Basic learning needs refer to the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary for people to survive, to improve the quality of their lives, and to continue learning.
UNDO, UNESCO, UNICEF, WORLD BANK. 1990. Meeting Basic Learning Needs: A Vision for the 1990s; Background Document. USA: UNICEF.
Important conceptual clarifications were made during this period, in conjunction with the International Literacy Year (1990) and the World Declaration on Education for All adopted in Jomtien, Thailand (1990). For example, UNESCO distinguished between literacy as a skill and literacy as a set of culturally and socially determined practices, and later endorsed efforts to promote the acquisition of literacy – newly conceived as ‘basic learning needs’ – on a continuum including formal and non-formal education, extended to people of all ages (UNESCO, 2004b) (UNESCO, 2005: 154).
UNESCO. 2006. Education for All: Literacy for Life; EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2006. PARIS: UNESCO.