\n<\/a> There is a renewed interest in non-formal education<\/a> (NFE) today.\u00a0 And it is significant that this interest comes not so much from the so-called ‘Third World’ (I use this term to refer to poor countries in receipt of aid from rich countries, because many other persons use it as a short-hand.\u00a0 But I find it objectionable – see non-formal education, colonialism and development<\/a>). As the Council of Europe recently said,<\/p>\n
The Assembly recognises that formal educational systems alone cannot respond to the challenges of modern society and therefore welcomes its reinforcement by non-formal educational practices.<\/p>\n
The Assembly recommends that governments and appropriate authorities of member states recognise non-formal education as a de facto partner in the lifelong process and make it accessible for all (Coun Eur 2000).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/a>Defining non-formal education<\/h4>\n
The original version of non-formal education<\/a> emerged in 1968 (Coombs 1968).\u00a0 It arose in the context of the widespread feeling that education was failing (e.g. Illich<\/a> 1973), not just in developing countries but also in so-called Western (or Northern) societies as well (e.g. Bowles and Gintis 1976 among others). In the West,\u00a0 the reform movement took different forms,\u00a0 but in all planning and policy-making in relation to education in developing countries from 1968 until about 1986, non-formal education was seen as the panacea for all the ills of education in those societies (Freire<\/a> 1972 and others). Most aid agencies included non-formal education in their portfolio of interventions, and the sums spent on it (much in Western countries especially USA for academics, research centres, consultants, publications and reports etc), were substantial.\u00a0 By many non-formal education was seen as the \u2018ideal\u2019 form of education, far better in all respects than formal education.\u00a0 By others however, it came to be seen as a sub-system of education, certainly not superior and by some as considerably inferior to formal schooling.\u00a0 It could even be described as a temporary \u2018necessary evil\u2019 in situations of crisis until formal schooling could be restored (Pigozzi 1999).<\/p>\n
The discourse of non-formal education divided the world of education into two,\u00a0 one of the many famous dichotomies of the period. On the one hand is formal education:<\/p>\n
Formal education as used here is, of course, the highly institutionalized, chronologically graded and hierarchically structured \u2018education system\u2019, spanning lower primary school and the upper reaches of the university (Coombs and Ahmed 1974:8).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
But formal education was never closely defined – the use of the words \u2018of course\u2019 in this quotation shows that it was assumed that everybody could recognise the formal system of education.<\/p>\n
On the other hand is non-formal education. Non-formal education was defined as every educational activity outside of formal:<\/p>\n
Nonformal education … is any organized, systematic, educational activity carried on outside the framework of the formal system to provide selected types of learning to particular subgroups in the population, adults as well as children (Coombs and Ahmed 1974: 8).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
But that too was very imprecise, and every country interpreted non-formal education in their own way.\u00a0 For some, it meant every educational programme provided by the Ministry of Education apart from the schools and colleges (e.g. adult literacy classes).\u00a0 For others, it meant educational programmes like schooling provided by non-governmental agencies (NGOs).\u00a0 For yet others, it comprised all the educational and training activities of other Ministries (Women\u2019s Affairs, Health, Labour and Employment, Youth and Sports and Culture etc etc).\u00a0 Others again included within non-formal education the individualised learning programmes for different and specific learning groups – women\u2019s discussion groups, for example, programmes which approximate closely to social work and specialist counselling,\u00a0 whether provided by the state, NGOs, commercial agencies or other civil society bodies (religious organisations, trade unions, new social movements etc). \u00a0Some took it to mean every educational activity apart from schools and colleges, including radio and television programmes, the print media (newspapers and magazines etc).\u00a0 Whenever one reads any statement about non-formal education at that time,\u00a0 it is important to ask what definition of non-formal education is being used.<\/p>\n
There was a third element – informal education.\u00a0 But when one looks carefully at what Coombs and Ahmed say about informal education,\u00a0there is a major problem which many writers at the time pointed out. They are really speaking about \u2018informal learning\u2019, not informal education\u2019. Like everybody else, they define \u2018education\u2019 as planned and purposeful learning;\u00a0 but they call \u2018informal education\u2019 all that learning that goes on outside of any planned learning situation – such as cultural events.<\/p>\n
Informal education as used here is the lifelong process by which every person acquires and accumulates knowledge, skills,\u00a0 attitudes and insights from daily experiences and exposure to the environment – at home, at work, at play;\u00a0 from the example and attitudes of family and friends; from travel,\u00a0 reading newspapers and books; or by listening to the radio or viewing films or television. Generally, informal education is unorganized and often unsystematic; yet it accounts for the great bulk of any person\u2019s total lifetime learning – including that of even a highly \u2018schooled\u2019 person (Coombs and Ahmed 1974:8).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In other words,\u00a0 it is very close to what some people define as \u2018experiential learning\u2019 (another term which carries wide divergences of meaning whenever it is used). Since it is unorganised, total lifetime learning,\u00a0 it is clear that we are talking here about informal learning, not informal education.\u00a0 This is a vital distinction to make, for it remains a fact that almost everyone who used the non-formal education discourse either omitted informal education altogether or they used the term in the sense of informal learning. Nobody at this time defined informal education except in terms of unstructured learning. The non-formal education discourse divides the world of education into two, formal and non-formal, all of which is set inside a wider context of informal learning.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Non-formal education in the field:\u00a0from the 1980s to today<\/h4>\n
