Zambezia (1979), VII (i).EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENT*D. D. RUSSELLInstitute of Adult Education, University of RhodesiaIF I HAD a definitive answer to the question, "What sort of education isrequired for accelerated development in Third World countries?', I doubtwhether I would be here tonight. More than likely I would be at the top ofMount Olympus communicating my ideas to the gods for dissemination tothe mortals below. The jet-set among those mortals would in turn be engagedin low-flying acrobatics over the developing countries while propagating myeducational strategy.However, being a humble mortal my offerings are presented in humility,helped along by the views of other mortals, some of whom frequent the foot-hills of Mount Olympus but never receive a clear message from the top.First of all, I should like to declare my interpretation of the concept ofdevelopment. And that is simply that a country could be said to be develop-ing if there has been progress towards the employment or self-employmentof the whole of the potential working population; if there has been progresstowards the elimination of poverty; and if there has been progress towardsa reduction in glaring inequalities in income distribution.1 Now, that is anarrow view of the meaning of development, but I believe it to be a prag-matic one. And I take an equally pragmatic view of education in that I makeno sharp distinctions between education and training in dealing with thispractical topic of education for development.One of the main features of educational planning in the developingcountries during the 1950s and especially in the 1960s was the great faiththat planners showed in the role of formal education in the process of na-tional development. This faith, supported by manpower studies and theresources of international aid agencies, led to a massive expansion ofeducational facilities to meet pressing needs for middle and higher level man-power and to contribute in general to social and economic development.2The expansion of educational systems was further stimulated by parental*An inaugural lecture delivered before the University of Rhodesia on 12 October1978.i cf. D. Seers, 'What are we trying to measure?' Journal of Development Studies(1972), VIII, iii, 21-36.2 P. Foster and J. R. Sheffield (eds), Education and Rural Development (London,Evans, The World Book of Education 1974, 1973), 1.2 EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENTdemand, population growth, migration from rural to urban areas, and by theaspirations of young people who were encouraged in many ways to believethat academic qualifications would lead to good jobs. Thus progressivelylonger periods of formal education became the main route to wage andsalaried employment resulting, some critics have argued, in an insatiable thirstnot so much for education as for educational qualifications. Indeed, the desirefor more education seems to have been motivated partly by employmentpractices in that as education has become more widespread so employershave tended to require higher educational qualifications for the same job,perhaps because this simplified their selection procedures. From manyaccounts it is clear that the rising demand for conventional forms of school-ing in developing countries has placed a great strain on limited resources,has lowered the quality of schooling on the educational ladder to the univer-sity loft, and has created serious doubts about the value of much of formaleducation in economic development.3Education has become the world's leading preoccupation as far as thespending of public funds is concerned, ranking a close second to militaryexpenditure.4 In the budgets of most developing countries expenditure onformal education represents one of the largest single items. In some budgetsit is as high as 40 per cent,5 while as a percentage of the Gross NationalProduct it already exceeds 5 per cent in several countries.6 Moreover, educa-tion has been described as a 'rising cost industry' in which each yearincreased expenditure is required to achieve the same level of provision asin the previous year. Inflationary costs coupled with the compounding factorof population increase clearly dictate a limit to the level of possible spendingon education. Some economists argue that that limit has been reached whenexpenditure on education begins to grow at a rate faster than the growth ofthe Gross National Product,7 whilst the World Bank points to a figure of 20per cent of the national budget as setting the limit on educational spending.9During the early years of independence in African states large im-balances in expenditure on education, especially at the secondary and tertiarylevels, in relation to other budgetary provisions could be justified because ofthe need to Africanize the civil service and the private sector. Educationseems to have had a good success record in this process, for Africanization3 See for example, R. Dore, The Diploma Disease: Education, Qualification andDevelopment (London, Allen and Unwin, 1976), 1-13, 84-97.4 E. Faure et at., Learning to Be : The World of Education Today and To-morrow (Paris, UNESCO, 1972), 12.a The Sunday Mail, 27 Aug. 1978; a Special Correspondent, London, reportedthat Kenya devoted 40 per cent of its budget to education.e World Bank, Education : Sector Working Paper (Washington, World Bank,Dec. 1974), Table 3.Ł> P. H. Coombs, The World Educational Crisis : A Systems Analysis (New York,Oxford Univ. Press, 1968), 52-60.eWorld Bank, Education : Sector Working Paper, 21.D. D. RUSSELL 3has proceeded more rapidly than was expected.9 But associated educationalover-supply at the upper levels frequently has left in its wake educatedunemployment, underemployment and an over-production of graduates inarts and law, and too few with technical, para-professional and scientificskills.10 Moreover, the unfulfilled promise of industrial growth and large-scale mechanized agriculture and the high cost of creating wage employmenthave resulted in serious disparities between the output of educational systemsand the availability of employment at all levels. The problem has multipliedcontinuously as school leavers are motivated to compete for the limitedopenings in urban employment where wages generally far exceed earningsfrom rural pursuits."Another contributing factor to the imbalance between the output ofeducational systems and the availability of employment is that the provisionof schooling has become a major political issue in the less developed countries.Politicians can rarely afford to insist that the expansion of formal educationbe closely related to the employment market and thus to the growth of theeconomy. But even when attempts are made to link education to a supplyand demand model it is extremely difficult to have effective checks on over-supply because of the long, sequential process of education. Long-range man-power forecasts have tended to exacerbate the problem for they are oftenbased on inaccurate or incomplete information and exaggerated estimatesof economic growth.12 Their focus has usually been on 'high-level' manpowerand on the 'modern' sector to the neglect of the specific manpower and train-ing