Non-formal education and education policy in Ghana and...

Non-formal education / and education policy

in Ghana and Senega5

Babacar SINE

i ’

ISBN 92-3- 1016 59-8 French edition 92-3-201659-1

Published in 1979 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 7, Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris (France)

Printed by Boudin, Paris

0 Unesco 1979

Preface

With a view to stimulating research and reflection on lifelong education and promoting education policies attuned to the actual experience of workers and farmers, this study attempts to make better known the cultural and educational needs of certain urban and rural communities in Senegal and Ghana and the contribution that these communities can make towards satisfying them.

The current world-wide debate on education reveals the importance of culture and non-formal education in the educational process. While there is growing awareness of the value of developing the often dialectical relationship between formal and non-formal education, however, the cultural and educational contribution that could be provided by the working or farming community is all too of ten underestimated.

in questioning those actually concerned who, as will be seen, want not only to have access to education and culture but also to assume an active role in their own training.

Like the first publication on lifelong education issued in this series(1) , the present study is addressed to educational planners and teachers, as well as to all those who are interested in new forms of education based on grassroots initiative and on the population’s analysis of its own needs.

The study consists of a methodological presentation of the survey and of the cultural and social context in which it was conducted; an

The method adopted for this study consisted

analysis of non-formal education in the communities studied and a future-oriented section, identifying the elements of an education policy that would leave room for creativity on the part of the population.

Although limited to two countries, the present study represents a first contribution to a comparative education study intended to provide more than just an analysis of formal education structures. Moreover, this approach will be pursued in other work currently being carried out concerning, in particular, the impact of culture on educational experience.

The author of this study, Babacar SINE, a Senegalese sociologist, has for several years been engaged in research on the relations between African education, culture and civilization, resulting in several publications. (2)

It should be made clear that the ideas expressed in the following pages, whatever their undoubted interest, are the sole responsibility of their author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Unesco.

Black Africa, Paris, Unes

3

Table of contents

1 . INTRODUCTION A N D METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Methodological approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 . Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . Methodological precautions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . Conditions and difficulties of the survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

II . ENVIRONMENT IN RELATION TO NON-FORMAL EDUCATION

1 . Data concerning the environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 A . Guédiawaye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 B . Two villages in the region of Accra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

(a) Damfa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 (b) Cidan Tuba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2 . Participation of the population in non-formal education activities . . . . . . . . . 13 A . Guédiawaye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

(a) Decline in traditional participation patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 (b) Traditional education structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 (c) Traditional forms of association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 (d) New forms of participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

B . Damfa and Cidan Tuba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 (a) Participation in Damfa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 (b) Participation in Cidan Tuba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Role played by grassroots communities in framing and implementing non-formal education policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3 .

III . ROLE OF NON-FORMAL EDUCATION STRUCTURES

1 . Dispersal and organization of decision-making bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2 . Experiments in non-formal education in Ghana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

(a) A pattern of action: community development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 (b) Homescience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 (c) Self-help construction work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 (d) Adult education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3 . Co-operatives and educational action of the rural expansion centres in Senegal . . . 24

IV . T O W A R D S A NON-FORMAL EDUCATION POLICY

1 . Bases of non-formal education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 2 . Policy for financing and implementing community education projects . . . . . . . . . 28 3 . Links between non-formal education and the education system . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 4 . Which educational strategy should be adopted? . I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

5

I. Introduction and methodological approach

INTRODUCTION

The spirit of this study may be defined in terms of an attempt to take up grassroots thinking, as expressed in the life of working-class neighbourhoods and villages in Africa.

We are not concerned with decentralizing the approach to education policy or extending it to what we might see as parts of "deepest Africa" or the "real Africa". The very concept of educational decentralization, understood in this way, remains suspect.

Indeed, it tends to treat what are usually termed the grassroots communities as no more than outposts, subordinated to distant decision- making centres.

Our approach runs counter to this tendency : the grassroots communities themselves are considered from the outset as the real centres, the proper targets of educational action.

In contemporary Africa, action to achieve not only national liberation but development itself ultimately hinges upon the villages, grassroots organizations and youth and women's associations, and this fact amply justifies the need to give them the requisite attention, in framing education policies, by Listening to their views, expressing their needs, in a word, by taking account of their own thinking about themselves. Formal education, of which the conventional school system is the corner-stone, has generally by-passed these grassroots communities in Africa, both in colonial and post-colonial times. It must be admitted that its function has been less to cater for the needs of the people as expressed by the people at the base, than to form intermediary elites between the people and the central authorities, while reproducing social relations of colonial inspiration.

Besides this fact, the mode of operation of the conventional school system in Africa does not lend itself to expressing the needs of the broad masses. Its salient features are a pedantic approach to learning, a superficial adaptation of the colonial model and a hard-and-fast pattern of education, based upon the omnipotence of the teacher without any regard for the educational, technical and cultural genius of the people or the socio-cultural environment, which is literally ignored.

As a result of these limitations, which are not nowadays contested, educational research is having to turn towards non-formal education. It is in fact becoming more and more evident that non-formal education is capable of performing specific tasks and of contributing best to the furtherance of education and culture necessary for development.

By definition, the very concept of non- formal education can have no single, wholly unified and consistent theoretical significance. As we see it, the concept embraces all activities in every field of knowledge and action carried out by a community, using methods whose worth has been demonstrated, in order to gain control over its own environment, without this know-how necessarily being transmitted through pre- established, preconceived channels so codified as to acquire the force of dogma.

Considering the matter from this angle, it is urgent to focus the investigation on all the knowledge, all the skills, all the stock of educational techniques that Africa has discovered in its villages, and working-class districts, among its different age-groups, etc.

the people. This is obviously an extremely ambitious

project. We are consequently aware of the need, from a methodological point of view, to confine ourselves to one or two specific cases, so as better to illustrate in concrete terms the points under discussion. Otherwise, there is a great risk of lapsing into abstract generalities. The two cases, or rather, the two concrete situations are as follows.

First of all, a suburban working-class district in Senegal, Guédiawaye. Here, the effects of the rural exodus and the social crises besetting contemporary Africa come together in an over-populated commuter suburb constituting a reserve of labour; in short, one of those suburban communities which are more and more often to be found in present-day Africa on the fringes of such large cities as Lagos, Abidjan, Dakar etc. As such, it seems to u's both interesting and characteristic.

What new educational facilities have been established for the local community, what is their role and their relationship to traditional education?

How can a non-formal education policy be implemented in such a setting?

These are some of the problems that need to be tackled, taking into account the specific character of the area involved, which is very different from that covered by the survey conducted in Ghana.

carried out in two villages that are far from being dependencies of a large city but are all the same

In this latter country, the survey was

7

involved in a process of transforming and modern- izing their educational and social structures, while apparently retaining a strongly marked cultural homogeneity and social cohesion.

Each of the two situations studied presents facets of a many-sided Africa, which can no longer be confined to specific categories; there are as many images as there are different grassroots communities.

Our work also strengthened our conviction that the concept of the grassroots community suited our purposes better than any other could have done. There is no single or uniform pattern to which the grassroots community conforms but, rather, each grassroots community has its own identity, in keeping with its own context, which always differs, even in Africa, according to whether it is urban, suburban or totally agrarian.

varies, as do the methods and approaches adopted; but over and above this dispersal and diversity of situations, an unchanging structural unity can be discerned which corresponds to a desire to identify the true needs of the grassroots communities. Similarly, an unchanging unity underlies the ultimate purposes of educational action, which are to foster collective awareness, through educational action and information, so as to assist in the promotion of self-sufficiency and endogenous development.

The content of popular education consequently

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

1. Criteria

W e chose to study two types of grassroots community, sociologically different in their structure and organization, as well as their social composition and the forms of economic activity; in addition, we chose two different national contexts: thus, Guédiawaye is in Senegal, a French-speaking country, while Damfa and Cidan Tuba are in the region of Accra in Ghana, an English-speaking country. (1)

Guédiawaye is a suburban community, like so many of those that proliferate in contemporary Africa, especially around the boom towns such as Lagos, Kinshasa, Abidjan, etc., having come about as a result of economic constraints, more particularly the vast rural exodus that brings to the outskirts of the towns large masses of the population destined to become, if they have not already done so, the new proletariat. What is left to them of the wealth of popular education that they received in their villages or communities of origin? How can they be helped not only to keep it alive but also to develop it? What are their practical needs in respect of non-formal education, arising from the fact that, for a multi- tude of reasons, there are not enough schools or the school has failed in its task, particularly as regards their inclusion in community plans either envisaged or likely to be? What kind of non-formal education policy can be applied or simply proposed?

Tuba, in contrast with Guédiawaye, agriculture is the dominant economic activity, and the patterns of social organization (the hierarchical system, the operation of the local authority, etc.) are still governed by principles peculiar to those communities. The latter, however, are far from being economically and socially static; on the contrary, they have embarked upon new experiments in local development, wholly inspired by the philo- sophy of self-help. This is a policy of social

In the two villages of Damfa and Cidan

action whose purpose is first of all to bring about in the community collective awareness of the need to strive actively towards development, with knowledge of its real needs and of the goals it intends to pursue. So far as these grassroots communities are concerned, this policy may be defined as a desire to give concrete expression to the principle of endogenous development.

In this context, the development of non- formal educational activities (agricultural extension work, vocational training, health and social education, literacy work, collective participation in projects, etc.) is of paramount importance. Considering the experiments currently under way in these two villages, it can even be said that this policy gives priority to educational action at grassroots level in the hope that it will kindle in the population the desire to take its own development in hand and the will to pursue it.

