificate for almost every job and, INEA filled this void offering
workers the completion of their basic education through open systems of
learning. But currently with the extension of the formal system, 90
percent of the workforce has at least nine grades of schooling. Those
that do not fulfill this requirement are mostly elderly workers.

During the early part of the nineties, it became more and more difficult
to enroll adults in INEA's curriculum, because it offered only one
option to complete basic education. The same curriculum was offered to
women, men, farmers, young, and mature adults. Besides, 30 or 40 years
ago it was thought that adults who did not have the opportunity of
finishing school would learn later in life more or less the contents of
basic education for children. INEA's curriculum was developed in the
seventies with these ideas in mind. They had to learn from life in order
to survive. Also, no attention was paid to their specific and diverse
needs, they were simply not addressed. A deep reform was needed, which
took into account the findings of modern research, of which one
fundamental principle is that adult education should be needs based.
Adults learn only what they perceive as immediately interesting and
useful to them and their lives.

INEA has been working intensively throughout Mexico ever since its
inception, always with a very small budget. In spite of this, for the
last 26 years it has given more than 1,300,000 grade- school
certificates and 1,240,000 secondary-school certificates. At present,
about 182,000 adult basic-education certificates are given each year.
But this is still a very low figure for the needs of the country.

In 1997, Mexico's formal school system served almost 29 million
students, of which about 19.3 million were in compulsory education:
grades: one through nine. Thirty percent of a country's population
registered in schools is high for a developed and old nation, but not
enough for a young one. We still have a low percentage of students in
higher education, about 14 percent of the 18--24 year bracket, compared
to the 24 percent in the United States. The terminal efficiency of the
basic education system is still low. Out of 100 students entering first
grade, only 48 will finish ninth grade. Most students leave without
finishing compulsory education for financial reasons, their families
require the children to help provide for their needs. As a consequence,
every year the pool of adults older than 15 who require basic education
is

increased by 800,000.

We define *rezago educativo,* "those left behind," as the group of
Mexicans over 15 who have not finished 9 grades of compulsory education.
They are the target group for adult education. At the end of 1977, the
terrible numbers are as follows: 6 million are illiterate, 12 million
did not finish grade school, and 18 million having finished grade
school, did not finish 9th grade. Altogether 36 million men and women,
65 percent of the population, are older than 15. Except for the
illiterates, where there are more women, the proportion of genders in
the other groups is more or less the same. Economically they comprise
the poorest part of Mexico, include most of the inhabitants of the
Indian communities, and represent perhaps the gravest social problem in
the country. The majority of migrants to the United States come from
these groups.

Research was undertaken to find out what Mexican adults had learned from
their lives and what they wanted to learn. It was the first time ever an
adult was asked that question. During 1996 and part of 1997, more than
20,000 adults were interviewed in every state of Mexico. The sample
covered more or less the same proportion of women and men and ranged
from age 15 on up among rural, urban, and Indian communities. Another
variable was previous schooling. Three equal groups were taken: no
schooling, up to 6 years, and up to 8 years of education. After
registering their basic data, the main questions were "What do you do?"
"What else can you do?" There is a very precise word in Spanish for
these, ***saberes**,* the closest translation in English would be
***whole experiential skills***, commonly known as "know how." We
decided not to have a previous list of ***saberes,*** but rather jot
down the answers and the description of the skills as they explained it.
After some discussion, *it* was decided that being a housewife was a
***saber,*** and therefore, more than the sum of some abilities. The
same with ***campesino,*** "fieldworker." The second set of questions
were, "What would you like to learn?" and "What else would you like to
learn?"

Even though the sample was perhaps not big enough to detect fully the
whole diversity, the results were sufficiently clear in order to trace
the course of changes that should be intended. The only significant
variable was gender. Whether young or mature, urban or rural, with or
without schooling, they all wanted to learn a limited number of
practical skills. The six most frequent skills identified regardless of
gender totaled about 60 percent of those interviewed. For women:
cooking, dressmaking, beautician arts, confectionery, and knitting. For
men: carpentry, electricity, car repairing, masonry, and computing.
Basic education as a thing to learn in general appeared in both groups.
Computing was frequent, but not among the first six in women.