needs of the rural areas. Furthermore, the manpower planner's apparentbelief in a close relationship between years of schooling or academicqualifications and various types of jobs Š that, for example, 'a costingclerk should have ten years of schooling' or 'a personnel manager should havea university degree' Š is not typically reflected in actual practice, nor in thedemands of the job, and says nothing about the quality of the requirededucation.'3 Manpower planning might need to take account of the notunreasonable assumption made by Philip Coombs that 'if a person has a goodbasic education, is well motivated and reasonably intelligent, he can adaptquite quickly to a wide range of jobs, regardless of what the "book" mayprescribe in the way of educational qualifications'.14o J. R. Sheffield and V. P. Diejomaoh, Non-Formal Education in African De-velopment (New York, African-American Institute, 1972), x.'o Coombs, The World Educational Crisis, 75.ii Commonwealth Secretariat, Education in Rural Areas : Report of the Common-wealth Conference, Accra, Ghana, 23 March to 2 April 1970 (London, CommonwealthSecretariat, 1970), 1.'« M. Grandstaff, Non-Formal Education and the Expanded Conception of De-velopment (East Lansing, Michigan State Univ., Non-Formal Education DiscussionPapers No. 1, 1974), 45.i3Dore, The Diploma Disease, 87.14 Coombs, The World Educational Crisis, 80.4 EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENTManpower studies, then, can usefully serve comprehensive educationalplanning (a) when they are firmly grounded in the clearly observable presentneeds for specific jobs at all levels of employment and self-employmentin both the urban and rural sectors of the economy; (b) when they adopt amore flexible approach to the assigning of academic qualifications or yearsof formal education to particular jobs; and (c) when recommendations on thecontent of training bear a close relationship to the functions actually to beperformed in a job. An obvious rider must be added, and that is that man-power predictions may be of limited value for educational planning if theassumptions underlying the economic and social policies of Government arenot made explicit."A manpower plan that meets these conditions, and is accepted andvigorously acted upon by Government and employers, could greatly influencethe form and content of education at all levels and in diverse settings. Broadacceptance and action will not follow, however, unless the plan is systemati-cally explained and discussed with employers and with the very wide rangeof people concerned with the process and provision of education. The mainrecommendations of the plan will need to be communicated clearly andsimply to parents and young people through educational and related institu-tions, the mass media and guidance and counselling services. Indeed, anappropriately treated explanation of a manpower plan could become anessential ingredient in a national programme of political education, for Isuspect that a broad-based plan would reveal the need to view educationthrough a wide angle lens and not as something which is essentially theprerogative of educational institutions. Political education about educationis vital because the continuous expansion of conventional forms of full-timeeducation is unlikely to create employment, alleviate poverty and thus reduceinequalities. These goals are closely associated with economic growth and,as Harbison has pointed out, 'education becomes a relevant factor in econ-omic growth only when it is properly integrated with all other factors indevelopment'.16The usual way in which the integration of formal education with otherdevelopmental factors is attempted is through curriculum reform. Much hasbeen written about irrelevant academic curricula, especially in rural schools,and much has been done to make them more relevant to local needs.17These efforts are often perceived by parents as leading to an inferior type ofschooling designed to keep school-leavers on the land. Such parental percep-tions are highly rational wherever the land has little to offer. But curriculum>»J. Vaizey, The Economics of Education (London, Faber and Faber, 1962), 107.'Ł F. H. Harbison, Educational Planning and Human Resource Development (ParisUNESCO/I.I.E.P., Fundamentals of Education Planning No. 3, 1969K 24."See for example, V. L. Griffiths, The Problems of Rural Education (Paris,UNESCO/I.I.E.P., Fundamentals of Educational Planning No. 7, 1968), 20-37.D. D. RUSSELL 9development designed, for instance, to improve powers of observation, andwhich therefore must draw on the local environment, is clearly educationallyjustifiable and politically defensible, for the power of observation is a validattribute and has the potential to be transferred from one setting to another.Curriculum reform, then, related to the acquisition of transferable abilities,skills and attitudes is an important step towards the integration of all levelsof education with various aspects of development. But, as with our manpowerplan, educative consent is desirable and curriculum reform could well con-stitute another topic for a national political education programme.While we anxiously await these reforms at the formative years of ourchildren's lives, we are still left with the problem that if a long uninterruptedperiod of formal education remains the most sought-after goal of most pupilsand their parents, frustration that could have serious political repercussionsmay be difficult to avert. Various schemes have been suggested in recentyears which could be interpreted as being designed to lessen the effect ofthis inevitable educational frustration. Some are firmly based on the strength-ening of the linkage between education and employment. Most reject thestill widely held view that schooling per se is a preparation for life, andaccept instead that real education is a continious process related to dominantconcerns and human development needs at several stages in the life cycle.The idea of making provision for continuous, life-long education Š abetter term would be life-long learning Š from the pre-school stage tovarious forms of adult education seems, on the surface at least, to be anexpensive egalitarian concept that only the wealthy nations can afford. Butthis is not really so, for the concept is eminently practical when it is foundedon two central principles. The first principle is that education, training andall other forms of planned formal and nonformal learning should be inter-spersed with work throughout life.18 It has become fashionable in the largeinternational organizations such as UNESCO and the Organization forEconomic Co-operation and Development to use the term recurrent educationwhen referring to a system of education derived from this principle. Thesecond and more challenging principle that forms the foundation of life-long education is that if man learns how to learn and becomes a self-directedlearner, he can overcome most of the barriers to the attainment of those ofhis own realistically perceived goals which have an educational content.1*These two principles have major consequences for educational planning.They suggest, for example, that there may well be a need to divert at leastsome of the resources from the upper levels of a system of uninterrupted'» For an analysis of the application of this principle in developing countries, seeV. Stoikov, The Economics of Recurrent Education and Training (Geneva, InternationalLabour Office, 1975), 95-108; and also F. H. Harbison, Human Resources as theWealth of Nations (New York, Oxford Univ. Press, 1973), 125-31.