The reasons for our choosing two grassroots communities in Ghana for the purposes of our survey are as follows. having to base our conclusions solely on the study of a village such as Damfa. True, this village is of great interest, for its inhabitants form a highly motivated community, provided with fairly substantial extension services and involved in. a process of genuine change under the impetus of the policy of self-help. In this sense, Damfa provides a context in which a non-formal education policy is directly affecting a community itself willing to change and to question the nature of it5 existence. Seen from this angle, however, Damfa is not representative of all Ghanaian villages. Consequently, in order to obtain a less circum- scribed view of the essential aspects of grassroots life and to formulate more general conclusions, we decided to extend our survey to the village of Cidan Tuba, the structures, organizational patterns and sociological setting of which are different.(2)

First, we wanted to avoid

2. Methodological precautions

At the preparatory stage of our survey, we considered it necessary to take the following methodological precautions :

Choice of interviewers

This choice had to be made with care, so as to ensure that no problems of communication arose between the interviewers and the survey population. It was of course necessary for the interviewers to be able to express themselves perfectly in the language of the population. This problem was easily solved since, in the region of Cape Verde, where Dakar and Guédiawaye are situated, everyone speaks Wolof, the main language of Senegal, even those coming from other regions on account of the rural exodus.

What level of education should be required of the interviewers? We decided to give preference

(1) W e do not consider this distinction to be a superficial one; it denotes different socio- cultural traditions and realities. In this lies the interest of our survey. In order to find out more about the grassroots communities, we also visited certain organized groups, such as the community formed by the Presbyterian Women's Group, set right in the centre of Accra, which also operates as a co-operative and a school. We shall have occasion to refer again to this in due course.

(2)

to persons who, having obtained the certificate of lower secondary education, could to a certain extent understand the interview guide, interpret it and translate it correctly to the populations concerned, and who above all would not react, sociologically speaking, as élite groups out of touch with the people. This last point, concerning the sociological relationship between the interviewers and the survey population, is of particular importance.

We initially chose two young men. But we realized right at the beginning of the survey that it was necessary to increase the number of interviewers and to include a person of the female sex for the reasons described below.

It soon emerged that women formed the largest population group and the one most readily available for out-of-school education. We discovered that women were also the most highly motivated group. These were no doubt the substantive reasons, but there were also reasons of a methodological kind: - It was more difficult for the young male interviewers to enter into communication with women in Guédiawaye. No doubt this was to be attributed to the dominant conception of what was morally permissible. For in Africa, even in a suburban area such as Guédiawaye, women commu- nicate among themselves in communities to which men do not have access. Since the survey was intended to cover each of the grassroots communities concerned as a whole, it naturally seemed important for us to find means of communicating with women who had formed communities or associations, so as to be able to obtain accurate information. - Not only was the number of women interested in non-formal education considerable, but there was also the fact that women are faced with specific problems. We thought that a woman would be in a better position to report on this than a man.

Such were the reasons that militated in favour of a female interviewer being recruited.

Informing and motivating the interviewers

The success of the survey also hinged upon two important subjective factors that were closely interrelated, namely the degree of information and motivation possessed by the interviewers. Above all, it was necessary to explain the interview guide, which indicated the lines on which the interviews were to be conducted, for this guide was formulated in terms that were not always clearly understood by the interviewers.

Information

Before starting on our survey, we held several working meetings at which we explained the significance and purpose of the undertaking. In simple words, keyed to the educational attainments of the interviewers, we commented on the terms of reference of the research mission. Our problem was above all that of clearly pinpointing the concept of "out-of-school education", so as to dispel any confusion in the minds of the interviewers, who ran the risk of being unable to make a very clear distinction between formal education and non-formal education.

These meetings also allowed us to dwell at some length on the various types of question contained in the interview guide, and especially to give the following advice: - Do not interpret the expressed or unex- pressed thoughts of the respondents; give a

faithful picture of their different ideas and aspirations.

conduct the interview in a free-wheeling, chatty style rather than by direct questions. In order to generate confidence, a. real effort was required, to persuade each of the families visited of the objectives o f e survey. We shall see that at the beginning of the practical work carried out in the field, the major obstacle to communication between interviewers and respondents was in fact this lack of confidence.

- Inspire confidence :

Motivation

The information provided for the interviewers was also designed to motivate them, to secure their involvement in a task which could be expected to be of concern to them. This led us to stress the interest presented by the survey, especially its social significance, which they were the better able to understand since young people like themselves, possessing the certificate of lower secondary education, none the less find themselves unemployed, a fact to be marked up against the conventional school system in a country such as Senegal.

3. Conditions and difficulties of the survey

Initial obstacles and changes in approach

Correct identification of the interviewers

The early stages of the field work were not without difficulties. Despite the precautions taken, the population showed a certain resistance. The replies obtained were either evasive or very general and often consisted in an avoidance of the issue. We realized that we had not properly solved the problem of our initial acceptance by the community, who put up a barrier between ourselves and them, -for we had given an inadequate or false picture of who we were. Did thev take us for tax collectors or other government officials in disguise? Although, in our own terms, we had solved the problem of the methodological approach to be adopted, we certainly had not given it sufficient thought in regard to the population. We had not wondered how the population would interpret our presence among them, how we would be considered ourselves or whether we would need an "entrance ticket" for Guédiawaye.

We had to abandon the preconceived idea that the traditional system of authority in Guédiawaye was undergoing a crisis and that, as a result, it would be possible to gain admittance to families in a particular neighbourhood directl without any recommendation (which w d d unthinkable in a village).

We had to get mto touch with the chief of the neighbourhood, inform him of the purpose of the survey and get his clearance. Subsequently, the representations he made to the families proved decisive and greatly facilitated our task.

After he had prepared the way for us, we were able to detect an improvement in our dealings with the population; they became trustful and willing to contribute to the success of the survey. They had the impression that we could be useful. From beginning to end, the survey revealed the importance of this criterion of usefulness, which seemed to us to be decisive in regard to the

9

behaviour of the masses in many circumstances. The interviews We noted, for instance, that it was this that determined their attitude towards modern At the beginning, we reckoned that we would non-formal education. The masses spontaneously conduct 50 interviews. It should be noted that, incline towards that which is useful to them, and from the planning stage right up to that of imple- it was thanks to this reflex that we were finally mentation, this figure was treated as a purely accepted. tentative guide.

10

II. Environment in relation to hon-formal education

1. D A T A CONCERNING T H E ENVIRONMENTS

A . Guédiawaye

Structure and organization

Guédiawaye seems to us to be an interesting and typical case. This suburban community, located some ten kilometres from Dakar, is in a sense a microcosm in which all the cultural elements that go to make up Senegal are represented: the inhabitants of Guédiawaye come from all the different economic and socio-cultural regions of the country (Cayor, Baol, Casamance, East Senegal, Siné-Saloum, etc.); and also from all the ethnic communities. Several languages are spoken at Guédiawaye, but Wolof is the one used by the majority of the population. This is an extremely important factor in view of the acute problem of linguistic pluralism existing in Africa, especially in suburban communities like Guédiawaye. It may be added that Wolof is the language used for educational work. The characteristic feature of the population of Guédiawaye , of relatively recent formation, is that most of the inhabitants come from other working-class districts of Dakar, such as Baye, Gaïde, Pikine, and so on. This was confirmed by most of the people we questioned.

At the beginning, when the community was first settled on an improvised basis, there was nothing by way of a social infrastructure - no social centre, medical centre, school, etc.; and there is every indication that it was an unauthor- ized settlement. To sum up, Guédiawaye is : - a populous suburb of a large modern city, Dakar; - a mushroom town (which has grown very rapidly without awaiting the establishment of social facilities) ; - a dormitory town (Like most working-class suburbs) ; - a "melting pot" (presence of several ethnic communities) ; - a place of refuge (in that it takes in many social "misfits", out of work and rejected by the city, who come here in search of the support of the ethnic groups to which they belong).

It should be noted that this settlement, as it developed, split up into various districts, under the authority of district chiefs, acting as intermediaries between the community and the authorities.

All these factors proved of interest from the standpoint of the general theme of our study. Thus we came to note the following points:

- the lack of any kind of educational infrastructure increases the part that must necessarily be played, in a context such as this, by popular education and, more generally, non-formal education of all kinds; - the need for such education is felt more acutely in cases where, as in Guédiawaye, practically all the eople lack both material goods and

- training must be planned to meet the needs of a population already clearly identified. Thus, at Guédiawaye, for example, vocational training in certain trades and skius which can be applied in an industrial context would be the most useful. The people come from the country, and most of them know about farming, but they have no hope of returning to the land because of the economic crisis from which the Senegalese countryside is suffering and which was originally responsible for the mass exodus.

These conclusions drawn from the analysis of the context as regards non-formal education provide some general guidance, which we shall have occasion to illustrate and develop. It may be summed up as follows: any action in the field of non-formal education policy must take into account in its content, forms and methods the specific features of the grassroots communities concerned.

training (voca 4 ional, general cultural level, etc.);

B. Two villages in the region of Accra

(a) Damfa

Lying about 17 kilometres from Accra, this traditional village, which has a firmly established social structure, serves as a base for the experimental construction work being undertaken by the communities themselves with the assistance of the authorities, including in particular the Ministry of Social Affairs. Damfa affords an example of the type of social organization characteristic of most African villages.

Social organization

This is a hierarchical structure based on sex distinctions and age groups. Local power is divided between the central authorities, which are represented not in Damfa itself but in the main town of the district, and the traditional authority vested in the chief of the village, whose sociological impact is much more real. As regards social relations, a clear distinction is drawn between men and women and also between the young and the old. A remarkable fact about this

11

village which is worth stressing is that the existence of a seemingly rigid distinction between the sexes does not have the effect of stifling the initiative of the women who have, for example, organized co-operatives and pursue their own activities (teaching home economics, learning trades, and so on). place where women meet together specially to discuss their own problems. This is a point to which we shall return.

