Use of acquired literacy skills

This paper presents the results of a study on the relevance of income generating projects as a reinforcement of acquired literacy skills in Zimbabwe. Very little research has been carried out to assess the extent to which participation in income generating projects actually reinforces the students acquired literacy skills, whereas many studies have evaluated the impact of literacy on socio-economic activities. This study sets out to examine what effects socio-economic activities have on students' literacy test achievements. The results presented here tend to show that high participation in income generating projects is positively correlated with higher total mean scores for total literacy and arithmetic scores. However, the study revealed that variables of high and low participation are not the only ones and cannot be considered in isolation: other variables such as age, sex, etc had to be considered also as results show that these, together with high and low participation in projects, affects students' achievements in literacy test scores. It is believed that the results have useful implications for agencies involved in adult literacy work.