<Ł Faure, Learning to Be, 209-10.6 EDUCATION F°R DEVELOPMENTfull-time education to an integrated system of in-service education and plan-ned on-the-job training. They suggest too that once education becomes acontinuous process the distinction between success and failure, so paramountin the conventional system, loses at least some of its impact. Thus, to referto the influential UNESCO manifesto, Learning to Be, 'An individual whofails at a given age and level in the course of an educational career will haveother opportunities. He will no longer be relegated for life to the ghetto ofhis own failure.'20 A fine ideal, but since formal opportunities for continu-ing education will be severely limited for many years to come in the develop-ing countries, self-learning, or more realistically assisted self-corning has thepotential not only to reduce costs but to make education more widespread,more meaningful, and more relevant to national needs. The concept of re-current life-long education, then, must of necessity embody the principle ofassisted self-learning, which in turn has major implications for educationaltechnology Š that fascinating field concerned with the innovative use ofmedia, learning packages, distance-teaching techniques and the like.In broad terms, a strategy of recurrent education involves the gradualtransformation of the present youth-centred educational system to the pointwhere education is no longer seen as the continuation of a long period offull-time study in schools and post-secondary institutions during adolescence,but is made available over the individual's whole lifetime at appropriatestages related to his own needs and aspirations, and in alternation princi-pally with work and similar experiences.21 The strategy cannot work unlessit evolves from the provision of a 'good' basic education which in its finalyears would need to be planned to allow for a guided and tested decision atthe age of about sixteen between further study and work. The same flexi-bility would need to be built into all forms of post-basic schooling (e.g., bythe provision of a transferable vocational preparation element in generaleducation) and also at the higher levels of formal education for those whoremain in the system but may at any stage opt for the world of work. Thisposes a major problem for secondary school and tertiary level curriculumplanners and for those who will become engaged in the field of nonformaladult education.For the majority of school leavers, that is, for those who choose theworld of work or, more realistically as far as the developing countries areconcerned, are forced to seek employment or self-employment after basicschooling, opportunities for entry into post-work experience programmes offormal and nonformal adult education assume particular significance. Indeed,"ibid., 77.*' For a description of the main features of a system of recurrent education, seeO.E.C.D., Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, Recurrent Education : \Strategy for Lifelong Learning (Paris, Organization for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment, 1973), 17-29.D. D. RUSSELL 7in a system of recurrent education, which encourages a life-long concernfor the integration of work and study, adult education becomes the domi-nant component in the system.22 Crucial to the role of adult education in arecurrent education system is the co-ordination of the existing diverse rangeof adult-learning opportunities and their integration with the youth-centredformal provision; the linking of all forms of education to employment and tosocial and manpower policies; the training of adult educators for work inrecurrent education centres, adult education agencies, Government, andcommerce and industry; the establishment of sound guidance services; and,above all, the provision of financial resources requiring intervention on asubstantial scale by Government and the private sector.Against the background of these general observations on recurrenteducation I now turn briefly to one writer's interesting if somewhat radicalproposals for the application of the concept in developing countries. Pro-fessor Dore of the Institute of Development Studies in the University ofSussex suggests an agenda for educational reform based on three operationalprinciples:1. That all recruitment into work should start early Š between theages of 15 to 18, depending on a country's educational resources,and for most developing countries at about the age of 16. Thecivil service would need to take the lead in introducing earlyrecruitment policies, and Government should offer incentivesto the private sector to do likewise.2. That all education beyond the age of about 16 should take theform of on-the-job learning and recurrent in-service and in-careereducation and training on a part-time basis which could incor-porate schemes of educational leave for periods of full-timestudy. Pre-career courses and qualifications would thereby be-come far less prevalent.3. That all selection tests used, for example, in selection for second-ary education and for occupational recruitment should beaptitude tests or other acceptable alternatives, and not conven-tional learning achievement tests which distort the school cur-riculum and are subject to cramming."The practical implications of Dore's proposals are numerous, especiallyin career development. In the administrative departments of the civil service,for instance, all new recruits might start as clerks, and in the light of theirresponse to the work environment and to on-the-job training some would beselected for in-service education, perhaps involving a full-time element, whichwhen completed might lead to accelerated promotion to administrative posts.Similarly, and to quote Dore:22 O E.C.D./C.E.R.I., Recurrent Education : Trends and Issues (Paris, O.E.C.D.,1975), 42.23 Dore, The Diploma Disease, 141-67.8 EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENTFuture engineers could train first as craftsmen; some of the crafts-men could be trained as technicians, and the ablest of these sent offfor full training as engineers. Doctors could begin as medical assis-tants; teachers as pupil-teachers; university teachers as researchassistants . . . ; architects and accountants and quantity surveyorscould begin as clerks and be selected for professional training ....