We were even able to visit a

Organizational structure

Damfa, precisely because it is the scene of a very advanced community experiment, has a relatively developed organizational structure. We observed that the following personnel, most of them, it is true, living in the village, were engaged almost full time on supervisory work:

The agricultural officer, who plays a very important part, especially at the teaching level. He is responsible for introducing new techniques and new seeds, overcoming the farmers' resistance to change and, above all, explaining planning requirements and methods (the village being the basic unit). Instruction is entirely based on practical demonstration and practical evidence, and there is a model farm where experiments can be carried out.

The social welfare representative, on a permanent basis. rem-esents the Communitv DeveloD- ment Division of t6e Ministry of Social Welfare. His task is to control the whole of the village development project, in which all the population participates.

The chief medical officer, who lives in the village, besides dispensing treatment with the help of his assistants, is in charge of health education (preventive treatment and basic hygiene) and social instruction (family planning). Family planning meetings are held regularly twice a month.

The primary teacher and the education monitors deal almost exclusively with school education, taking little part in out-of-school or non- formal education.

The natural "leaders" are those who have emerged from the rank and file of the community by winning its confidence. We shall examine their importance in the section dealing with the participation of the bulk of the population in educational activities.

In addition to the above permanent supervisory personnel, the village is visited periodically by various persons concerned with activities for promotion of development, some of whom have close contacts of long standing with all or part of the population.

Thus experts in family education, in Ghana, help to organize the women's association, in which they do regular educational work and take charge of both organization and co-ordination.

Socio-educational infrastructure

This infrastructure provides all the material requirements for carrying out popular education work. The equipment is either provided entirely by the authorities (as in the case of the clinic) or by the authorities and the population jointly. This infrastructure consists of the following: - a clinic (training in prophylactic measures, family planning) ; - a new school, financed by contributions from the inhabitants of the village;

- adult education classes ; - a women's social centre; - the public square, a veritable village "parliament", which plays a very important part in the exercise of "village democracy" and in the taking of decisions affecting the community.

Economic factors and problems

The village of Damfa lives mainly by agriculture, and agricultural work constitutes the main activity of the community. The standard of living of the population does not appear to be disastrous: many houses are solidly built, and there are 'sufficient food resources to meet the needs of the population. The main problem is water and, more particularly, water in sufficient quantity to irrigate the arable land. It was clear, at a number of public meetings at which the people were able to express their views and wishes, that the problem of irrigation was one of their main concerns. The population needs external aid to finance the irrigation project, which is beyond its means, but it does not exclude some participation in the cost, the supply of labour, and so on.

(b) Cidan Tuba

Social organization

The origins of the foundation of this village are worth recalling. They are important, since they determine its entire nature and characteristics. The inhabitants are all converts to Islam - hence the name of the village, Cidan Tuba (House of Converts) - although this religion is not strongly established in the region; it is rather in the north of the country, among the Hausas, that Islamic communities are to be found. So the converts of Cidan Tuba came from another village, which they left either in order to avoid mixing with people of other religions or else to have greater freedom in the practice of their new faith. The fact that the people of this village are recent converts to Islam accounts for the following features, which we observed in the course of our survey :

this community is a model of social solidarity in every respect. For instance, all the village livestock, constituting its sole patrimony, is kept and tended collectively in a communal stable. - The local authority or the authority wielding the power in the village is both the religious and the civil chief, a fact which en- hances his importance, unlike the situation in Damfa. - The teaching of the Koran is universal. All the children attend the Koranic school, which also teaches Arabic, to the detriment of the other school, five kilometres from the village, a distance which, in the African countryside, is not usually enough to discourage attendance (schools are often as much as eight kilometres from the villages they serve). Are there other reasons which might explain why nobody goes to this particular school? Here are the answers received when we put this question in the literacy classes we visited (these classes were held in the village itself):

- Marked social cohesion :

- "We have too much work to do in the fields" .

This was the most frequent answer, and there is some justification for it, in view of the fact that

12

all the inhabitants of Cidan Tuba take part in work in the fields on a collective basis. In this village all the people are mobilized for work with intense commitment.

- "We shall remain peasants, whatever we do" .

This is what people added when we asked whether they were not afriad that going to school might influence them, and cause them to adopt another way of life. In view of the position of Cidan Tuba, whose inhabitants are on the defensive and in a minority as regards religion, the possibility of conflict between religious principles and many aspects of western-type education could not be ruled out.

All these circumstances explain the vital importance of literacy classes in Cidan Tuba, where, together with the Koranic school, they provide the main educational structure. This is a feature that needs stressing: in most places, adult education or literacy classes are a continua- tion or reinforcement of formal education, but here, in the absence of formal education, non- formal teaching establishes an educational structure for the people and serves as a means of social and cultural advancement.

Socio-educational equipment and organization

Adult education and literacy classes

These classes are organized by an Education and Literacy Committee, composed of "natural leaders" who have emerged from the people. The task of this Committee is to organize the running of the classes - timetables, material aid, problems of discipline, etc. - in conjunction with the social welfare officials.

There are three such general education and literacy classes, each corresponding to a certain teaching level. No age limits are fixed: children, adolescents and adults of both sexes all attend these classes together. It should be noted that few women are in evidence and that they participate less, generally speaking, than those of Damfa, whose energy is particularly noteworthy.

The staff comprises two volunteers and a monitor paid by Social Welfare. The two volunteers are people from the village, still living there, so that their work is not confined to supervision of the literacy classes, since they join in other activities of the community, including work in the fields.

Ciden Tuba lacks sufficient socio-educational equipment; it has neither a public school nor a social centre.

2. PARTICIPATION OF THE POPULA- TION IN NON-FORMAL EDUCATION ACTIVITIES

A. Guédiawaye

Here, participation varies according to circumstances, in view of the special character of the cbntext, and is not structured as in the Ghanaian villages of Damfa and Cidan Tuba, which are fairly well organized. It is marked by three main features: the gradual decline in traditional participation patterns, a revival of association activities and some attempts at organization and spontaneous ventures.

(a) Decline in traditional participation patterns

The basic unit for participation in all community activities in Africa, through which individuals develop and play their part in the group or society, is the family. tion, social and educational unit.

As regards non-formal education, which is the subject of this study, the situation observed in Guédiawaye is very significant: the traditional family is breaking up, and the part it ysed to play in the teaching of vocational skills in initia- tions of various kinds, etc. , has greatly diminished. This is due to the fact that the men and youths spend the whole of the day in the capital city of Dakar, either working or looking for work. The family, as an educational centre and a means of participation in the life of the group in Africa presupposes a particular form of production and type of society - communal, patriarchal or feudal - and, above all, a certain stability and the concentration of all its members in the family home, which is also the production centre. In Guédiawaye, the home and the place of work are now being separated, and one of the results is to disrupt the educational role of the family: the traditional initiation ceremonies, for example, requiring active participation by members of the family, are no longer followed so fervently.

The increasing deterioration of the educational and cultural aspects of family Life is also due in part to the introduction of the radio. The families questioned (the average is from 8 to 10 children per family) confessed that they had abandoned certain typical family traditions, such as story-telling, wakes, educational games etc. , and listened to radio programmes instead. The following examples show some of the evening programmes parents and children are interested in: "No Flaye" (rest and leisure), a comic educational

programme ; "Diangue dou Wess" (It is never too late to learn),

a ten-minute programme following the 8 p.m. news bulletin;

"Knel K Knalatt" (thought and reflection). Family participation in traditional educa-

tional and cultural activities is also gradually decreasing under pressure from new forms of popular education through the mass media.

It is also the basic produc-

(b) Traditional education structures

B y traditional education, we mean training given within the community without outside interference and, particularly, without recourse to the formal school system. Responsibility for such training is assumed by the community concerned, and it is dispensed in the context of certain educational and cultural structures inherited from the past but still very full of life, consisting of both "schools" that prepare young people for initiation, and associations within the group.

Preparation for initiation

The importance of initiation in educational and cultural life in Africa should be noted. It takes place at certain decisive moments in the individual's life, particularly at the transition from adolescence to adulthood. What is actually taught in this context is often highly interesting and varied and, above all, it is always related to

13

life - botany courses, knowledge of wild life and the physical environment, religious and esoteric initiation, moral training, etc. ) .

In Guédiawaye, more than 90 per cent of the adult population (particularly the men) received their basic training through these traditional schools of the people, some idea of which may be afforded by the "kassak" . This educational and cultural institution comes into operation at the time of circumcision and when the transition from adolescence to adulthood takes place. It consists in the holding of wakes, which take place every evening under the direction of a master of ceremonies who also acts as "schoolmaster".

During the "kassak", several masters or initiates appear in succession before the community of those circumcised, known as the ttmtbartt. Their role consists in teaching their audience to decipher gestures, sign-language or symbols, linking together as far as possible oral instruction and teaching by means of gesture. During the same period, "peripatetic schools" are systematically organized in the form of country walks under the leadership of a "selbé" (master). These walks are so many occasions for arousing curiosity, teaching, experimenting and initiating.

This traditional form of education is far from declining in the villages. In Guédiawaye, however, only elderly persons or adults have benefited from it; it is no longer practised by the young.

The reasons given for the break with these educational traditions are set forth below.

- "People no longer know each other as they did in the village".

These educational institutions did in fact presuppose the existence of "age groupstt founded on kinship ties and a sense of solidarity with the family or inter-family group. The suburban district of Guédiawaye, unlike the village of origin, is not conducive to the formation of "age groupstt in the traditional sense. Inter-personal relations are no longer founded strictly upon the fact of belonging to a common ethnic group or sharing common village traditions. These dis- integrate or dissolve. Their gradual disappearance inevitably leads to loss of the educational practices for which they provided the basis.

- "The young no longer believe in our traditional educational institutions", or "The young cannot even remember those traditions", the old people claim.

The generation gap and urban life are but two factors that lead young people to have small regard for the traditional forms of cultural initiation. This phenomenon is borne out by the steady decline in the attendance rate for these "traditional schools". Thus, in the Malick Sy district, only one or two ceremonies are organized each year and 80 per cent of the young people no longer show any great interest in them.

