leaders, Cooperative and Credit Union employees, teachers, and representatives of the Jamaica Library Service. 21. A 6-week lecture course in Trade and Tariffs for members of the Trinidad and Tobago Junior Chamber of Commerce, including discussion of problems of underdeveloped areas and West Indian Customs Union and Industrial Development. 22. Organization in Jamaica of a series of classes on music appreciation. Jamaica Social Welfare Commission In addition to the Extra-Mural work of the University College of the West Indies, there are throughout the British Caribbean various projects attuned to adult and community education at what may be termed the "grassroots" level. Jamaica may perhaps be regarded as having taken the lead in this respect. Several governmental, quasi-governmental, and voluntary projects have been underway for some years in activities of this nature. In recent years these have consisted of the activities of the Jamaica Social Welfare Commission, the Sugar Industry Labour Welfare Board, the Jamaica Agricultural Society, and other bodies.* To discuss only one of these agencies, the Jamaica Social Welfare Commission is a quasi-governmental body which began as a private organization, Jamaica Welfare Limited, in 1937. It is today a statutory body authorized by and drawing its revenue from the Jamaican Government, but operating largely as an autonomous agency. It has carried on a program of social and community development through stimulation of the concept of guided selfhelp and the organization of community organization and councils to this end, largely in rural areas. The work has developed along four main lines: cooperatives, community education, cottage industries, and mobile cinema units. In community education the program has covered a wide variety of educational training activities for adults geared to practical living. These activities have included literacy training, home economics, handicrafts, drama and recreation, audiovisual aids, and programs in other fields. A word regarding illiteracy and literacy training in Jamaica and the British Caribbean generally may be said at this point. The Social Welfare Commission has carried on this training in Jamaica as an integral part of community education in diet, health, recreation, and functional living generally. It is the principal agency in the British Caribbean concerning itself with this problem. One problem in Jamaica and elsewhere appears to be the loss or lapsing of literacy by those who, on leaving the elementary school with at least some degree of literacy, cease to read for various reasons, in 4 Adult Education on Jamaica, The Caribbean, 11: 271-273, July 1958. cluding a lack of materials related to their daily living. There is a paucity of factual statistical data in this matter in most of the territories, and little organized literacy training work. For this and other reasons it appears that published figures on illiteracy ratios may be low. Such figures on the illiteracy rate in the population 15 years of age and older in the several territories are as follows (all figures are as of the 1946 census, except for Jamaica, where they are taken from the 1943 census): Barbados, 8.9 percent; British Guiana, 24.1 percent; British Honduras, 18.9 percent; Jamaica, 27.6 percent; Leeward Islands, 19.2 percent; Trinidad and Tobago, 26.2 percent; and Windward Islands, 34.3 percent. In connection with the problem of adult literacy in the British Caribbean area and the role of the Jamaica Social Welfare Commission, the Commission's Literacy Section sponsored a Caribbean Seminar on Literacy in collaboration with the Extra-Mural Department of the University College of the West Indies early in 1960. The Seminar considered the need for adult literacy in various Caribbean territories, exchanged information on existing projects, and suggested methods of carrying out programs. Delegates from all the British Caribbean territories, as well as from Netherlands and French Caribbean areas, Puerto Rico, Panama, and Mexico were invited. Other Programs In certain territories the British Council, an arm of the British Government designed to promote a knowledge of the United Kingdom and to conduct programs of cultural relations, has carried on various adult education activities. In British Guiana, for example, it co-sponsored with the Extra-Mural Department of the University College in 1957 a symposium on Adult Education in British Guiana. This brought together representatives of governmental, business, and other agencies engaged in various forms of adult education, and resulted in 1958 in the organization of the Adult Education Association of British Guiana. The aims and objectives of the Association, as stated in its Constitution and Rules, are (1) to help to stimulate all forms of adult education, and to provide a channel through which needs may be expressed and an organization through which they can be met; (2) to provide a means of liaison and coordination between all organizations and persons concerned with forms of adult education, including cooperation between government departments and voluntary bodies; (3) to give whatever help may be appropriate 5 UNESCO, World Survey of Education, II: Primary Education, p. 1179 fr. 6 UCWI Newsletter, No. 315, Dec. 21, 1959. and possible to member organizations providing adult education; (4) to take steps to ensure that provision of adult education is made where none exists; (5) to encourage adult education by radio; (6) to encourage discussion of problems and methods among adult education workers, voluntary and professional; (7) to maintain a register of teachers and tutors of adult classes and study groups; (8) to encourage training of group leaders and adult teachers and to arrange training courses; and (9) to stimulate the provision and use of reading material for adult study. It may be noted that British Guiana has had in recent years a combined Community Development and Ministry of Education. As one type of adult and community education activities in that territory, the Ministry has carried on certain programs of this nature in several Community Development Pilot Projects, which were undertaken in collaboration with the United States Government's International Cooperation Administration. In Barbados a substantial program of evening classes in academic and practical subjects has been sponsored by the Barbados Evening Institute, an arm of the Education Department, and there are also community education projects, carried on in a number of community centers. In Antigua provision has been made under the overall guidance of the Ministry of Social Services for the organization of village community councils of private citizens in each village. The functions of these councils have embraced various types of community development services and activities, including projects designed to foster "the social and educational well being of the inhabitants of the villages." In Trinidad the Education Extension Service, which previously formed a unit in the Education Department and conducted a wide program of community education services, was transferred, more or less simultaneously with the inauguration of the Government's 5-Year Development Program for 1958-62, to the Department of Social Services. It has been renamed the Community Development Service, and its functions have been broadened in scope. The 5Year Development Program proposed various projects of Community Education as part of larger plans of Community Development and Adult Education. Included was a project for a Community Education Centre, to serve in the production and distribution of educational materials and the training of workers in this field. It is considered as one of the Program's most significant contributions to adult education. The long-range development plans and programs of other territories likewise contain provision for various adult and community education projects. 7 Government of Trinidad and Tobago, Five Year Development Programme, 1958-1962, p. 39; Report of the Education Department, 1956, p. 23. |