Perhaps the explanation of such concentrated selection resides in the
occupations. The ***rezago*** is the other Mexico, the poor Mexico.
About 10 percent of them have permanent jobs. The rest of this sector
consists of persons working or surviving in the informal economy, street
vendors, housewives, or ***campesinos*** (field laborers), who eat all
they produce and have to sell their artisan wares in the town market.
Mexican adults in need of basic education are not part of the workforce.
They know there are no regular jobs around and the only way they can
improve the

quality of their lives is by learning something they can control and
sell. The answers then are very rational.

INEA conducted other studies on the modes of operation of its system and
started upgrading technology to apply and grade exams. Taking into
account the latest research on the way adults learn, INEA established
the principal tenets for the reform:

-   The educational offer should be diversified according to the needs
    of different groups;

-   The skills learned by the adult during his or her life should be
    taken into account for a basic education certificate;

-   The ways of acquiring knowledge and skills should be as flexible as
    possible;

-   Training should count as should any previous schooling;

-   No matter what the content, the adult should be convinced that it
    will be immediately useful to improve his or her life; and

-   A minimum amount of language, math, and science skills (operational
    and communicational) should be acquired during the process.

Millions are now studying under the old linear and traditional mode and
cannot suddenly be shifted, therefore the new model has to fit the
traditional one and be applied gradually. Among the younger population
of adults, in the 15- to -25-year-olds there are thousands who try to
finish basic education through INEA in order to continue on to high
school and higher education, and they are successful.

The basic elements of the new adult education model of INEA are:

*Academic modules*

> They are being constructed along three lines, math, language, and
> science, from literacy to relevant contents and abilities roughly
> equivalent to our present open secondary program. The final level is
> not yet known, because everything is being field tested right now.
> There will be a succession of modules, each with printed materials of
> about 40 pages each, which will include final evaluations. By the end
> of the year we will probably have about 24 modules for all three
> lines.

*Diversified modules*

> Other modules will be offered based on the needs expressed by the
> adults, (i.e., cooking, carpentry, and so forth) through which adults
> will also improve their math and language abilities.

*Training and vocational courses*

> If the adult wishes to take any of the established vocational courses
> offered in our country, his successful effort will count towards
> earning a basic adult education certificate. So far, more that 15,000
> of these courses are registered, ranging from haute cuisine to
> computing.

*Modernized system of independent evaluations*

> All evaluations will be computer produced and graded. They will be
> based on the requirements of each module.

Instead of giving a fixed compensation to supervisors, advisors, and
volunteers for their work with adults, a small amount will be given for
each successful exam. If the supervisor is at the

same time a school principal, he would have an incentive to convert his
school, off-hours, into an adult education center, which seldom happened
before.

An Adult's Journey Toward a Basic Education Certificate

It was necessary to develop a system of points or credits, in order to
be flexible and take into account many different inputs for each adult.
The journey can be expressed as an equation which adds parts measured in
points.

*Previous schooling plus saberes plus vocational courses plus modules =
200 points (minimum)*

Commencing in 1999, adults in Mexico will have a greatly expanded set of
options to earn a basic education certificate. To start with, points
will be given for any previous schooling. For example, 50 points for
having finished fifth grade years ago, and so on. A maximum of 20 points
will be assigned for *saberes,* depending on his or her age. A
vocational course could be accredited, the points depending on the
number of course hours. Finally they can take several modules to
complete the required number of points. For adults with less than 3
years of schooling, the first two modules in math, language, and science
are compulsory.

A brief explanation has been given above of the basis for adult
education in Mexico and a sense of the directions of the reform in
progress. For lack of space, many details have been omitted. Mexico has
a great tradition in developing printed matter for the whole country.
This is one of its educational strengths. The success of the adult
education reform will depend on the appropriateness and variety offered
by the printed texts to the needs of adults. At any rate, all materials
will be experimental and in continuous improvement.