From 1986 the debate about non-formal education (one of the most extensive in education\u2019s history) declined.\u00a0 Today there is almost no discussion about the nature and role of non-formal education apart from a few articles which simply repeat the earlier debate (and they reveal clearly its inadequacies).\u00a0 But during the 1980s and since then,\u00a0 programmes labelled non-formal education have spread enormously throughout Third World countries. And (as with the Education for All debate which began prior to the Jomtien Conference in 1990 and still informs much educational policy and planning in developing countries), the term has been hijacked by children\u2019s education. There was one strand of non-formal education from the start which included children\u2019s alternative schooling (for out-of-school-youth),\u00a0 but this normally concentrated on those younger persons\u00a0 who were too old to go to school.\u00a0 Now large programmes of schooling for school-aged children are run under the title of non-formal education:\u00a0 BRAC in Bangladesh for example, runs over 34,000 Non-formal Primary Schools and other providers take that figure up to well over 50,000 such schools.\u00a0 Similar programmes are run in many countries in Asia and Africa: Mali has a large non-formal education primary school programme (community schools).\u00a0 In other countries such as the Philippines and Thailand,\u00a0 national non-formal education programmes of accreditation and equivalency for adults have been created, offering a second-chance schooling to those who missed out or did not complete their primary schooling.<\/p>\n
There are of course some exceptions to this trend of identifying non-formal education with alternative schools for children and adults.\u00a0 The Association for the\u00a0 Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) has set up a non-formal education working group which sees non-formal education in a wider sense than this (but also including non-formal schools for children).\u00a0 They want to try to identify all parts of the non-formal education world (agricultural and health extension, for example, women\u2019s programmes, income-generation training, environmental enhancement activities etc) and seek to integrate then into one non-formal education system, so that all such activities can be co-opted by government to help with the development of the country. Ethiopia is a prime example of this approach,\u00a0with its national Directory of non-formal education.\u00a0 Under structural adjustment,\u00a0 with a smaller role for the state,\u00a0 it is felt to be important that all agencies engaged in any form of education and training, especially civil society bodies such as trade unions and the churches and other religious bodies, should contribute towards the national development goals.<\/p>\n
But on the whole non-formal education in this context (education in developing countries) now seems to refer to more informal ways of providing schooling to children (and some adults who need it). When asked what is \u2018non-formal\u2019 about such a national system of schooling leading to recognised certificates or equivalent qualifications,\u00a0the answer comes back that they are more \u2018flexible\u2019.\u00a0 They have less well qualified and trained teachers. They have a simplified form of curriculum. They often have different teaching-learning materials. They are frequently part-time and have more flexible dates of terms than the so-called formal schools.\u00a0 In some cases,\u00a0 they are viewed by educationalists and parents alike as a better form of schooling than the state schools; at other times, they are viewed as inferior, second-class.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Non-formal education and lifelong learning\/education<\/h4>\n
Today, as we have seen, there is a new interest in the concept of non-formal education.\u00a0 It comes from a very different arena – Western post-industrial societies, and from a very different source – the discourse of lifelong learning\/education<\/a>.\u00a0 If one constructs education as a unitary activity which exists throughout life, then it becomes important to find new ways of breaking it into manageable units for handling the concept.\u00a0 The former divisions into primary, secondary and higher are precisely what lifelong learning\/education wants to get rid of.\u00a0 Lifelong learning\/education sees learning as taking place not simply in schools and colleges but throughout the whole of life, in many different locations and times.\u00a0 In order to embrace the totality of all forms of education under the rubric of lifelong education, the discourse of lifelong learning speaks of\u00a0 education \u201cformal and non-formal\u201d (sometimes with \u201cinformal\u201d education or learning thrown in as well).\u00a0 Since lifelong learning\/education has itself been co-opted by the states to two main aims,\u00a0 helping economic growth and promoting active citizenship,\u00a0then the interest of the state and other agencies in non-formal education is with its contribution to these two ends (Aspin et al 2001;\u00a0 Field and Leicester 2000).<\/p>\n
But there is great uncertainty in this context as to what constitutes non-formal education,\u00a0 what the term refers to, what is its meaning.\u00a0 There are at least two main reasons for this.\u00a0 First,\u00a0 with the increasing diversity of formal education,\u00a0 it is no longer clear what is and what is not included under the rubric of formal education.\u00a0 Is open and distance learning part of formal or non-formal education?\u00a0 Are private commercial educational programmes leading to officially recognised (often state-sponsored) qualifications part of the formal system or not?\u00a0 What about e-learning? What about the many different forms of schooling which are emerging?\u00a0 What about commercial \u2018universities\u2019 or work-based degree programmes?\u00a0 Where does formal end and non-formal begin?<\/p>\n