**In short, we would hear more frequently than we do these days the familiarboast of many a successful businessman: 'I started in this place as the teaboy.'The proposal has merit in that it is not too far removed from recordedsuccessful experience, particularly amongst post-war generations in the indus-trial nations. It would help with educated, unemployment and obsolescencein skills, and meet the need for middle-level manpower, frequently reported asbeing in short supply in the developing countries. It could conceivably leadto a more equal distribution of income, and yet, because it allows for theemergence of people with ability and perseverance, it is not necessarily tiedto that goal. Furthermore, unfavourable attitudes towards vocational andvocational preparation schools, presently regarded as second or third choices,are likely to change since these would become a normal route to high-levelmanpower positions for many of the more able, especially if the curriculumdid not contain a too narrowly defined vocational content. The last pointis consistent with experience in many developing countries where it has beenfound that vocational education designed for specific jobs is best providedas an out-of-school activity involving nonformal training in the work situa-tion interspersed with short periods of formal education and training.29The early recruitment system would result in tertiary institutions havingmore mature goal-directed students, secure in the knowledge that they hada job to return to, and who would not only see relevance in their courses butwould seek relevance and thus influence for the good much of the presentdispensation. The appropriateness of the design and content of tertiaryeducation would be further influenced by the closer liaison betweeneducational institutions and employers sponsoring students. Increasingly theprovision of education beyond the basic level would become more of a part-nership between Government and the private sector.The advantages of an educational strategy that makes specific provisionfor entry into work at a relatively early age, followed by periods of non-formal and formal education, need to be balanced against any inherentlimitations that the system may possess and any objections to it that arelikely to be raised. Some of the main arguments against the introduction inthe developing countries of a recurrent education system based on an earlyŁŁŁIbid., 143.« Stoikov, The Economics of Recurrent Education and Training, 104-6.D. D. RUSSELL Brecruitment policy are centred on such issues as: the ubiquitous problem oflimited employment opportunities; the perceived undesirable effect of havingeducation beyond the age of about 16 controlled by the civil service andlarge commercial and industrial organizations; the associated problem offavouritism in the selection of employees for further education; the restrict-tions placed on job mobility as a result of the bonding of employees whichmay be necessary as a hedge against losses of company-sponsored trainedworkers to other organizations; the problem of production foregone whileemployees are engaged in periods of full-time education and training; thedisadvantages of delayed attainment of full professional status; and theobvious limitation that the system fails to allow for continuity of educationfor those with exceptional ability and in some scientific and technical fieldswhere continuity is essential.26These limitations cannot be dismissed lightly. Many of them wouldcarry more force in some countries than in others, and where they do thesystem would have to be modified accordingly and introduced with flexibility.The scheme holds very little promise for the really poor countries, but insome of the higher-income developing countries where there is an expandingmodern sector, a surplus or foreseeable surplus of secondary-school anduniversity graduates and a shortage of experienced middle and higher-level manpower, the early-recru'tment-into-work recurrent education proposi-tion, suitably adapted to meet specific needs, might well provide the onlypractical model for the meaningful integration of education with employ-ment.However, since gradualism appears to be the hallmark of educationalreform, it is unlikely that any developing country will seek to adopt a com-prehensive system of recurrent education Š with or without early recruit-ment into work Š until the concept has been successfully tried and tested atthose levels in the existing educational system where it will cause the leastdisruption to the status quo. Most countries already have successful examplesof the use of a model of intermittent education and work, particularly intechnical fields where day-release and 'sandwich' courses are fairly commonand are provided at considerably less cost than full-time education. Theextension of such schemes to the higher levels of formal education becomesan increasingly attractive proposition whenever the demand for skilled man-power exceeds supply. On the other hand, where supply exceeds demand itis difficult to justify expenditure on much of sequential higher educationwhen a student-year at a university, for example, costs anything from 30 to200 times more than a pupil-year in primary school.27ae Ibid., 96-9; Dore, The Diploma Disease, 147-53.27 R- P. Dore, The Role of Universities in National Development (London,Association of Commonwealth Universities, Bulletin of Current Documentation Occa-sional Paper, July 1978), 12-13.1O EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENTSome critics argue that since there have to be economies in educationalexpenditure, it is at the university level that they should be applied, 'aseconomies not in quality but in numbers'.28 Assuming the absence of racialand similar constraints, this is a valid argument for those countries which arealready producing unemployed graduates. But it may give rise to a short-sighted policy if 'quality' is assessed merely in terms of performance inhigh-school examinations; for academic excellence does not necessarily equatewith performance in the world of work. And perhaps it is from this worldthat universities should attract more of their students. If they do, then it seemsreasonable to assume that the recurrent education model will be found tooffer the distinct advantage of possessing a largely self-regulating check onthe over-supply of graduates because of the linkage with employment andthe spreading of education over a longer period, thus allowing for shifts ininterests and in realistically perceived needs for further education in relationto career development and manpower requirements.The two most important practical implications of the adoption by uni-versities of a recurrent education system centre on the ways and means ofmaking university education more accessible and more attractive to the adultworking population.Accessibility raises a number of issues. Flexible entrance requirementsand the provision of part-time pre-university programmes and bridgingcourses will probably need to be considered, depending on the extent towhich the lower levels of education have been cast in the recurrent mould.The utilization of distance-teaching techniques and university study centresfurther promote access Š as does a learner-controlled system in whichstudents are permitted to withdraw after completing a number of courseunits and resume their studies at a later stage, retaining credit for workcompleted. Access to university education can be greatly facilitated byschemes of association with other tertiary institutions and by allowing inter-changeability of credit for units of study completed, whether on a full-timebasis or by various combinations of these formats, so that study and workcan proceed concurrently.29University courses are made more attractive to most working adultswhen they are based on mature student interests and employment needs;when they have been developed in collaboration with employers and theprofessions; and when conventional courses have been converted into 'learn-ing modules', made no longer than they really have to be and capable ofbeing combined in meaningful ways to meet diverse requirements for various»Ł e.g. G. Hunter, 'A comment on educational reform and employment in Africa',in Foster and Sheffield (eds), Education and Rural Development, 281.29 C. Duke, 'Survey of world trends on access to adult education : The contribu-tion of the universities', Journal of the International Congress of University AdultEducation (1976), XVI, ii, 6-31.D. D. RUSSELL 11types of qualifications. 