Mention should also be made in this connection of the decline of another form of family education, known as the "lepe", which is a kind of evening class for children. Parents or grand- parents organize activities for the "lèpe", the themes of which are varied, turning around stories of animals transformed into imaginary persons or moral tales (the good man, the bad man, the brave man, the sly man, etc. ) .

The aim of the "18pe" is to develop the

imaginative faculties of children by providing them with elementary education characterized by the use of imagery. But, the practice of the "lèpe", like that of the "kassak", is no longer pursued as strictly as it used to be.

(c) Traditional forms of association

One of the questions to which we gave our attention was whether some form of association nevertheless continues to exist. O n what bases (religious or occupational affinities, ties of friendship, etc.) is it founded? What are its structures, how does it operate, what is its educational content, etc.?

larly prominent role in everyday life and are generally of two kinds: mutual aid associations and cultural and religious associations.

The distinction is not always warranted; some associations are in fact active at one and the same time in the spheres of mutual aid, education and culture, one example being the "M'Botais" in the rural communities, which have a traditional role in the agricultural sector. Such associations work communal fields in the interests of social solidarity. This solidarity is then manifested in specific circumstances - baptisms, marriages, deaths, the financing of celebrations, management and distribution of communal grain, etc.

In the Malick Sy district in Guédiawaye, the "M'Botais", which are associations of adults or young people of both sexes, perform community advancement work. Associations of this kind, for instance, financed the construction of the school and appealed to the local authorities to secure the assistance of a primary-school teacher. Similarly, they serve as links between the community and the authorities in regard to all matters of information, community organization work, etc.

In Guédiawaye, associations play a particu-

Observations

(1) The apparent decline of certain non- formal education structures of the traditional type, such as those to which we have just re- ferred, is not irreversible. The example of the "M'Botai" furnishes proof of a possible linkage between traditional forms of association and the requirements of new popular education.

(2) Through the "M'Botai", the population demonstrates a real ability to take initiatives in the spheres that interest it, particularly in regard to its own education.

(3) Action in the field of out-of-school education may be facilitated by the development of local groups of the traditional type already in existence .

(4) The problem of the break with traditional education must be tackled in all its com- plexity in respect of a suburban area such as Guédiawaye, where there is both a decline in various traditional educational practices (the "kassak") and a reactivation of certain socio- educational structures (the "M'Botai").

It is thus seen that the role played in Guédiawaye by socio-educational structures is not uniform, and the structures themselves are not developed to the same degree. All depends on specifically local conditions and the interplay of certain factors : large-scale urbanization, degree of attachment to traditions, cohesion of the family group, etc.

Most adults have received basic occupational training, but not in a formal setting. Trades are

14

learnt in the family context. There are a large number of apprentices (apprentice carpenters, apprentice masons, apprentice drivers) all trained on the job, that is to say locally by relatives engaged in a professional activity. In the Malick Sy district, two carpentry workshops are in operation providing employment for 11 persons, of whom 8 are apprentices. Those in charge of the workshops recruit apprentices from within the family, in the broad sense of the term, after a few years of primary education. Certain apprentices have not attended school. Apprentices are integrated within the families of their employers. This procedure calls to mind the apprenticeship patterns of the mediaeval guilds.

(d) New forms of participation

Community organization

It should be noted that there exists a policy pertaining to community organization, framed and implemented by the public authorities. The latter determine what activities shall be organized in this context, in the light of the socio-economic groups concerned, and generally provide the necessary facilities. According to the National Directorate for Community Organization, the purpose of such activities is to develop the population's awareness of the objectives of the Plan, by means of information and education, with a view to securing its participation. In Senegal, it emerges that rural community organization in particular has to a certain extent come into its own, mainly on account of the importance of the rural population (the country lives essentially from its agriculture).

There is virtually no government-sponsored community organization work in Guédiawaye . There are no facilities for practical lower-secondary education in the two districts in which the survey was conducted, which no doubt accounts for the spontaneous development of family workshops providing occupational training. So far as community organization work is concerned, action by representatives of local associations seems more effective, and they in fact serve as community organizers within their different groups. What is involved here is a spontaneous, non- institutional form of community Organization. Its effectiveness is indisputable, for it results in considerable participation in the life of associations in the various neighbourhoods. These associations of young people and adults of either sex demonstrate energetic commitment in organizing both literacy classes and other forms of educational and cultural activity.

This type of community work produces such results for the following reasons : - It involves participation in addition to or anization, in so far as the community organizers h e group itself and participate in it in the same capacity as the other members. - The community organizers are known by the community and are not brought in from outside; the relationship of trust between them .and the grassroots community ensures a better spirit of understanding and community participation. - It follows that these community organizers have a less bureaucratic approach to their work than those recruited by the State.

Mention should also be made of the community organization activities conducted by the committees and local officials of the political party in power. Such activities, of course, are designed to serve

political ends rather than strictly educational ones.

Both the spontaneous and institutional forms of community organization and that linked to political objectives are in need of improvement in Guédiawaye, considering the fact that advantage has not yet been taken of all the available oppor- tunities for genuine participation. There are two reasons for this, the lack of adequate material facilities (a genuine popular education centre, for instance) and the shortcomings of official policy in this sphere, which turns a blind eye to the problems arising from community organization and participation in a suburban area. The sociological characteristics of a settlement such as that of Guédiawaye (it is a melting-pot, it lacks material resources, etc. ) call for other methods and other approaches than would be required in a village or an urban district.

B. Damfa and Cidan Tuba

(a) Participation in Damfa

The population often finds an opportunity to demonstrate its involvement and its desire to participate thanks to its sense and spirit of co-operation. It thus defrayed a large part of the cost of building the new school. This permanent motivation on the part of the population in regard to development projects, particularly those relating to non-formal education, can be attributed to various factors. First of all, the trained services available to this community have led to a definite mobilization of energies. In addition, the inhabitants have fully realized that the projects proposed to them (including the development of educational activities along social lines at the clinic, induction courses organized with the assistance of the Ministry of Social Welfare, etc. ) were consonant with their interests. In this case as in others, participation entails those actually concerned being first of all aware of the usefulness of the activities provided for them.

All categories of the population, as well as the associations of young people and adults of both sexes, have a hand both in planning activities (working out curricula, timetables, proced- ures, etc. ) and in carrying them out. Are there not grounds for speaking here of "village democracy", in connection with the assemblies held in the one public square in the locality? Everyone addresses the assembly, participates in the discussions and questions the representatives of the authorities about the various items placed on the agenda. Such general assemblies provide an opportunity to discuss the aims and problems of the Plan. It should be recalled that there are three levels of planning in Ghana, corresponding to the village community, the district and the region. Within this structure, Damfa exemplifies the basic unit. At this level, participation is ensured by means of meetings of farmers, at which they express their needs, discuss the new agricultural techniques envisaged and the problems of the pilot farm, which serves as a real agricultural school, where new seed varieties and innovations of all kinds are tried out. The population's participation in the planning process, which, in this particular case, tends to set high value on contacts with people at grassroots level (grassroots public authorities), was secured in the present instance only after surmounting numerous obstacles. According to the supervisory personnel, the agricultural expert and the delegate

15

of the Ministry of Social Welfare, the most serious problem at the beginning was lack of communication.

The survey revealed the following: (1) Practical demonstration proves more

effective than oral description, especially when the object is to introduce a new method or a new seed variety, etc.

(2) The mass media and particularly the radio are of assistance in educating the population and encouraging it to participate. However, when a community such as Damfa is involved, nothing can replace interpersonal communication, which is more direct and appeals more to the emotions.

(3) The village has its own traditions and customs. It is in the interest of anyone who comes in from outside to get to know them and to respect them. For instance, community participation in any undertaking whatsoever will not be secured or will be inadequate unless the chief of the community is associated with the undertaking. Thus, a number of problems relating to human relations must be solved before there can be participation.

(4) Occupational training for farmers constitutes a further, distinctive means of providing impetus for education and participation. In the main town of the region, sessions of three to seven days' duration are thus organized for farmers delegated by their villages. Considerable recourse is had to audio-visual aids during these sessions. The trainee farmers, after returning to their respective communities, are expected to transmit what they have learnt, to act as advisers and organizers and to encourage participation in the activities foreseen by the Plan.

population's participation being well organized and fairly intense in Damfa is that the community has the advantage of substantial trained backing; the fact that some of the extension workers live in the village greatly facilitates communication and, hence, Participation. This experiment is for all that a significant and exemplary one. For it to be repeated and generalized, the personnel problem must be solved, since a larger staff is required if effective use is to be made of interpersonal communication.

It is to be noted that the reason for the

(b) Participation in Cidan Tuba

The problem of participation here presents itself in different terms, very specific to this community which, as has already been pointed out, came about from the fact that its members practised the same religion. This is naturally a determining factor and, above all, an explanation of the exemplary vitality displayed by the inhabitants in regard to all local development activities.

In the absence of trained administrators, the population remains united around its "natural leaders", who play a considerable part in all promotional and organizational activities. In particular, the "natural leaders" head up the literacy committees and seek to enlist the support of parents and village notables. How does one become a "natural leader" in this kind of community? "Natural leaders" are not selected by any outside authority nor even, in every case, by the people. Most of them are simply recognized as such by the group on account of their drive and organizational abilities. When they are elderly, their age is often the decisive factor.

To sum up, the criteria for being a "natural leader" are, according to our survey, the following:

age, the ability to command respect, vitality and sociability. These "natural leaders" are active in the spheres of community organization, public relations and administration.

A clear distinction should be made between those persons recognized as natural leaders on a non-formal and non-institutional basis and official ersonnel (agricultural adviser, delegate o-

Kinistry of Social Welfare, etc.) who engage in non-formal educational activities.

