The history of adult literacy in teaching, research and extension at UFU and UFMG (1986-2019)

Abstract

In a country historically marked by high illiteracy rates - currently with 11,3 million illiterates - it is possible to verify through theoretical research, as well with professionals form educational field, that EJA has a peripheral place in public policies, activities, academic productions, especially with regard to youth and adult literacy. In this paper, we propose a reflection about the history of adult literacy, based on projects developed in the field of teaching, research and extension at UFU and UFMG, since the 1980s. The tripod of public universities are teaching, research and extension activities. Thematic and reflecting about the importance of extension projects in universities is the objective of this paper. Extension activities are not always valued in academic circles, as well as the education of young people and adults. In this paper two researchers seek to narrate the history lived in the academic field of adult literacy, as for UFMG, initially a research project was created, coordinated by professors of the Faculty of Letters, whose objective was to understand the process of acquisition of reading and writing in illiterate adults. The project was expanded over the years as an extension project, teaching and research of post-graduate students of the Education and Language line of the Graduate Program of FaE/UFMG. Reflecting about the long duration of this Project helps us to understand the place of universities in the educational process and in the social commitment that the academy should have with the less favored layers and in the socialization of the production of academic knowledge. As for UFU, the process was inverse to that of UFMG, because in this university the youth and adult education appears initially and in a timid way in an extension project, with one isolated course focused in students with psychosocial problems, that has been working for last 15 years. This experience has been consolidated not only in extension, but also in the fields of research on the history of literacy in EJA under the PPGED / FACED / UFU lines, as well as in the financial improvement courses of SEB / MEC and SECADI / MEC from of 2009.