Failing adult learners: Why Rwanda's adult literacy education is not delivering

Having a literate society has been a policy objective of the Rwandan Government for 20 years. However, in practice, it has never been a high priority, although investing in adult literacy education has the potential to contribute to socio-economic transformation. This paper reports on findings from a survey, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. We show that learners rarely benefit from attending literacy classes. Extreme poverty, lack of a ‘culture of reading’ and the poor delivery of literacy classes are the main barriers to student learning. Without more investment in training tutors, infrastructure and learning resources, the policy implementation gap will persist. © 2020