'Learning contracts' whereby the student negotiateshis own study programme are perhaps the most attractive, especially in con-tinuing professional education. Pressures for the modification of teachingmethods and evaluation procedures frequently arise when adults are involvedin a formal learning situation. Democratic group methods soon becomefavoured after initial orientation, as do less conventional forms of examina-tion such as open-book, peer-group and continuous assessment.30If universities and other tertiary institutions are to respond to the realchallenges of recurrent education and thus become centres of developmenteducation, they will need to resolve issues like these. And it is important thatthey do so; for, since higher education in the developing countries has becomethe goal of so many, it influences the form and content of much of educationat the lower levels.My focus up to this point has been mainly on a conventional system ofeducation and its integration with one of the major factors in development,namely, employment. I have suggested that integration is facilitated byviewing formal education in the context of life-long learning and by thegradual introduction, starting at the tertiary level, of a system of recurrenteducation. This system of intermittent education and work would in turnutilize the resources of nonformal education Š that vast field of largelyunco-ordinated education and training which lies outside the formal systembut which is nevertheless organized and, in its own way, systematicallyprovided by many public and private agencies.I now turn specifically to this field, for nonformal education is moredirectly and immediately related to development than is the formal systemand pursues objectives which formal education is ill-equipped to achieve.Moreover, as Guy Hunter points out, 'it may well be one of the most flexibleand efficient forms of education there is Š efficient because it does not(as all schools must do) waste so much effort on pupils who cannotbenefit'.31Nonformal education has been described as capitalizing on the principlethat learning something 'just before using it is more productive than learningit, and using it when, or if, you need it'.31 Thus education is not the goal; itis rather the means to the goal. And the means need not always include thecornerstone of education, literacy, as desirable as it may be, for developmentprogrammes involving skill and knowledge acquisition in agriculture,health and the like can proceed in the context of illiteracy, and more oftenso Ibid.s« Hunter, 'A comment on educational reform and employment in Africa", 282.32 D. G. Green, 'Non-formal education for agricultural development : A systemsperspective', in Foster and Sheffield (eds), Education and Rural Development, 102.\Z EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENTthan not their urgency dictates that they cannot be delayed until functionallevels of literacy are attained.33This elastic perspective of education is reflected in the literature onnonformal education in that it deals with a great diversity of activities rang-ing from indigenous apprenticeships and adult-literacy programmes to sys-matic on-the-job training and structured occupational skills training providedoutside the formal system. It also includes agricultural extension and farmertraining, co-operative education, women's work, youth work and communityeducation in health, nutrition, family planning and local government Š toname but a few of the more prominent programmes. Crude estimates suggestthat nonformal education constitutes roughly half the present educationaleffort in the developing countries, and yet until quite recently it receivedvery little attention from educational planners.3" In the industrialized nationsthe field has shown prodigious growth, apparently developing rapidly duringthe decade or so after the Second World War. One study carried out in theUnited States at that time concluded that the outlays of certain major businesscorporations on nonformal education for their employees and customersrivalled in size the budgets of the largest universities.33 But by and large,accurate and comprehensive assessments of the cost of nonformal educationare difficult to secure. Programmes of industrial and rural development notinfrequently have major educational components of a nonformal nature whichare not shown in budgets or accounts as 'educational costs'. These inputsrepresent the hidden expenditure on much of nonformal adult education.And it is probably better that they remain hidden, certainly in the publicsector, because there appears to be a tendency in some countries for Govern-ments to respond to pressures for more education by attempting to divert tothe formal system any available fiscal resource bearing an education label.This would be an unwise re-allocation of educational resources sinceprogrammes of nonformal education exhibit characteristics inextricablylinked to development: they tend to arise in response to immediate needs andlocal community requirements; they usually address themselves to pressingsocial problems likely to be excluded from the system Š the poor, theisolated, the illiterate, the unemployed and the underemployed; they can be»» Michigan State University, Non-Formal Education : The Definitional Problem(East Lansing, Michigan State Univ., Non-Formal Education Discussion Papers No. 21974), 33.3«Ibid., 36-7.3» Referred to in P. H. Coombs and M. Ahmed, Attacking Rural Poverty : HowNonformal Education Can Help (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, ResearchReport for the World Bank prepared by the International Council for EducationalDevelopment, 1974), 22.D. D. RUSSELL 13effective where resources are limited; and they are generally- regarded asbeing efficient in terms of time and cost.36In recent years several extensive surveys of structured nonformal edu-cation programmes have been conducted by international organizations anduniversities. Numerous case studies have been prepared of programmes thathave attracted the attention of aid agencies, especially those supporting ruraldevelopment. These surveys illustrate both the possibilities and limitationsof nonformal education in environments where employment generation lagsfar behind the output of the school system.The Village Polytechnic