Admittedly, persons in these two categories perform the same roles and their different activities converge. "Natural leaders", however, are more effective because they are more readily accepted as such; in addition, they act as driving forces within their own groups, while it is difficult for official personnel to act in the same way. The presence of such a driving force is essential for grassroots participation to be secured. The natural leaders act more effectively because they serve as direct reference models; they provide an example and consequently can lead the others on more successfully. B y and large, in the grassroots communities that we visited, their action and help in solving the problems of participation, education and communication seemed to us to have a more fundamental and, at all events, more decisive character.

The work carried out by these "natural leaders" may usefully be compared with that performed by voluntary workers, that is to say, persons who provide their services free of charge. Thus in Cidan Tuba, the official instructor who teaches in a literacy class is helped by voluntary workers from the village who have had the good fortune to receive some education. The position they hold in the group and their effectiveness within it are more or less identical with those of the "natural leaders". There is, however, a slight difference between them : the volunteers possess knowledge and skills which they undertake to transmit to the group. Thus they remain extraneous participants in the group, whereas the "natural leaders" form an integral part of the group.

3. ROLE PLAYED BY GRASSROOTS COM- MUNITIES IN FRAMING A N D IMPLEMENT- ING NON-FORMAL EDUCATION POLICIES

In Ghana as in Senegal, those who play a creative part in the framing of non-formal education policies (ministries, planners, official experts, etc. ) declare that they want to start from the bottom in order to define educational strategies and carry them out successfully. The entire problem consists, on the one hand, in making a concrete examination of the role actually played by the grassroots community in defining the needs and aims of non-formal education and, on the other, in study- ing the problems of the relationship between State assistance and grassroots co-operation.

The communities and the definition of objectives In Ghana as in Senegal, the grassroots communities are first requested to contribute in the context of the preparation of the national development plan. In both countries the plan is drawn up by regions. It serves as framework for the machinery set up for the purposes of concerted planning at the level of the village, the district (Ghana) or the arrondissement (Senegal), and finally the region. At the local level, the farmers' assemblies discuss projects and express their own particular needs and complaints. Decisions are taken, in the case

16

of Ghana at least, at the regional level, with the result that certain objectives defined by the grassroots community may well not be adopted.

The farmers of Damfa, for instance, told us, in the course of our survey, how for some years they had been wanting to solve their irrigation problems themselves, but with the material assistance of the State. The same was true of Cidan Tuba. There is a danger that an identical situation may very often arise in Senegal, in so far as the same process is employed for the preparation of the national development plan.

The basis for operations is the village. Often, supervisory services exist only at the level of the subdistrict. Thus, in the case of "Community Development", only one official is assigned to 15 villages. The shortage of staff is reflected in an underestimation of the true needs of the population. Consultations at grassroots level are usually perfunctory; questions are left purely and simply to the farmers' delegates at assemblies convened at the district level. Can it be said that the views of such delegates, notables, influential party members and elderly people always reflect grassroots needs and aspirations? Women, in any case, are under-represented, since they are seldom chosen as delegates. The only way to avoid these shortcomings is through recourse to "direct democracy", where the responsible officials consult those persons truly and directly concerned within the grassroots communities.

This is the case, in particular, for the "Community Development" projects under the responsibility of officials of the Ministry of Social Welfare, perhaps because they concern more specifically the communities themselves. The fate of those projects does not depend on their being approved by the national or regional authorities, but on the direct involvement of the population.

It is thus possible to distinguish between two situations with regard to this problem of defining objectives and needs: (a) the situation of communities that are requested to identify their needs in the framework of the general development plan; and (b) their situation in the case of specific projects which depend exclusively upon their participation.

It is obvious that the population shows greater interest in participating in the second case than in the first. Most of the achievements involving the greatest participation by the population came into the second category.

Experience shows, however, that for the purposes of the national plan, the authorities are interested in activities devised by them and that they can finance, to the exclusion of all the rest. This "all the rest" usually covers specific activities which are of concern primarily to the grassroots communities and which they can sometimes decide upon by themselves, without any outside interference. These consist of minor tasks that are of '

no interest nationally or regionally but that may be vital for the community concerned: the training of midwives for villages not provided with clinics in the vicinity, the building of a day nursery for working mothers and the training of local personnel to provide medical care, the learning of certain techniques (repairing of roofs, minor masonry work, etc.), management of the co-operative, etc.

All these minor activities, which do not come within the framework of the national or regional plan, are ones in which the direct involvement of the rural community leads to the identification of needs and objectives and, above all, of ways and means of meeting them.

Assistance and co-operation at grassroots level

Outside assistance, that provided by the public authorities or an international organization, is always essential. For in the "underdeveloped" context, the grassroots communities remain in a state of want, no matter how committed they are to the idea of development, and lack both the necessary material and human resources to carry out successful non-formal education activities. However, for the assistance granted to be effective, there must be co-operation by the communities themselves. tion of official assistance and grassroots co- operation is one of the preconditions for achieving the aims of non-formal education. Such education is founded upon the free participation of the population and precludes all forms of constraint and authoritarian discipline.

In this connection, it is worth noting a literacy experiment conducted in Senegal by the SODEVA (a company engaged in development and agricultural extension work), to which we shall be referring again later. This experiment almost miscarried because the instructors behaved in an authoritarian manner towards adult farmers, as though they were pupils in a conventional school. The most essential condition for co-operation between the grassroots community and official bodies for the purpose of solving educational problems, is respect, especially respect for the values of the community: age, traditions, etc.

Official assistance, for instance, is pre- destined to meet with distrust, which can be overcome only by means of a personal, human approach. There is no single way of approaching rural communities, for each one has its own values and traditions: Damfa, the first village visited by our team, is not the same as Cidan Tuba. In Damfa we established direct contact with the population, whereas in Cidan Tuba, the chief introduced us, gave us his support and exercised supervision. Unless he acts as go- between, no co-operation can be expected from the population. More particularly, in so far as non-formal education is concerned, if assistance is not felt to be a necessity, it remains totally ineffective through lack of co-operation. It is therefore essential to identify requirements clearly in regard to educational action; but on the basis of what criteria? Those responsible for popular education projects gave us the following information in this connection during the conversations we had with them:

(1) In the case of the self-help project carried out in Ghana, the personnel responsible initially met with resistance on the part of the population, owing to the fact that they assumed the initiative in every respect on the pretext that the farmers did not understand the significance or scope of their education assignment. Their teaching became pedantic and academic. They were apt to explain to the farmers things they had already understood and assimilated, without concern for their real needs. Many literacy and adult education projects came to grief: the farmers preferred to go off to work or simply to stop attending the training sessions. The authorities therefore decided subsequently to see to it that recruitment standards were high and that staff had received the requisite teacher training and sociological briefing.

Most of the staff engaged in training activities now receive specialized training at the Adult Education Institute and the Women's Vocational Training School in Ghana, and at the Ecole

It can even be said that this combina-

17

nationale d'économie appliquée and the Ecole des cadres ruraux in Senegal.

The training provided for these government employees comprises courses conducted in rural areas, thus preparing them to adapt to life in such areas and, above all, ensuring their future co-operation with the rural population. Co- operation thus hinges upon an improvement in the training of instructors and in their ability to adapt.

(2) For communities to co-operate, they must first of all be suitably organized and motivated. Assistance will only be effective if it is tailored to the needs of the rural population, and the latter, in turn, will co-operate only if suitably organized and motivated. In Ghana, as in Senegal, this is considered to be an essential principle. There even exists a department in Senegal specially concerned with the organizational aspects of urban and rural development activities. The .

disadvantage is that the organizers are often recruited from outside the working-class milieu selected as the target. Efforts are made to put the idea of popular education by means of community organization into practice.

In Ghana, the "natural leaders" whose role in education we have already emphasized assume

the function of community organizers. Without them, in fact, all impetus towards education would be lacking. Young or adult, they alone provide the stimulus for educational action.

Community organization work in both countries has triggered new awareness on the part of the population. It can even be said that non- formal education;in so far as the approach adopted is not a disciplinarian one, can be achieved only by means of community organization. It is fully successful when the population to be educated or trained organizes itself, or in other words, gener- ates its own momentum. Everything then hinges upon its clear awareness of educational action. Once this condition has been met, it will participate and co-operate. It is for this reason that in both countries those responsible for education policies endeavour in some way or other to establish structures for cohmunity organization, even turning to account certain pre-established cultural forms, such as singing, dancing, etc.

A passage in a small booklet distributed in Ghana in connection with "Community Development" illustrates this point: In the villages throughout the Ghanaian countryside, the people are called together to discuss a village project by the sound of the gong-gong (local instrument).

18

111. Role of non-formal education structures

The central institutions that participate in non- formal education are mentioned here only when they play a role at grassroots level; and this is quite often the case.

1. DISPERSAL A N D ORGANIZATION O F DECISION-MAKING BODIES

In the case of formal education, decisions are, as a rule, centralized. They arise from a single source, the Ministry of Education, which plans, executes and supervises without any sharing of tasks.

This institutional centralization, moreover, is a determining characteristic which distinguishes formal from non-formal education.

In the two countries visited, non-formal education works through an impressive number of structures or institutions which, for the most part, are unaware of one another and are engaged in parallel activities. The grassroots communities are sometimes approached by several official or semi-official bodies which are all involved in community education.

This is particularly true in Ghana. In the villages of Damfa and Cidan Tuba, where we carried out our survey, we noted action by the following bodies: the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Social Welfare and the Ministry of Education, not to mention private or semi-official bodies such as the churches, national women's associations, the national youth council, etc.

This dispersal of action centres, which is perhaps to some extent peculiar to non-formal education, poses a number of basic problems. Can the farmers of Damfa find their bearings among all these bodies who offer to help them? Since they are busy with their work in the fields, do they always have time to take advantage of such assistance?