Mexican Migration

Migration of Mexicans to the United States is a structural phenomenon in
both societies. Mexico has never been able to provide satisfactory work
to all its inhabitants and therefore, those not satisfied with their
conditions and expectations migrate to the northern neighbor in search
for a better future. This is a Mexican tragedy. For more than a century
millions of Mexicans have contributed to the development of the United
States and not to their home country. The problem is accentuated by the
enormous economic differences of both countries, with a 2000-mile common
border which facilitates and induces migration.

The pattern of Mexican migration to the United States is very different
than migration from other countries. Most Mexicans go to visit a close
neighbor with the firm intention of returning to their home country,
sooner or later. The pattern is also circular. First, Mexicans go for a
few months each year during several years and when they find permanent
work, they settle and raise families. This has been going on for more
that 150 years.

The Mexican-American community was born with the independence of Texas
and was initially defined in 1848, after the war, when Mexico lost more
than half of its original territory. The new border "crossed" Mexicans
who had been there since before the war. Historians estimate this
initial group at about 84,000, from California to Texas. Almost
immediately after the war, Mexicans started migrating to the United
States. There has been a continuous and increasing flow ever since, as
the following gross figures show: the 1990 figures correspond to the
last U.S. Census. Estimates from a recent bi-national study on
Mexico-United States migration put the total Mexican origin population
close to 20 million and the Mexican born population presently living in
the United States at about 7 million, an increase of 2.5 million in only
6 years. The average age of these 7 million immigrants is about 20, with
almost 10 million descendants born in the United States or in Mexico.
Among the 7 million, there are around 2 million undocumented Mexican
workers of which one-third goes back and forth between both countries.
Many of them are male migrant workers who follow the crops from
California to Oregon, or from Florida to the Carolinas. Female
immigrants tend to work in the service industry and in factories.

Mexican immigrants are concentrated in a handful of states, California,
Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas (the original states that were
Mexican territories before 1848), and also in Illinois, New York, and
New Jersey. About 70 percent live there, the other 30 percent is spread
out in all other states.

Immigrant Education

Some Numbers

It is difficult to estimate the exact number of immigrants and their
children requiring education. The United States educational system is
totally decentralized. There are more than 16,000 school districts
coordinated by the states. Each of them is fairly independent in the way
they define a Limited English Proficiency (LEP) student.

The numerical importance of Spanish as the original language of
immigrants in the United States can be seen from LEP student estimates
made for the whole country by Hopstock and Bucaro in 1933. After
comparing several and sometimes widely diverging sources, they estimate
the total number of LEP students between the ages of 5 and 17 years old
at 2.4 million, that is 5.5 percent of the total student population. The
figure can be slightly larger in 1998 due to increasing migration in
recent years. What is important is the original language of the
students: 73 percent spoke Spanish 1.7 million. The other 27 percent was
divided into 20 other languages of which the most commonly spoken was
Vietnamese with almost 4 percent. About one-third of the students were
born in the United States and almost 20 percent had lived in the United
States for less than 1 year.

The Emergency Immigrant Education Act (EIEA) was passed by Congress in
response to the financial challenges facing school districts with large
numbers of immigrant children. About \$30 million are appropriated each
year and distributed to school districts in 37 states. California
receives 44 percent and New York 21 percent. Not every school district
applies for these funds. There are other federal grants for similar
purposes. The program served 350,000 students in 1984--85 and 826,000 in
1993--94. Students from over 100 countries participated in the
program--- 40 percent from Mexico, and 50 percent from all
Spanish-speaking countries (Mexico, El Salvador, and the Dominican
Republic). Vietnam was the second largest with about 5 percent of the
total.

Both sources coincide---the largest proportion of immigrants by far come
from Mexico.

