ABSTRACT
The programme "New Opportunities" has been a bench mark withinadult education in Portugal, introducing processes of recognition and validation of prior learning and experience to allow school certification and professional qualifying of the adults. In some adult centres the partnership New Opportunities to Read+ (NOL+ was created aiming to improve the population's level of literacy. We have selected two case studies to analyse the practices developed within that partnership. We gathered information through document analysis and semi-structured interviews with the centre's directors and coordinators. Our findings show that the programme NOL+ improved the access to information and cultural activities, promoting literacy development and civic participation. In both centres, learning is understood as an everyday event associated with participation in collective life. We can further conclude that literacy practices, in those cases, promoted conscientization in its Freirian sense.
KEYWORDS
education and training of adults; recognition of prior learning processes; validation and certification skills; literacy