self-help movement in Kenya, for example,represents a bold, pragmatic attempt to relate education to rural develop-ment. Village Polytechnics Š of which there are two types, Formal and On-the-job Learning Polytechics Š arose out of the need to provide skillstraining for local, rural self-employment to Kenya's primary school-leavers,some 40 per cent of whom can neither go on to secondary school nor findemployment. The polytechnics are small institutions housed in very modestlybuilt structures and staffed by school teachers, local craftsmen and expatriatevolunteers. They are designed to serve local areas and offer two-year coursesin English, mathematics and book-keeping, in farming and domestic science,and in the traditional rural crafts of carpentry, masonry and tailoring. Inaddition, a few courses such as mechanics, tractor-driving, bee-keeping,poultry-keeping, tinsmithing, tanning, bicycle-repairing and quarrying caterto needs that are purely local. The smaller village polytechnics appear to bethe most flexible, responding to employment opportunities as they arise andemphasizing extension work rather than formal courses at a centre.37As an experiment in non-formal education for self-employment thevillage polytechnics seem to be reasonably successful in providing a form oftraining related to community requirements, but there are indications thatthey may be saturating local demand for skills while having very little effecton the primary school leaver employment problem.38The Brigade System of Vocational Training in Botswana is beset withsimilar problems. The brigades have received a great deal of internationalpublicity because they attempt to provide cost-covering vocational trainingto primary school-leavers through contract jobs in building, carpentry, farm-ing, handicrafts, mechanics, textiles and tanning. The cost to donor agenciesis, however, considerable; for it would appear that well-qualified Batswana3S M. Grandstaff, Alternatives in Education : A Summary View of Research andAnalysis on the Concept of Non-Formal Education (East Lansing. Michigan StateUniv., Programme of Studies in Non-Formal Education, 1974), 35-62.3» See case study in Sheffield and Diejomaoh, Non-Formal Education in AfricanDevelopment, 75-86.38 J. E. Anderson, 'The formalization of non-formal education : Village poly-technics and prevocational youth training in Kenya', in Foster and Sheffield (eds),Education and Rural Development, 293-9.14 EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENTare reluctant to work in remote rural areas, resulting in a heavy relianceupon expatriate staff. The quality of brigade vocational training will, ofcourse, vary with the quality of staff and the extent to which expatriatestaff, in their desire to meet contract production figures, regard students aslabourers rather than as trainees. Expansion of the system is limited by thesmall internal market and the customs union with South Africa, which floodsBotswana with inexpensive goods from the Republic. But in countries with anexpanding and self-generating or protected rural market, the brigade modelof vocational training holds considerable promise as a means of creating somewage employment and self-employment.39These and many similar examples of structured nonformal education,while not without potential for expansion, are nothing much more thanmicro approaches to macro problems. As important as education for employ-ment generation may be, it is unlikely to create a large number of jobs, oropportunities for self-employment. In most developing countries the firstpriority is clearly to improve the competencies of those already in some formof employment, and much of nonformal education is directed towards thisend. In Nigeria, for instance, low-cost Vocational Improvement Centres useexisting plant and equipment to up-grade, on a part-time evening-class basis,the practical and trade skills as well as the general education level of bothliterate and illiterate lower grade industrial workers, artisans and those whoare self-employed or apprenticed to small entrepreneurs.40A much larger scheme, and one to which the Whitsun Foundation hasrecently drawn attention as a possible model for Zimbabwe Rhodesia, is theNational Apprenticeship Service (SENA) scheme in the South Americanrepublic of Colombia.41 SENA is a training organization which, althoughattached to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, enjoys considerableadministrative and professional autonomy in the use of its US $64 millionbudget, derived mainly from a private sector payroll tax. It has two majorprogrammes: an urban programme of skills training and up-grading at variouslevels offered at technical training centres and on the shop floor for employedadults and young apprentices; and a rural short-course training programmeto improve the skills of farmers, farm labourers, rural artisans and smallentrepreneurs in their own community settings. In addition, SENA makesextensive use of mobile training units in its rural programme and for urbanskills training outside the wage sector, as well as in its efforts to increaseemployment opportunities for unemployed workers and the landless. The3» See case study in Sheffield and Dicjamaoh, Non-Formal Education in AfricanDevelopment, 65-74.«olbid., 35-43, for case study."D. H. Grainger, 'National Apprenticeship Service (SENA), Colombia : \Model for Skills Training in a Developing Country' (Salisbury Whitsun Foundationmirneo, 1978), 8. 'D. D. RUSSELL ISorganization Š with a staff of nearly 8 000 and an annual training capacityof 800,000 Š is directed and managed by a representative National Council,and the work is decentralized to 18 country-wide regional offices, which inturn exercise representative control over 65 training centres and an equalnumber of mobile training units. The management system also includes con-sultative and advisory services.42SENA's rural mobile training programme is of particular interest be-cause it has shown how a travelling group of instructors can take low-costskills training to men and women living in even the most remote areas ofColombia, parts of which can be reached only by mule or canoe. Some ofthe 'mobile units' consist of nothing, more than an instructor and his teach-ing materials, including tools and audio-visual equipment. Other units mayuse the resources of a fully equipped instructional vehicle. The mobile unitcourses consist of self-contained modules of instruction, demonstration andpractice offered at convenient times to trainees over a period of a few weeksto three months. The courses are based on detailed training syllabuses andmaterials prepared by the SENA documentation centre, and cover agriculturalcrops, livestock and small farm projects, construction, machinery, mechanicsand a variety of other practical topics, which are adapted to local conditionsby the instructor.43There is not much evaluative evidence on the success of SENA's ruralprogramme, but that which there is suggests that the impact of the mobiletraining extension approach has been greater where it has formed part ofbroad development schemes at the local level.44Evaluative studies of other rural training and extension programmesinvariably come to the same conclusion.45 They lead to the obvious observa-tion that education designed as an aid to the improvement of economic andsocial conditions in rural areas, like all education for development, is indeeda very blunt instrument in the absence of comprehensive area plans thatbrine together into meaningful interaction at least the minimum ingredientsnecessary for local rural development Š transportation, a dependable mar-keting and pricing system, supplies of production factors at suitable prices,basic reforms in land tenure, as well as the supporting services of agriculturalresearch, training and extension, credit facilities, management services, andenabling institutions like farmers' associations and local self-government.48Given an adequately balanced supportive structure, there is validity in"Ibid., 1-7.