General Remarks

The topic of immigrant education will become more and more important for
many developed countries, whose original populations are getting older
and even, in some cases, decreasing. Someone said that a century from
now there will be no Italians. Young migrants from other countries will
be arriving in larger and larger numbers and will settle, have children
and grandchildren. This has been the case in the United States, a
country of immigrants. Many problems occur when the newly arrived
immigrants begin to settle and adapt to the new mores. Many lessons can
be learned from the history of the United States in this regard.

At the beginning of the century, the only preoccupation about
non-English speaking immigrants and their children was that they be
obliged to learn barely enough English to perform their jobs. The
children were placed in regular schools where only English was used and,
of course, performed very poorly and lagged behind. There were some
schools, not very many, that offered instruction in the original
language of the children, while also they learned English. In all those
decades, many techniques were developed to teach English as a Second
Language (ESL). Some of them were applied in regular schools as an
addition to the curriculum. Immigrant children continued doing poorly.
Serious research was undertaken on all of these issues.

As the years went by, the Mexican-American community grew in numbers and
demanded equal opportunities for the education of its children. The same
demands were made by other immigrant communities. The situation improved
dramatically after the passing of the Civil Rights Law in 1964. Four
years later the Bilingual Education Act was approved, and funds were
allocated to the school districts, in order to establish innovative
programs for the education of children whose mother tongue was not
English.

Research had shown that children should be taught the core curriculum in
their original language, while they learned English as a second language
for several years, until they could continue their education in English.
But most important of all, their original culture was to be valued and
respected in the school environment and used to learn other topics in
both languages. If these conditions were met, immigrant children did not
lag behind and by the end of fourth or fifth grade, their language and
math skills were at the same level as their English speaking
contemporaries.

Today school-age children within the immigrant communities have very
good opportunities to attend institutions with a proper bilingual
program, especially if they reside in districts with large
concentrations of immigrants. Their parents do not have the same
opportunities immediately upon arrival into the United States. There are
several reasons for this. First, they have to work very hard, 8 to 12
hours a day, in low paying jobs, and therefore can not find the time to
go to adult education courses. Other than acquiring the rudiments of
oral English in their everyday contacts, they do not progress any
further. Second, most of the newcomers have a low level of education in
their mother tongue. Typically, Mexicans arrive with 2 or 3 years of
schooling in Spanish. Third, many of the ESL courses offered are
English-only courses. The teacher does not use the student's language or
culture at all, and when the adults attend they feel diminished, have
little or no grasp of the lessons, and leave after a few classes.
Fourth, many of them are undocumented and are afraid to go to class.

A substantial number of recent Mexican immigrants arrive with a greater
level of instruction, even high school or more. They have fewer problems
in adapting, because their educational level allows them to find better
jobs and learn better English. It is clear that the more you know in
your mother tongue, the easier it is for you to acquire a second
language. A different problem results when an immigrant from Mexico
arrives with adolescent children who finished 8 or 9 years of
instruction in Spanish and tries to enroll them in high school. The
children are given English proficiency tests, fail miserably and are
placed in grades that are well below their age and knowledge level, with
an almost permanent loss of self-esteem. Fewer high schools than grade
or middle schools have full bilingual instruction, which has been shown
as successful for introducing English to teens who otherwise have a very
good level of math and science in their mother tongues.

Many mature immigrant adults have the opportunity of vocational training
for new and better paying occupations in industry after residing in the
United States for several years. There are many excellent organizations
providing this type of service. The best of these accompany vocational
training with English and Spanish (or other language) literacy and
mathematics courses.

While there is abundant research on second language acquisition and the
proper practice for elementary and middle schools, the situation is not
the same for mathematics learning. Math education is in an uproar, in
general, not just as applied to numerical and immigrant education. Not
only in the United States, but in Mexico, the underlying problems are
the same: math lessons are taught by rote; elementary school teachers
are not properly trained and have fear of math. Mathematics is at the
same time a language for thinking and a tool for solving practical
problems. Many of the materials that stress one or the other perspective
are not clearly focused and often involve huge lists of meaningless
exercises. For mature persons this is a particularly difficult topic,
because the great majority of materials available do not convince adults
that math will be useful to them in their daily lives. Much more work is
needed on successful practices. In the following paragraphs, general
comments will be made on the basis for successful practices for
educating Mexican immigrants and their children in the United States.
They will serve as examples for other countries. For those who want to
follow details, theories, research, and teaching methods, there is a
veritable wealth of information on the World Wide Web. Some directions
to the most important sites will be indicated at the end of this text.