Secondly, the term non-formal education now covers a very wide continuum of educational programmes.\u00a0 At one extreme lies the flexible schooling model – national or regional sub-systems of schools for children, youth and adults.\u00a0 At the other extreme are the highly participatory educational programmes,\u00a0hand-knitted education and training, tailor-made for each particular learning group,\u00a0one-off teaching events to meet particular localised needs.\u00a0 Most educational programmes will of course lie somewhere between these two points.\u00a0But to include both kinds of provision under the heading of non-formal education tends to lead to confusion, for they are very different in spirit and in form.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Towards a new paradigm<\/h4>\n
This distinction is sometimes conceptualised in terms of contextualisation.\u00a0 Some learning activities and teaching-learning materials are highly contextualised – chosen or created for this one learning group alone with considerable involvement of the learner group in the design of both curriculum and learning materials.\u00a0 This is sometimes called self-directed or participatory education (Mocker et al 1982; Campbell and Burnaby 1999).\u00a0 Adult education at one time was based on this principle – adults chose what they wanted to learn,\u00a0 so that the curriculum was built by each learning group and around their particular interests. The outcomes were not pre-set but chosen by the participants,\u00a0 and the evaluation was made by the participants in terms of their personal satisfaction with whether the programme met their individual needs at the time.\u00a0 Other learning programmes are however less highly contextualised,\u00a0with pre-set outcomes, a pre-set curriculum (however adapted it might be to the group), brought-in materials (which may again be adapted or supplemented by each participant group),\u00a0and standardised forms of evaluation.<\/p>\n
One way of understanding this distinction is through group dynamics and organisational theory.\u00a0 Groups can be located on a continuum from very formal to very informal.\u00a0A formal group is one which does not change as new members join it.\u00a0 The army is a clear example of a formal group.\u00a0An informal group is one which is highly dependent on the individual members,\u00a0so that if someone joins or leaves,\u00a0 the nature of the group and the activities it can undertake will also change.\u00a0A drama group or a sports team are examples of this kind of group.\u00a0If someone from a drama group leaves or a new person joins,\u00a0 the whole team is affected and the kind of plays which the group can perform will also be different. Most groups of course lie somewhere in the middle and groups often move along the continuum in both directions.<\/p>\n
If we could apply this to education,\u00a0 such a concept would help us to define formal as well as non-formal education.\u00a0 We could say that at one extreme of this continuum lies formal education – education which does not change when new participants join. A university chemistry course will not change according to the participants.\u00a0 It may well change for other reasons but these are determined by the provider,\u00a0 not in consultation with the student-learners. A school history curriculum is set by the educational agencies – it rarely varies very much according to the interests of the class being taught.\u00a0 If you visit several such learning programmes,\u00a0 you will be able to identify the common elements.\u00a0 At the other extreme lies the educational programme or activity which is made up by the facilitator\/teacher in association with the participants – a creative writing course or a reading circle, for example. The most extreme form of this kind of education and training is the single-learner provision to meet an individual need.\u00a0 If you visit several such programmes,\u00a0each will be doing different things with different aims and purposes, and it will be harder to identify the common elements.<\/p>\n
Most educational programmes of course lie somewhere between these two extremes.\u00a0 A women\u2019s assertiveness group for example will have some common elements as well as highly individualised or participatory activities.\u00a0Some forms of schooling find ways of including the particular interests of the different classes within the learning programme. Most programmes will be partly formal and partly informal. Some parts of the programme will be determined by the participants,\u00a0others are given by the providing agency. And most programmes will move along this continuum in both directions from time to time – going from formal to informal and from informal to formal.\u00a0 Both forms of education are important elements in the total learning experience.<\/p>\n
But we need to identify what kind of areas of the programme are in fact devolved to the learning group and what parts are retained by the providing agency.\u00a0 For example,\u00a0in many forms of non-formal schooling,\u00a0issues of the time and location of meetings,\u00a0 the dates of \u2018holidays\u2019, and such logistical issues are often left to the local community to determine.\u00a0But matters of the curriculum and teaching-learning materials,\u00a0the length of the learning programme, the form and timing of the evaluation process are all matters reserved to the providing agency.\u00a0 There is an assumption (often shared on both sides) that the participants are not capable of determining such matters.\u00a0 This is what I would call flexible schooling<\/b> – the standardised elements common to all such learning groups are clearly schooling but the participatory elements mean that it is schooling made flexible to the local group concerned.<\/p>\n
We have then an educational continuum as follows:<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
![\"continuum](\"http:\/\/www.infed.org\/images\/illustrations\/continium500gif.gif\")
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n![\"cover:](\"http:\/\/www.infed.org\/images\/books\/rogers_adult_learning_teaching.gif\")
Pigozzi, M. J. (1999) Education in Emergencies and for Reconstruction:\u00a0a developmental approach,<\/i> New York: UNICEF.<\/p>\n