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You
are here: The Rise of Non-Formal Education
by Fred Mednick
Not many people have heard of BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), but they are the largest non-formal education system in the world, focusing their efforts on community schools. In the areas where BRAC has worked, students have achieved far more – by conventional standards – than in traditional classrooms? What is the key? Why are they successful?
The answers are clear. First, BRAC works intimately with communities. They know, rather than merely know about, the children and families with whom they interact every day. Second, their research into teaching and learning is unparalleled, and they are able to apply their research locally. They began with literacy circles, empowering women to take on leadership roles and democratic decision making. Soon, they realized the power of regional collectives. The rest is history.
Non-formal education's success parallels the successes of local NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and other civil-society organizations, largely for the same reason. They are bottom up, rather than top down. They take small steps, rather than make vast infusions of money or influence policy. They focus on results and solve local problems. Equally important, effective and efficient NGOs are values-driven, accountable, transparent, and flexible. No wonder non-formal education and non-governmental organizations, rooted in communities, are achieving and growing.
Equally impressive is the ability for organizations such as BRAC and SEWA (Self-Employed Women's Association, in India) to quantify their work in solid research, corroborated by third-party analysis. In short, they take the work seriously and combine anecdotal evidence with hard facts.
BRAC is one of many such examples, the best of which do not compete with schools, but work to develop cooperative relationships. The most effective ones enhance formal schooling, provide avenues for lifelong learning, and include the arts, cultural celebration, and a belief in a community to solve its own problems.
Not all non-formal educational enterprises work, but those with the characteristics I have described do seem to find root, whether they are in an urban setting or a village without electricity. I have seen such systems in Africa and Asia, particularly, in communities facing seemingly insurmountable odds. In fact, it is precisely these challenges that mobilize communities to tap into their own collective intelligence, good will, and determination. It is nothing short of an inspiration.
Global assessment reports highlight several objectives for many developing countries, many of which point to a quality education system. Findings include:
· Provide education where none has existed before. In many cases, this involves establishing a central place to gather, engage children, and conduct basic societal functions
· Improve the quality of learning by using technology to access and share the latest knowledge and information. Distance learning is cost effective if delivered on a large scale. Limited resources can go a long way to provide information to rural areas.
· Improve the quality of education by addressing the critical need in the labor market for skills in global citizenship and information technologies, which are recognized as crucial for economic and social development
· Teacher training (for informal and formal settings) is crucial in this regard. The digital and democracy divide can be decreased substantially through education, particularly effective teacher training. Furthermore, evidence shows that those countries with the desire to "leapfrog" over the gaps they face in terms of skills, knowledge, and educational opportunities cannot grow through acquisition of equipment alone. They must have consistent and practical teacher training, along with the support of national education strategies
· The United Nations reports a huge shortage of qualified teachers, along with a need for accelerated, practical, local, contemporary, and flexible teacher education.
· The quality of teaching is quite uneven and requires steep change improvements in quantity and quality (e.g. 50% of teachers in some developing countries are unqualified in terms of their own country's formal standards for teachers' education; 60% of children who go to school in sub-Saharan Africa leave school illiterate; many do not go to school at all).
· Teachers are a link to the future. If support for teachers - or any educators with information to share - can include their health and welfare, society benefits.
Non-formal education can help fit the bill and address these needs. Teachers Without Borders has developed its own model for non-formal education: Community Teaching and Learning Centers (CTLCs) – local, practical education centers designed to be embraced by and emerge from the community itself. A typical CTLC has both on-line (with computers) and/or off-line (without computers) rooms, which include meeting and cultural celebration space and a small library. All CTLCs are outfitted with information about HIV-AIDS.
Community leaders staff Community Teaching & Learning Centers and support the machinery and programs. Training comes from the educators, in coordination with NGOs and appropriate technology, including distance learning. The most successful CTLCs connect with others nearby and to the spokes of a larger wheel of information services.
CTLCs use existing facilities and are often outfitted with libraries (such as dictionaries, references, educational material of general interest) and computers, face-to-face classrooms, and break-out spaces, used primarily to serve several essential functions for community sustainability.
CTLCs are hybrids between traditional cyber-cafes and other community functions. Some communities want to focus on a local gathering place teaching and learning, others more specifically on e-services and training. They work when supported by BOTH formal institutions (such as governments and universities) AND non-formal civil-society organizations.
Up until the founding of Teachers Without Borders (www.teacherswithoutborders.org) in 2000, Dr. Fred Mednick served as the head of two prominent schools, both with extensive programs recognizing individual learning strengths, strengthening faculty professional development, community service, and global education. His book: Rebel Without A Car: A Principal's Guide to Adolescence, has been translated into European languages and was excerpted in a compilation called: Parent School: The Best Parenting Books of our Time. The book provided him the unique opportunity to work with the late Dr. Benjamin Spock.
Fred's doctoral dissertation, The Qualities of an Educated Teen for the 21st Century, extends a U.N.E.S.C.O. report into the realm of implementation. Within a short time after founding Teachers Without Borders (TWB), focusing on the application of this research to close the education divide in developing countries, Fred's leadership of TWB has attracted a membership in 86 countries, with 400 volunteers and several regional offices. He has built regional Community Teaching & Learning Centers (CTLCs) in the Middle East, India, Honduras, and Nigeria, with government approvals for 7 other countries. In the United States, Teachers Without Borders has consulted with school districts over issues of cultural exchange, technology, and under served Americans through community education and local technology centers.
Teachers Without Borders' International Advisory Board includes leadership from academics and influential leaders such as Dr. Jane Goodall. Teachers Without Borders is best known for such ventures of connecting teachers to resources and each other, especially from regions in conflict and was recently awarded two grants from Cisco Systems. The first grant, awarded to "Best of Breed" nonprofits, allows Teachers Without Borders to extend its professional-development program for teachers through onsite trainings and e-learning, now fully underway, involving teachers in groups of 10 from 23 countries.
Teachers without Borders offers a free course to those interested in establishing a Community Teaching & Learning Course. For more information, navigate here: http://www.teacherswithoutborders.org/html/new
Contact:
Fred Mednick, Ed.D
President & Founder: Teachers Without Borders
www.teacherswithoutborders.org
email: fred@teacherswithoutborders.org
©June 2004 New Horizons for Learning
http://www.newhorizons.org
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