The following general principles to immigrant education have been taken
from several reports on exemplary cases and studies:

-   Learning is not a piecemeal, behaviorist process, but an internal
    response to experiences. The individual derives meaning from outside
    input when it is presented as an integrated whole related to his or
    her own experiences.

-   The more comprehensive the use of the primary language, the greater
    the potential to

> maximize the student's academic achievement. Even though circumstances
> may limit
>
> the school's capability to fully develop a student\'s primary
> language, there are always
>
> ways to nurture it.

-   The more solid the foundation in the primary language, the greater
    the chances of

academic achievement in the second language.

-   Limited-English-proficient students can be provided with substantial
    amounts of primary language instruction without impeding their
    acquisition of English language reading and math skills. Math skills
    are more solidly grounded if learned in both first and second
    languages.

-   Decisions regarding transition to formal second language instruction
    cannot be made

> arbitrarily and be the same for all students. They have to be assessed
> according to first
>
> and second language developments.

-   Parents and the community need to play a major role in the learning
    process of their children.

-   Instruction must be organized to help students understand and
    respect themselves and their own culture, as well as the culture of
    the broader society.

-   A comprehensive vision of school environment is essential to provide
    outstanding education where limited English proficiency students are
    fully integrated to all activities.

A general conclusion in all successful cases is that the teacher should
be cognizant of the student's original culture and language. The ideal
bilingual teacher is an educated and well-integrated immigrant or
immigrant descendant from same or similar origin as his or her students.
There is a huge shortage of this type of teacher in the United States.

There is no unique or perfect solution for immigrant education of
children and mature adults. A good result can be achieved in many ways
depending on the locality, the community setting, and support from state
and district authorities.

Collaboration from Mexico

In the particular case of Mexico and the United States, because of the
vicinity, there are many possibilities of collaboration to improve the
education of immigrants. The following types of actions are current, but
in each there is much room for growth:

> *Teacher training and other actions:*

-   Twelve Mexican universities offer summer courses in Spanish and
    Mexican culture to bilingual teachers and staff from the school
    districts with large concentration of children of Mexican origin.

-   Many Mexican immigrants have been schoolteachers in Mexico. Thirty
    of them became bilingual teachers in California after taking a
    2-year program. Based on this experience, a larger project is being
    proposed in which at least five U.S. universities and several school
    districts will be involved. They will be coordinated through the
    Intercultural Development Research Association and the Mexican and
    American Solidarity Foundation.

-   A few dozen Mexican teachers every year go to the United States to
    give lectures or short courses on the didactics of teaching math and
    science in Spanish.

-   Some groups of U.S. teachers visit Mexico and go to their student's
    original communities.

-   During the summers, 50 or 60 Mexican physical education teachers go
    to summer camps at different communities in the United States. They
    give talks on the history of Mexico besides organizing the children
    in different sports activities.

-   Mexico has sent grade school teachers to Chicago and Los Angeles, to
    become regular bilingual teachers in school districts in the United
    States. This is mostly symbolic because Mexico could not afford to
    be a main source of bilingual teachers. It does not have enough
    qualified teachers.

-   For children of migrant workers who spend part of the year in the
    United States and part in Mexico, several state governments and
    Mexico's federal government have

> developed a transfer certificate where the teachers note the level of
> studies, so that
>
> when the child goes to the other country the children can be placed
> properly in school.

-   Mexico has an educational satellite system in which distant learning
    is provided. The largest component is the contents of junior high
    school, besides other television courses and cultural programs. This
    signal is beginning to be taken by several school districts and some
    community based organizations, to reinforce learning of core
    subjects in Spanish.

-   There is a project not yet in place to connect children and schools
    in Mexico and the United States through computers.