They recognize the authority of the social welfare officer and that of the agricultural adviser, and collaborate with them, because these are the most familiar figures in so far as they see them every day. In fact, the officers in question are virtually the only ones who live in the village and who probably also provide them with the most regular assistance and the most effective supervision. The others, such as the home science expert, whom we met in Damfa, visit only from time to time. The scattering of initiative poses even more problems in that, as we have seen, the efforts from various sides do not have the same impact, and above all are diversely accepted and supported by those directly concerned.

Since the educational needs of rural populations in countries like Ghana and Senegal are considerable, it is highly desirable, in planning community education activities, that certain localities should not be favoured to the detriment of others.

We were able to note, for example, that Damfa had the benefit of much more action on the part of central institutions than did Cidan Tuba. In these circumstances, the planning and appor- tioning of non-formal educational activities poses serious problems. The main cause of this situation is the lack of prior consultation at the stage of the decisions, which are taken at the top, by the central institutions themselves.

Such a dispersal of action centres is not, however, to be found everywhere. For example, in Ghana, supervision of community education activities is provided at the basic level by the Ministry of Social Welfare. The officer of that department is, indeed, the orchestrator who co- ordinates local action and ensures that there is a certain amount of co-operation among the various sectors. But such co-ordination is-by no means systematic, and tends to operate by rule of thumb This is not necessarily true of other rural communities.

The situation appears to be different in Senegal. First, it should be remembered that, in this country, the co-ordination of all community education work is essentially the responsibility of a single centre with national authority, namely, the Secretariat of State for Human Advancement, which is a recent innovation. This body is, in effect, the principal agent of all community training activities (home science, vocational training, community leadership, literacy training, etc. 1. Community education for young people and promotion work for co-operatives, however, fall within the respective spheres of competence of the Ministry of Youth and Sport and the Ministry of Rural Development.

An effort is being made to avoid dispersal of community education activity among these centres by a policy of co-operation linking the various official bodies. Nevertheless, such co- operation is lacking in Guédiawaye. Here, the only official body in operation is the Directorate of Literacy, which is under the authority of the Secretariat of State for Human Advancement. It is interesting, for example, to see how literacy work has gradually become centralized or organized - a state of affairs which does not exclude participation. It became necessary to set up the Directorate of Literacy Training, given the considerable task involved in mobilizing voluntary workers trained in suitable teaching techniques

19

and organized into literacy committees; it was also necessary to organize mass educational action so as to enable the people at large to participate in the national development effort.

In this connection, useful lessons may be learned from the functional literacy experiments already carried out. The first experiment was attempted in the groundnut-growing basin, not by the State, but by a private body, the IRAT (Institut de recherches agricoles tropicales), which conducted a functional literacy campaign in the experimental units of Thysse-Kaymor, in the Sine-Saloum, and Koumbidia, in Eastern Senegal.

obvious; it is a way of giving the farmer training that is relevant to his interests and at the same time providing him with minimum basic culture. But the IRAT concentrated its efforts rather too strongly on the learning of the language (oral and written) which, at the time, was French. The SODEVA (Société de développement agricole), in 1969, carried out a functional literacy experiment in Louga. A survey made among farmers revealed that their main interests were elementary arithmetic, necessary for the management of their farms, the knowledge of useful technical words and the ability to write them. They were thus taught how to compile the so-called "co-operator's booklet". This method produced more substantial results than that of the IRAT and inspired more regular attendance at classes. Some farmers have to travel as far as ten kilometres on foot to attend them; it is therefore very important that they should feel motivated. The literacy training experiment being carried out by SODEVA in Louga is satisfactory. The farmers have themselves built the premises of the teaching centre and have, to some extent, chosen their programme of work by indicating their most pressing needs.

For example, the monitors tended to behave towards the adult farmers like somewhat authoritarian schoolteachers. They were also obliged to provide special remedial teaching for those who

The value of functional literacy work is

- There have been a few "teething" difficulties.

did not attend classes regularly. However, these difficulties have not proved insuperable, and literacy training is continuing in the region.

What is new is the effort being made to reorganize this sector of community education, in an attempt to reduce the dispersal of decision- making bodies and to co-ordinate and centralize them under the supervision of a Directorate of Literacy Training, henceforth equipped with a clear strategy of action and well-defined methods.

this new trend. A literacy training centre was opened there in 1975 in the Malick-Leye district, where we conducted our survey. It was set up at the request of cultural and educational associa-

' tions, especially women's associations, and with the assistance of the regional school inspectorate of Cape Verde. It is one of 21 centres to be found in this region. In this neighbourhood, literacy action initially involves 100 volunteers. The method used is that of multiplication, which works as follows : the Directorate of Literacy Training provides five monitors, each of whom trains a group of 20 individuals. These newly- literate people are in turn made responsible for literacy training in the neighbourhood, under the supervision of the Directorate of Literacy Training, which occasionally conducts an assessment of the work accomplished. The work of the Directorate consists of providing straightforward pedagogical and logistic support (technical and material assistance, in particular).

In Guédiawaye, literacy training is carried out chiefly in Wolof, which is the principal language of the country, whereas, in the factories of the region, it is carried out more often in French, since the comparative requirements and needs of the two environments differ.

Girls, especially, want to become literate (20 out of 80). Adult women are less numerous, which is not the case in the countryside. This difference is probably to be explained by the fact that the men spend a great deal of time in Dakar, the capital city, for reasons connected with their work.

The example of Guédiawaye is symbolic of

STATISTICS OF THE MALICK LEYE DISTRICT

Attendance

Enrolled Present Occupations Illiterate Semi- literate

435 320 housewives 350 unemployed craf tworkers

80

Observations :

The degree of community participation is very high, and indicates the interest taken in the project. Nearly always, it is in response to explicit requests that the Directorate of Literacy Training provides assistance. It is worth noting that the whole population of Cape Verde behaves similarly, in this respect, to that of Guédiawaye (50 letters are received every week by the Direc- torate of Literacy Training). It is easy to find

volunteers, an important matter on two counts: first, the basic communities can thus find teaching assistance in their midst and, by the multiplication method described above, begin to take responsibility for themselves ; secondly, the cost of training and other activities can thereby be reduced. This is confirmed by the budget esti- mates in the Fifth Plan for the Cape Verde region to finance literacy operations within liberal structures (cultural associations, youth committees, religious groups, etc. ) .

20

1977-1978 .................... 120 million CFA 1978-1979 .................... 40 million CFA 1979-1980 .................... 120 million CFA 1980-1981 .................... 100 million CFA

TOTAL.. ..... 360 million CFA

These costs are low only because literacy training relies on volunteer workers and on the real participation of the population; it is therefore necessary to avoid literacy training in schools, which would entail organizing literacy classes according to the type of school, a move likely to increase costs and encumber the system with bureaucratic staff, without thereby securing the participation of the general public.

The criterion of volunteer work thus seems decisive in any community education policy. On this point, the experiments in Ghana match those carried out in Senegal. The assistance of volunteers makes it possible to multiply action to the best possible extent.

The report of the Secretariat of State for Human Advancement, with a view to the preparation of the Fifth Plan, sums up the situation as follows :

"The training and work of volunteer monitors is the key to literacy. Without them - their skills, energy and sense of continuity - the action could never multiply and bear fruit".

This example of literacy policy in Senegal reveals the leading role taken by the Secretariat of State for Human Advancement, both in planning and decision-making and in field activities. It takes care of the co-ordination of the latter, but at the same time avoids neutralizing popular participation and action of the grassroots level.

This trend towards systematic co-ordination seems to contrast with what is happening in Ghana where, in the villages visited, community education activities stem from several decision- making centres that have no contact with each other in the field. In Damfa, the various delegates acknowledged this fact before the farmers' assembly.

It is worth noting the disappearance of the important factor provided by the action of the People's Convention Party of N'Krumah. Before its fall and the advent of the present military regime, that party, in the field, took care of the general management of mass education. Its leaders were community workers whose responsibility was to mobilize the farmers for all sorts of work, especially training activities (seminars, lectures, apprenticeships, training and technical retraining, etc.). They also took charge of co-ordination, both among the instructors who had come to the village and between the instructors and the population. We were told that this important work carried out by political staff came to an end with the prohibition of the party.

The role of the Government party in Senegal bears virtually no resemblance to that of the People's Convention Party in Ghana at the time of N'Krumah. It is, admittedly, active in the field, but its activity is confined to political propaganda and it does nothing to bolster community education activity. That role falls to the Secretariat of State for Human Advancement.

2. EXPERIMENTS IN NON-FORMAL EDUCA- TION IN GHANA

(a) A pattern of action: community development The Community Development experiment is a good example of education strategy in Ghana.

This experiment is being conducted chiefly in. the rural areas of the country and is designed to contribute to community development through education. The non-formal educational activities are part of an overall development policy for grassroots communities. The central aim is to promote the group.

How is such a stratenv organized and structured in the village of Damfa? -Social welfare, for example, which covers preventive medicine and health, nutrition, cooking, sewing, embroidery, etc., is provided with the help of Volunteer groups" : religious groups, parents' associations and women's associations. There are no special premises for educational activities : the school hall, the village square and the waiting room of the dispensary are used. operate in this particular village : the day-care centre for children of working mothers, and the vocational training centre for girls, which provides practical and experimental teaching that is not unduly formal. The courses at this centre last for two years and lead to a diploma awarded by the Department of Social Welfare.

These social advancement bodies are peculiar in that they belong to the private sector. The State controls the training of their teaching staff, supervises their running and provides the necessary material assistance. For example, the staff of day-care centres is trained at the National Train- ing Centre of Madina, near Damfa, twelve miles north of Accra, a centre set up with the help of Unicef.

Hence, social welfare education tends to acquire operational structures which are designed to proliferate and to serve rural populations. Such structures are remarkable in that they are not State structures, but merely receive supervision and support from the public authorities.

devised and carried out with the assistance and participation of the rural communities, by a specialized division of the Ministry of Social Welfare. Management personnel, provided and remunerated by the State, is responsible for all the work of supervision, which is carried out during visits at regular intervals to the villages concerned. Meetings attended by administrative staff, community leaders and the general public make it possible to determine needs, work out methods and make the necessary adjustments or re-evaluations while community education projects are going forward. These are organized on three or four main lines.