*3 Coombs and Ahmed, Attacking Rural Poverty 46-7.« Ibid., 48.«Ibid., 231-50.« A. T. Mosher. Getting Agriculture Moving : Essentials for Development andModernization (New York, Praeger, 1966), 63-161.16 EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENTSir Arthur Lewis's view expressed more than twenty years ago that 'expendi-ture on bringing new knowledge to peasant farmers is probably the mostproductive investment which can be made in any of the poorer agriculturaleconomies'.47 The availability of supportive structures would also givecredence to the recommendation frequently voiced at international con-ferences on education and development in Africa and elsewhere that 'a moresignificant contribution to rural development can be made by a muchstrengthened, more clearly thought-out and effectively co-ordinated educa-tional service to adults than by alterations in or expansion of the existingsystem of primary and secondary schools'.48One of the largest providers of a rural adult education service and onethat takes new knowledge and improved technical and household practicesto peasant farmers and their families is the agricultural extension service ofmany developing countries. Stripped of its trimmings the conventional agri-cultural extension approach involves the use of education and persuasion toencourage farmers to adopt practices that have been developed by specialists,research stations and other institutions, and ideally, shown to be effectiveon a small scale under the particular local conditions where the innovation isto be introduced. The larger extension services employ a variety of educa-tional methods and techniques in their programmes of education andpersuasion : at meetings, field trials and demonstrations; in training centresand master farmer training schemes; through personal contact with individualfarmers; on radio and television; and by means of printed materials, learningpackages and kits, and by visual displays. Where education and persuasionhave failed some of the more authoritarian services have resorted to compul-sion, even at the risk of becoming alienated from the rural people.The extension approach Š which is not confined to agriculture but isoften used, for example, in health, nutrition and family planning programmesŠ rests on an evolutionary view of rural development; that by creatingawareness, interest and knowledge of a sound agricultural practice, the moreinnovative in a rural community will, after mental evaluation and successfulsmall-scale trial, adopt the practice. Then follows the slow process of dif-fusion and wider adoption by the more cautious, known in the diffusionliterature as the 'early and late majority'. And finally, a few of the 'laggards'may deign to adopt all or some of the recommendations in the practice.49 Pro-tagonists of this theory, including those cast in the community development«»W. A. Lewis, The Theory of Economic Growth (London, Allen and Unwin1955), 187.«« J. R. Sheffield (ed.), Education, Employment and Rural Development : TheProceedings of a Conference Held at Kericho, Kenya in September 1066 (Nairobi, EastAfrican Publishing House, 1967), 22.*9 E. M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations (New York The Free Press, 1962).76-120.D. D. RUSSELL 17mould, view excessively slow or incomplete adoption as a function of thecharacteristics of the so-called 'target population'. If they are peasants, thenit can be expected that they will exhibit characteristics of peasantry inimicalto rapid adoption, such as fatalism, a low desire to achieve, lack of inno-vativeness and deferred gratification, and low empathy.50However, these subcultural bairiers to adoption are increasingly beingviewed with scepticism by rural development workers. Their experienceoften suggests that perhaps the majority of peasants make rational decisionson the adoption of practices and new market incentives when they are con-vinced that the technical recommendations and knowledge being impartedare dependable and appropriate to their means and will lead to an improve-ment in their standard of living. But frequently the technical recommendationsare not sound in the sense that they fail to take into account the total situa-tion and the 'life-space' of the individual, which may include a completelack of interest in the innovation as being either impractical or too risky ornot related to more fundamental needs that remain unfulfilled.Partly as a result of limitations like these in the extension approach andpartly as a rejection of the benevolent authoritarianism that characterizesmost agricultural extention efforts, the community development purists laysclaim to the superiority of his particular philosophy and educational ap-proach. He argues that nonformal education for rural development startswith the identification of 'felt needs' or 'wants' in the community; that onceexpressed needs have been firmly established the community can be gra-dually assisted to become 'development minded', and through group workand community participation in decision making, it will learn to organizeitself for appropriate action, calling on extention and other specialists ifrequired.51Community development as a grass-roots form of nonformal educationhas accomplished much in helping people to run their own affairs and indeveloping local institutions for co-operative self-help. It is seen to be lessauthoritarian than the extension approach, although in practice this is notalways the case; for the non-directive approach to community development isbalanced by the generally more successful directive approach. Spontaneouscommunity development is too slow for most rural areas, and as Loveridgehas argued in his survey of the British experience of nonformal education:The popular community development concept of 'felt needs' hasclearly had defects as a measure of priorities; the real needs haveso See for example, E. M. Rogers and L. Svenning, Modernization among Peasants:The Impact of Communication (New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), 19-41.si See for example, T. R. Batten, The Non-Directive Approach in Group andCommunity Work (London, Oxford Univ. Press, 1967), 11-17.1S EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENTnot been felt, let alone expressed, and imposed physical develop-ment may result in much great cerebration as the result of newexperience than