The role of volunteer tutors in the history of adult literacy in Queensland

Volunteer tutors were crucial to the early development of adult literacy programs In Queensland. These community based programs were characterised by conservative and humanistic ideologies reflected in the use of medical or biological metaphors. However the role of volunteer tutors has subsequently been shaped by the politicisation of literacy, firstly through the social justice agenda and more recently by literacy being perceived as a competence or vocational skill. This paper begins by briefly describing, some early volunteer tutor programs, using excerpts from oral histories, before tracing how ideologies and discourses have affected pedagogy, tutor training and the role of volunteer tutors in the early years and move recent times in Queensland.