Two specialized services

The Community Development experiments are

(b) Home science

Rural populations, particularly young people, are given the necessary grounding in nutrition, family hygiene, child care, home management, etc. Women's Training Institutes are established in the principal regions of the country; they are to be found, for example, in Pamtokrom, Madina', Mampam, Bekwai, Suhum, Bechem, Ho, Tarkwa and Tamole.

In addition to the training activities of these centres, mention should be made of the meetings held in the villages to pass on information and to plan activities connected with all aspects of home science. These meetings provide an opportunity for discussion and work with the welfare officers. The latter, especially those working in the field, also make door-to-door inquiries. In Damfa, the social welfare officer knows the families and, as he says, does not

21

hesitate to approach them directly by visiting them to inquire about their needs and to discuss the practical problems of study courses and social work.

Local or regional exhibitions are also organized so that the public can see the work accomplished in the social sphere: displays of techniques, achievements, etc.

In Damfa, the women's association, which is very active, has a pilot house, a sort of social centre, where meetings and exhibitions are held on cooking, home hygiene, sewing, etc. Our survey team which visited this mini-centre (accom- panied by social welfare officers) were able to observe how much work had been done. It was apparent that the women are strongly motivated as regards social problems which concern them directly and have a genuine ability to make critical judgements: they do not consider, for example, that the social centre is a show-piece for visitors; on the contrary, they believe that the training activities which take place there should not only serve to improve their environment, but should

rofitable by leading to economic outlets. What be we E--hT- are o m g with the home science experts is good, but we should like it to help us more in improving out situation". This type of remark bluntly states the problem of the necessary connection between non-formal training and economic activity, and especially the problem of financial Drofitabilitv .

Nonyformal education thus considered at the grassroots is felt to be not only a means of acquiring greater know-how in order to influence the community and the individual, but also a possible means of "earning a living". There would seem to be no reason why the traditional school alone should satisfy such a requirement. In Damfa, the women would like to find outlets for the artefacts produced as a result of the non- formal technical training they have received : they are calling for improved material facilities in order to be able to work. "Otherwise, what is the point of learning all these techniques?" they ask. This is one of the crucial problems facing non-formal education. How might such education be integrated into economic development, into the production and distribution process?

still in the context of community development, to describe the "co-operative school" experiment by the Presbyterian Women's Group, which has been going on for eight years in a working-class district of Accra.

The Presbyterian Women's Group consists of women who for the most part have jobs, either in the market, or as dressmakers, etc. They meet once a week in order to learn to read and write, to sing and, above all, under the supervision of a State-remunerated staff (two girls) to become proficient in a great many handicrafts (embroidery, sewing, pottery, basket-making, decoration, etc.). They thus form a sort of co-operative whose main concern is to sell the products of their collective work on the local market.

W h y do you not devote more time to the 'co-operative school'?" they replied: "We are all working women, and our work outside the co-operative is more profitable". "We should be glad to devote more time to it, but the assistance that we receive is inadequate, particularly with regard to the raw materials that we need and that have to be imported, etc.". In other words, the co-operative school, apart from the fact that it creates a certain community spirit

O n this fundamental topic, it is relevant,

To our question:

among the women who belong to it, is most worth while when the women have no other work to do. But the main problem is still its development, which depends on whether there is a market for the goods produced and whether training can be incorporated in the economic process. Otherwise, such training is likely to remain pure dilettantism or a peripheral, spare-time activity.

Dilettantism, or "profitable" training which provides economically sound know-how: these are the two horns of the dilemma confronting non-formal education in these community development experiments in Ghana. Non-formal education which leads directly to the acquisition of techniques or occupational skills must become an integral part of the economy.

Non-formal education = preparation for work = profitable incorporation in the economy.

This logic is recognized by the grassroots communities as the prerequisite and the underlying significance of any project for development through non-formal education. Especially when a region is underdeveloped, it enables the mobilization of the population in training activities that benefit both the people involved and the development project. The rural people are no fools; they commit themselves to non-formal educational activities only if these promise concrete results. No investigator can escape the constantly repeated question : "Who are you? Do you simply want to get to know us, or do you want to help us improve our lot?"

This down-to-earth shrewdness and prac- ticality of the rural population cannot be ignored or left out of account by the strategies of non- formal education, or they will be in danger of bypassing the deepest expectations of the population and neglecting to respond to them. They would thus be doomed to failure.

This connection between non-formal education and economically profitable work is undeniable, both as regards the interests and needs of the basic communities and as regards development.

It would indeed be hard to find any fundamental justification for non-formal educational projects in developing countries if they did not help to enlist the general public's participation in the economic take-off of overall development.

(c) Self-help Construction Work

This line of activity alone crystallizes the spirit of community development, which is defined as "development of the people, by the people, for the people".

The projects represent and give essential definition to the needs of a community, and they are devised and implemented by that community. The role of the officials and representatives of Government departments is thus to give technical advice and, when appropriate, the necessary guidelines. The projects concern various types of work, such as the building of roads, schools, post offices, markets, bridges and electrical installations, the farming of collectively-owned land, etc. Labour is provided free of charge by the community, and individual contributions, in kind or in cash, are also accepted.

One important fact: management of these operations is the responsibility of the local authorities and the representatives of the communities themselves.

Damfa, as we have already said, is wholly typical of a rural community where such a policy is implemented. For example, the new school,

adjacent to the old one which is antiquated and unusable, and the dispensary were built entirely in accordance with that policy; the villagers also told us that they are determined to solve the problem of irrigation, with State aid, certainly, but also by building the necessary dam themselves.

A community which embarks on this type of project assuredly displays genuine determination to take autonomous responsibility for its material and intellectual life. The impact of an experiment of this kind goes beyond its immediate and tangible results. For the experiment has a high educational value in itself: the population learns to work together and, above all, gains awareness of its own potentialities and its personal role as an agent and a driving force of development. Through the sharing of work, the principles and advantages of a self-development strategy are tried and tested. A method of community-building presupposes that the population puts practical knowledge to work and learns various techniques. Such an experiment draws on the reciprocal aid of the assistants who teach the know-how and of the community which learns and applies it. The success of such an experiment has been possible in Damfa only because the persons concerned were motivated.

It was necessary, at the outset, to determine the most urgent needs of the community, to discuss with the community members the way the work was to be done and to win their confidence.

Experiments with this approach are varied and do not fit a uniform pattern. For example, in Kwashieman, which is in the same region as Damfa, the experiment consisted, inter alia, of building a school with the active and crucial participation of the population, and this was in some respects different from the Damfa experiment.

The population of Kwashieman became aware of its interests and mobilized itself accordingly, thanks essentially to the personal initiative taken by the commercial manager of a local company, Mr. Noah O. Addy. Very active and influential in the neighbourhood, he succeeded in winning the confidence of the population and of its chief. Through his aid and organizational efforts in his own village, and without any particular assistance from Government departments, he was able to mobilize young people and adults of both sexes, not only to build the school, but also to discuss other projects and to carry them out. The action of such a person as Mr. Addy is a shining example:

nevertheless provês to be important as a catalyst. For, although the people are properly concerned jvith securing their own advancement, they do not seek it spontaneously. The help of organizers and teachers is also a prerequisite. Furthermore, the latter must be capable of respecting the people’s responsibility, customs and traditions, and able to take account of their needs.

In Ghana, experiments of the same type rely as much on the involvement of private individuals as on that of the Government. Indeed, in the communities we visited, we were struck by the part played by groups or individuals: churches, leading members of the community, politically influential persons and principals of private training institutes.

areas of non-formal education. In Ghana, on the In Senegal, the State alone intervenes in all

other hand, State management is more flexible, in that it allows for private assistance and collaboration. While this system seems to be a safeguard against excessive bureaucracy, it encourages the proliferation of action centres at the base with the risk of dispersing efforts and making their co-ordination impossible.

We should emphasize that these experiments vary in form from country to country, particularly in Africa. In Senegal, they are known as “human investment’’ operations, designed to teach the rural or urban population to act alone and unaided in performing tasks from which it stands to reap direct benefit (resurfacing roads, building schools, etc.).

(d) Adult education

Two types of teaching are provided as part of community development: first, a programme of literacy training and general culture taught in the local languages ; but, very recently, training has also been given in elementary, functional English, so as to provide the population with the basic knowledge necessary for life in modern society.

Simultaneously, a series of educational information campaigns has been launched, on a variety of subjects of interest to the farmers: population census-taking, road safety, fertilizers, cocoa - the country‘s main source of agricultural wealth - health and hygiene, etc.

This adult education relies heavily on the courses provided by the Adult Education Institute. The Institute is designed to introduce all those involved in the various sectors of non-formal education to the necessary techniques, particularly in the teaching sphere. Through training courses, seminars and lectures, it helps to implement the community development strategy. For teaching in local languages, training weekends are organized for voluntary leaders, solely to teach the method which should enable them, within approximately three months, to provide the population with literary training and instruction in their own language. The communities themselves must state their needs and in particular the subjects that they wish to be taught.

In the villages visited, the community development strategy appears to be effective, judging by the degree of participation in the various construction jobs being carried out by the community itself. The rapid spread of community development experiments across the country is an indication of the success of the undertaking: all regions are concerned, and approximately 500 workers form a staff of supervisers for the rural population in the villages, with the help of volunteers trained in the regional centres. Mobile teams and special training campaigns also play their part in the work.