the expression of thoughts based on existingexperience.52Moreover, if the majority of peasants are indeed 'rational economic men',53then in areas that clearly have development possibilities and an adequateinfrastructure nonformal education may more logically be concerned not somuch with the remoulding of traditional attitudes and values as with assist-ing people to acquire new skills and understandings within the context ofcommunity supported programmes of development.But in countries where there is a gulf between the rich and the poor andno, or very little, attempt to develop basic services in poor areas, nonformaleducation has been known to take a very different form, and found to havesome effect in South American countries. I refer, without pursuing, to thekind of adult education advocated by Paulo Freire in his book Pedagogy ofthe Oppressed Š a 'problem-posing' education that strives to raise the levelof critical consciousness of the peasantry, and helps them to learn 'to per-ceive social, political and economic contradictions, and to take action againstthe oppressive elements of reality'.54 However, it remains to be seen howeffectively Freire's politically conscious peasants would acquire the skillsnecessary to work and manage the land if they ever gained control of it.A further argument against a revolutionary type of education55 is thatmany rural areas already have at least the beginnings of an infrastructureand some local resources which can be systematically harnessed to movepeople out of abject poverty and, given more favourable conditions, movedinto the cash economy. In these areas the 'minimum package approach', asdescribed by the World Bank, holds considerable promise.56 Here in Rho-desia my colleague, Dr George Smith, has ably demonstrated through con-tinuous operational research in the Tribal Trust Lands the validity of the« A. J. Loveridge, 'A Survey of British Experience of Non-Formal Education forRural and Agricultural Development in Developing Countries' (Univ. of London, Inst.of Education, Paper prepared for the International Council for Educational Develop-ment, mimeo, 1974), 5253 C. A. Anderson. 'Effective education for agriculture', in Foster and Sheffield(eds), Education and Rural Development, 37-8.54 P. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York, Seabury Press, 1973), 19;F. A. Guldbrandsen, 'Paulo Freire and the problem of consciousness', in M. Grandstaff(ed.), Historical Perspectives on Non-Formal Education (East Lansing, Michigan StateUniv., Programme of Studies in Non-Formal Education, 1074) 170-4.55 See for example, an interview with Paulo Freire, 'As educators we are politi-cians and also artists', in B. L. Hall and J. R. Kidd (eds), Adult Learning : A Designfor Action Š A Comprehensive International Survey (Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1978)271-81.se World Bank, Rural Development : Sector Policy Paper (Washington, WorldBank, Feb. 1975), 41-2.D. D. RUSSELL ISpackage-programme approach in a field experiment which, unlike thosesupported by the World Bank, deliberately avoids the provision of credit.The scheme is based on a judicious blend of community development andagricultural extension philosophies, coupled with the integration of all fac-tors relevant to small-scale agricultural development. Briefly, it involves themobilization of local savings through the establishment of savings clubs; theteaching of members of these clubs how to use their money for their owndevelopment by participating in agreed agricultural projects; the systematicprovision of basic technical information on the main crops or livestockselected: the bulk ordering of supplies, and marketing; and practical de-monstrations before each major operation on the land of savings club mem-bers participating in the programme.57This micro-economic scheme Š and there are others like it in RhodesiaŠ has achieved remarkable results with extremely limited resources. It hasattracted the attention of several overseas organizations and aid agencies,largely because it adds to the accumulating evidence supporting the expan-sion and adaptation of the disciplined package approach to fit large-scaleintegrated programmes of rural development based on small holdings, co-operative farming and land settlement schemes. But whatever the size ofthe project and whatever the management system Š be it highly authoritarianor be it concerned with the involvement of local people in planning, decision-making and implementation Š experience has amply demonstrated theimportance, once personal and community confidence has been established, ofthe inclusion of practical nonformal educational components in all pro-grammes of rural development.58And it is not only for agricultural development that multiple sources ofnonformal education are required. Where agriculture is modernizing andgrowth points are evolving, extension and training services should reachout to the small businessman, the rural artisan, co-operative societies and theinfluential women's clubs. These services need to have effective links withcommunity development organizations and education for local government,with health and family planning education, with functional literacy pro-grammes and with various agencies concerned with resource education andintermediate technology.All these educational approaches and training efforts have major areasof pedagogical overlap and content interdependence. The services they»7 G. A. Smith, 'A Strategy for Rural Development : Savings Clubs and PackageProgrammes' (Univ. of Rhodesia, Inst. of Adult Education, mimeo, 1974).ss Loveridge, 'A Survey of British Experience of Non-Formal Education', 74-80;Harbison, Human Resources as the Wealth of Nations, 80-99; cf. M. Rahnema.'Educa-tion and equality : A vision unfulfilled', and T. Dodds. 'Distance teaching alternativesin education and for development, in Hall and Kidd (eds), Adult learning : A Designlor Action, 65-6, 245-6.2O EDUCATION FOR DEVELOPMENTrepresent would undoubtedly benefit from close association and field cfyoperation, and from the sharing of staff training resources. Their co-ordina-tion through a large central organization may be undesirable becauseflexibility in response to needs is not normally a characteristic of bureau-cracies. Nevertheless, the SENA management system mentioned earlier hasdistinct possibilities, as does a similar proposal made by World Bankresearchers for the creation of multipurpose rural development centresconnected to small district training centres.59 Whatever the system oico-ordination and management, the overriding aim should be to arrange f°rextension and training needs to be continuously monitored and communicatedto the potential suppliers of nonformal education.The message that I received from the foothills of Mount Olympus andfrom tried and tested practice is that education for development is utilitarianat just about every level; that it takes place in a recurring way in manydifferent forms and settings; that it is firmly related to the world of workand thus to the adult population; and that unless it is integrated with develop-ment efforts it will achieve very little."Coombs and Ahmed, Attacking Rural Poverty, 221-2.