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Recommendations for Improved Service Delivery
Our primary recommendation for improving service
delivery to adult education clients throughout the state is a philosophical one.
This study demonstrates the importance of acknowledging clients’
perspectives throughout the adult education process.
A client-centered approach actively involves undereducated adults in
setting educational goals. Such an
approach also requires recognizing negative perspectives of adult education
programs and/or credentials. In
sharp contrast to a “one size fits all” approach that assumes the GED is the
most appropriate credential for every adult education student, a client-centered
perspective will provide far more attention to individual goal-setting, support
for alternative certification, and sensitivity to local attitudes toward
educational credentials. Such an
approach will enable clients to select from a multitude of possibilities rather
than focusing narrowly and exclusively on the GED. The present study indicates that adult education providers
should involve clients in the assessment and goal-setting process early on in
order to discover clients’ expectations, aspirations, and abilities.
Second, we recommend the development of a plan for
adult education student enrollment and retention.
Many of the participants in this study had formerly entered adult
education programs but dropped out before reaching their goals.
Thus, the present study demonstrates that retention as well as
recruitment is an important issue.
Human resource practitioners in the workforce have historically viewed
adult development as either person-centered or production-centered.
A critique of these two approaches is that an over-emphasis on the person
(self-actualization) ignores economic factors affecting the workplace and yet an
over-emphasis on human capital development (producing good workers) ignores
social factors that influence individual learning.
An approach that balances the two, while difficult to implement, is a
principled problem-solving approach (Kuchinke, 1999).
In this model individual learners are “independent, active agents who
pursue a variety of goals at work—some in line with the mission of the
organization, some social, some economic, and some personal” (Kuchinke, 1999,
52). In the context of adult education and workforce development,
a problem-solving approach focuses on experiential learning and gives priority
to experience, taking into consideration the individual’s desires as well as
those of society. Such a vision of good work will benefit not only the
individual, it can also result in smart workers who have the intellectual,
moral, and social fortitude and vigor to confront the social and technical
problems of the workplace and arrive at innovative solutions that cannot be
found within the current system (Kuchinke, 1999, 153). How
can this perspective be applied to adult education practices that are currently
in place? The key is to value and
respect the experiences of each potential client and to provide opportunities
for learning that prioritize the active involvement of the individual in
problem-solving.
By
highlighting the views of adult learners and the active role individuals play in
adult education decision-making, rather than the values and goals of adult
education providers, this philosophy of program management acknowledges the
emancipatory potential of adult education and literacy programs (Arnove, 1989;
Freire, 1970; Freire and Macedo, 1987). A principled problem solving approach
recognizes more than one viable outcome for adult development and that
individuals must prepare for uncertain futures. Adult education providers must therefore provide:
A client-centered approach, therefore, does not stop with
personalized service (although this should be a priority).
Strategically, the client should also be seen as a partner in the
learning process, as having something to teach as well as something to learn.
The following recommendations support this approach:
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