KINGSTOWN, St Vincent (CMC):
ABOUT 20 per cent of all Vincentians 15 years and older, some 17,000 indi-viduals, have difficulty with literacy and numeracy".
And with only 1706 of these taking classes with the National Literacy Crusade and four months left in the original 18-month mandate, the director says he will ask Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves for an extension to December 31 in the first instance.
"We have to continue because what we have done, we actually whet the public's appetite for education. People are coming forward now in numbers. In fact, we have to take it to another level," Hugh Wyllie told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) Monday.
In addition to seeking an extension, Wyllie said he will 'challenge' Dr. Gonsalves to mandate the Literacy Crusade team to set up a department of adult education to develop the human resource of the country.
"Some persons are literate but they are not marketable. They have no skills to sell so we want to give these people a chance to move on. We have the structure in place, we have a clientele and we are respected," he said.
Wyllie said the crusade could have done more but it was hampered by the lack of institutional framework at the commencement, and the effects of the general election campaign last December. However, he was pleased with the response so far.
"We have people who come to us knowing very little and when I say very little, I an talking about adults 50, 30, 45 years old who do not know the letters of the alphabet; who can't call the smallest of names, who cannot write their names, who cannot recognise their names," Wyllie said.
He said persons who can read "fairly simple sentence" come for assistance while shopkeepers and tradesmen are coming for help with their numeracy skills.
