guidance tools
Implications for future programme development
The Reading and Writing Foundation and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science acknowledge, in part thanks to GOAL, the importance of customisation: checking how you can provide custom support for various types of instruments. For this reason, the Reading and Writing Foundation is current developing variants of the Literacy Screener that are shorter and better applicable in organisations that have less elaborate work processes.
The pilot organisations make almost no use of the road map tool, partly because three of the four organisations provide internal language lessons. The Reading and Writing Foundation has also experienced (outside GOAL) that the road map tool instrument is not yet used often. This deserves additional attention after organisations have familiarised themselves with the use of the Literacy Screener.
Policy implications
Implications of policy
In the Netherlands, the focus is on one instrument: the Literacy Screener. This instrument can be administered quickly and easily and provides the pilot organisations with a structured method that allows them to identify low literacy among their clients. The organisations are convinced partly as a result of the assistance from the Reading and Writing Foundation of the importance of screening for low literacy and the Literacy Screener has been implemented successfully in their working process. The intensive and personal nature of the assistance has proved successful.
Implications for policy
It is evident from the experiences of the pilot organisations that they appreciate the added value of screening. However, the Reading and Writing Foundation has clearly experienced (inter alia during the recruitment for GOAL pilot organisations) that this added value is not always sufficient. The Count on Skills project leader and the initiator of GOAL in the Netherlands draws the following conclusions from the above:
“Screening does provide for a need, but the challenge is how we as the government and in this case the Reading and Writing Foundation can facilitate and support municipalities in such a manner that it actually aligns with their regular work processes. The Literacy Screener sometimes fits and sometimes does not. [...] The tension lies in the practical feasibility and the extent to which such an instrument can be implemented.”