Adult Education in Spanish

-   A few thousand Mexican immigrants are following adult education
    courses from INEA's curricula and materials, advised by volunteers.
    They will earn a Basic Education Certificate from Mexico. In some
    cases these courses are combined with English literacy courses in
    the United States school district sites.

-   Starting sometime this year INEA will recognize as credits for a
    Mexican certificate many vocational and ESL courses Mexican
    immigrants take in the United States. The benefits of this action
    are two-fold: it boosts the self-esteem of Mexican immigrants who
    see their home country has not forgotten them, and helps them
    accumulate credits for a Mexican certificate, which will be useful
    to them if they return to Mexico, as many do after a few years.

Printed Materials and Books in Spanish

-   For some years now the Ministry of Public Education of Mexico has
    sporadically sent children and adult texts, as well as general books
    in Spanish, to some school districts in the United States. This
    action, as all others, should be made systematic and broadened in
    scope.

Web Sites

<http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/>

National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. One of the most
comprehensive Web sites, with an impressive library of pertinent papers
and reports.

[http://www.cal.org](http://www.cal.org/)

CAL Center for Applied Linguistics. Maintains several clearinghouses in
the Web, including one for literacy education. (Add *.ncle* to the above
address)

[http://www.idra.org](http://www.idra.org/)

This site contains many texts on adult numeracy. Of special interest is
"A Framework for Adult Numeracy Standards: The Mathematical Skills and
Abilities Adults Need to be Equipped for the Future," which can be
downloaded.

Postscript

I learned many things from the Conference, especially the fact that we
are all in the same boat:

(a) we do not really know how adults learn and (b) in every country
    there is very little money for

adult education programs. We have not been able to sell our wares. We
have not convinced governments that the education of adults is one of
the most vital tasks for any country. This is why OECD's efforts on
behalf of adult education are of paramount importance; they raise the
level of awareness on the topic. But the problem is planetary, not only
of the OECD countries. There is an incredible distance between what
adults in Sweden need and their relatively small numbers, and what
millions, more than one-third of the population, need in Mexico. The
same could be said of the problems of France or Germany compared to
those of Brazil or India.

As we see a few decades into the next century, with their veritable
rivers of migrants going to the stronger economies, the problem becomes
one for the developed countries with their aging populations in dire
need of migrants. This is why I propose OECD should organize small
meetings or focus groups to analyze public policies and programs for
adult education in underdeveloped countries, where the quantity of the
demand becomes quality. We are talking about many millions of people in
each country. The argument is that the problem will impinge sooner or
later on OECD member countries, beyond Mexico and Turkey. We should
think on the globalization of poverty and how to deal with it.

> References

During 1996 and 1997, the Ministry of Education established a selection
exam to allocate high school applicants to the public schools of
Metropolitan Mexico City. About a quarter million students were assigned
places each year of whom more than 3,000 came from INEA's system, and
the second best exam in 1997 was from a 25-year-old INEA student.

*Mexico/United States Bi-national Study on Migration*, 1997. Susan
Martin and Enrique Loaza, Coordinators, Secretaria de Relaciones
Exteriores, Mexico.

Hopstock, Paul J., & Bucaro, Bonnie J., 1993. *A Review and Analysis of
Estimates of the LEP Student Population,*
www.ncbe.gwu.edu/miscpubs/siac/leppop.html

National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education, 1996. *Biennial Report
to Congress on the Emergency Immigrant Education Program,*
www.ncbe.gwu.edu/ncbepubs/reports/eiep96/report.html

Nadeau, Adel, 1997. *Linguistic Diversity and Reform?*: *Directions in
Language and Education.* National Clearinghouse of Bilingual Education,
Vol. 1, No. 10.

Berman, P., Minicucci, C., McLaughlin, B., Nelson, B., & Woodworth, K.,
1995. *School Reform and Student Diversity: Case Studies of Exemplary
Practices for LEP Students.* National Clearinghouse of Bilingual
Education, Washington, DC.