ADULT LITERACY TEXTBOOKS IN ANGOLA AND THE INFLUENCE OF PAULO FREIRE

Abstract

Angola was under the aegis of Portuguese colonialism until 1975, following a 14-year war and the victory of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), inspired by Marxist-Leninist thought. The high number of illiterates in the country concerned “comrades” of the movement. In view of this, they noticed the need to produce didactic materials for teaching reading and writing, as well as pedagogical training for literacy teachers, in accordance with the principles of a conscientizing literacy. Therefore, the objective of this article is to analyze the adult literacy teaching manuals of Angola, specifically the Literacy Manual and the Literacy Guide of the collection A vitória é certa, and to observe the influences of Freirean thought in such materials. These books were organized and produced in the 1960s by members and militants of the Center for African Studies (CEA) and the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), and were reissued in the years that followed, both before and after independence. The work was anchored on documental and bibliographical research, whose documentation was inventoried in the Angolan Digital Archive of the Tchiweka Documentation Association, and in the Digital Library of Memories of Africa and, of the East, the University of Aveiro, Portugal-Africa Foundation. The bibliographical study was based, essentially, on the works of Paulo Freire and political and educational historians of African countries. The analysis confirmed Freire's influences on the Angolan literacy proposal, particularly the Literacy Guide, as material aimed at conscious and emancipatory literacy.