The development of this community education strategy depends today on a number of factors: the most fundamental of these is the need to link training to economic development. In other words, the trainina Drovided in rural areas

their first enthusiasm, and there is fdling off in their participation in educational activities, merely because they feel that these are not helping them to find work or to sell the products of their

23

labour advantageously. It is the traditional school that, as a rule, prepares people for well- paid work, although often the school is so poorly adapted, in a developing country like Ghana, that it is equally likely to lead them to unemployment. The best way of extracting maximum benefit from non-formal education is certainly not to turn it into "traditional schooling", but neither is it to place it at a disadvantage compared with such schooling. The community development experience shows, in fact, that only non-formal education can mobilize millions of people, provide them with lively teaching and induce them to participate in the work of economic, social and cultural development. The traditional school cannot compete in sheer breadth of impact on the people at large. But if mass education is to be something more than a collection of simple little recipes to benefit the least-privileged sectors of society, it is urgent that it should acquire and retain an economic dimension, that it should be considered as a necessity of development for the country and of self-development for the people, by enabling them to find in it what they need, a solution to their problems: how to be properly fed, clothed, housed, protected against disease and, especially, how to improve their working conditions or to gain better qualifications.

These were the conclusions that we drew from our contacts and discussions with the leaders working in the field and with the people themselves. They were also prompted by observation of the people's attitude to the non-formal educational projects offered to them as part of community development : they participate resolutely in the planning and implementation of development tasks whenever they feel that these tend to further their interests. In Damfa, the farmers themselves, at a general assembly, call for irrigation work to solve their water problem. They are prepared to take part in the work, the financing and the maintenance of the plant. It is obvious that they will give a favourable reception to any project of this kind involving mobilization and learning on their part, especially since they have already participated in similar experiments, when they were taught certain elementary techniques needed to build the new school, the clinic, the social centre, etc.

the non-formal education strategy in force there takes another form.

Action directed at the mass of the people, who are primarily agricultural, is mainly of two kinds, and both are designed to fit a logical pattern of development.

Two structures have been set up to promote the agricultural world : the co-operatives, which depend on the rural expansion centres (CER) under the responsibility of the Ministry of Rural Development, and urban and rural organization, under the direction of the Secretariat of State for Human Advancement.

These remarks also apply to Senegal, although

3. Co-operatives and educational action of the rural expansion centres in Senegal

(a) Action of the co-operatives These are co-operatives for marketing rather than production, a fact which differentiates them fundamentally from the "co-operative school" models to be found in Ghana, within the framework of the community development policy.

Initially, the State's intention was to abolish the middle men (local and foreign "dealers") who, by practising usury, exploited the rural

world. Through the co-operatives, the farmers were to assume full responsibility for themselves and to acquire the possibility of managing and organizing the sale of their goods personally, with the help of the co-operation officers. This implied that they needed to undergo training in order to acquire a feeling for co-operative work and some experience of it, to get to know the workings of the groundnut market, to promote a certain amount of village democracy and to have the material and intellectual wherewithal to develop their villages and regions.

In practice, the co-operatives are directed by local notables who are influential in the Govern- ment party, and participation by the farming population is reduced to a strict minimum. The co-operatives are commercial firms rather than centres to improve the situation of the country dweller. This purpose is better served by the rural expansion centres (CER).

rural population to acquire the necessary technical knowledge in various fields, such as agriculture, stock-breeding, domestic hygiene, agricultural engineering, etc. With this end in view, the CERs are designed on a multi-purpose basis, so that each management team includes the various technical leaders - the agricultural agent, the stock-breeding expert, a health representative, etc. - who work together to disseminate technology and education among the local people.

Our survey in Senegal was not conducted in a rural context, as was the case in Ghana; we cannot, therefore, give many details about this CER experiment in the field.

It would have been interesting to attempt to determine how far, and in what ways, the rural population is attached to these educational structures established in the Senegalese countryside. All that can be said is that, in comparison with the action structures in Ghana, the CERs, like the co-operatives, have nothing in common with the community development experiment that we have described fully above. It would appear that in Senegal the State structures operate without receiving much support from the population. They are more like service institutions.

What is lacking is a clear definition of the right attitude towards construction work carried out by the community itself. Most of the profes- sionals working in the CERs come from the towns and have been through the National School of Applied Economics, which trains middle-level management personnel to undertake all kinds of promotional and non-formal educational activity in rural environments. Here, there are no "natural leaders" or voluntary service systems organized in the agricultural world as such. In addition, there is the centralization of State-run community education activities that we have already mentioned, and it is therefore to be feared that the system and its machinery may become bureaucratic or technocratic.

(b) Government action in non-formal education

Government action in Guédiawaye The problem of Government logistic support for educational efforts Compared with the pressing needs for community education, the practical assistance provided by the State remains very inadequate. This situation is all the more serious in that settlements such as Guédiawaye, which are of very recent origin,

The aim of these centres is to help the

24

have not had the benefit of a basic infrastructure like that of neighbouring localities (such as Pikine, Thiaroye or Hann). This total absence of an initial birthright compounds the real lack of education in Guédiawaye. As an indication of the impoverishment prevailing, there is the fact that the State grants only 10,000 francs CFA worth of teaching aids (books, pictures, notes for teachers) for a staff of 30.

The literacy plan makes provision for the training of only 150 urban monitors, for the Cape Verde region, although the population density there is the highest in the country. For lack of adequate financial resources, the burden of '

community education in this region falls either on companies or on the people themselves. In Guédiawaye, there is neither a systematic information policy, nor a practical plan to enable educational activities to become self-supporting, in order to eke out the inadequate material support forthcoming from the State. However, possibili- ties of this kind do exist.

The material infrastructure for the various educational and cultural activities (lectures, introductory occupational courses, sewing, basic hygiene, literacy) is almost entirely confined to the social centre (very active, especially for women's training), the school (two huts) and the headquarters of the Committee of the Government Party, the Senegalese Socialist Party.

In a suburban settlement like Guédiawaye, it is necessary to build a community education centre, with the practical help of the population (which must by duly motivated to do so).

Such a centre will cater for the various educational activities desired by the population (thereby avoiding scattered "training centres", school, social centre, Party Committee headquarters, etc.) as well as for State activities (teacher training, retraining, meetings, etc. ) . Observations The problem of material support from public or institutional sources should be tackled as follows :

(1) Outside support should, where out-of- school training is concerned, be kept to the indispensable operational minimum, that is to say, the material support strictly necessary to the success of the project.

country affects incomparably greater numbers of people than the over-privileged population of the schools. The disadvantages of cumbersome logistic assistance would outweigh any advantages.

(2) Logistic support should go hand in hand with the new autonomous responsibility of the people for their own education. Material aid on a large scale runs the risk of discouraging or weakening action by the people, whereas it is precisely this that should be encouraged. . The moral stimulus of enlisting the population in furthering its own acknowledged interests and systematic recourse to voluntary work do much to reduce the expense of support.

ing the Guédiawaye social centre experiment: founded by the Protestant missions, this centre operates with a minimum paid staff of two. The other assistants are interested volunteers, most of whom (eight out of fourteen) come from educational and cultural associations (of which there are approximately ten in the neighbourhood). Founded initially to provide services (medical treatment

Out-of-school education in an underdeveloped

In this connection, it is worthwhile mention-

and advice on matters of hygiene), the centre houses other activities in which the population takes an active part; for example, 44 women attend the sewing course (taught by volunteer monitresses) and 11 others the hygiene course (after basic training, they will in turn become voluntary monitresses at the centre or in the neighbourhood).

To provide the operational budget of the centre with funds, and to assist the needy volunteers, there are plans to found a co-operative.

The centre is to purchase a television set and several radios, so as to receive the educational broadcasts.

in the settlement only through the mobilization and participation of the population.

Participation, assumption of autonomous responsibility or even self-management are effective solutions only if the population is mobilized and guided by leaders. Mobilization and involvement must be obtained through continuous, coherent information, provided in the language of the country; thus, out of 55 people interviewed, only 35 were familiar with the role of the centre, and 18 thought that they could go there to obtain a "diploma" (the prestige of the diploma still holds fascination; it is also difficult to convince people that community education is not synonymous with schooling). All the difficulty connected with the problem of motivation resides in dispelling these misunderstandings and ambiguities in order to show community education in its true light: to educate or re-educate a population with a view to developing its aptitudes or providing it with knowledge, which can help those concerned to obtain a job or occupational advancement, or simply widen their cultural horizons

Suburban community organization in Guédiawaye

It should be remembered that it is the Government which defines community organization policy and which, as a rule, determines its themes and presents it with the necessary structures. From the point of view of the State, the purpose of such organization is to make the population fully aware of the objectives of the plan through information and education.

In Senegal, our survey revealed that pro- gress has been made chiefly with rural community organization, for specific reasons, which include the importance of the farming community to the country.

field and from the information supplied by the National Directorate of Community Organization that there is virtually no such action in Guédiawaye .

Even for practical lower secondary education, there is at present no established structure to provide occupational training, a fact which perhaps partly explains the spontaneous development of "family workshops". For the organization and stimulation of activities, it seems more effective to use representatives of local associations : - because they are well-known in the community and have already established relations of trust with it; - because they are less bureaucratic than the community leaders officially recruited by the State. For the time being, the main organizational tasks are carried out by the Government Party committees. rather than stimulation of education activities.

It was possible to establish this vital centre

It emerges from our own observations in the

But this is political propaganda

25

The effects of community education activities(1) in Guédiawaye

The impact of educational radio

There are many educational broadcasts aimed at mass urban and rural audiences; the most important are the following:

School of the air

This is a programme in French. In Guédiawaye, its impact is slight, owing to the fact that the number of people who understand French is very limited. As a rule, in a family (numbering eight to ten), only the children who go to school are in this category. They are interested in following French on the radio only when they begin to learn it in school.

The other educational broadcasts, however, have a wide following. The listening figures for such evening broadcasts as "No Flaye" and " h e 1 ak Knalatt" (which are rather chatty educational programmes) are high. All the families we interviewed said that they listened to them.

Literacy training classes These classes, in Wolof (Tuesday at 7.30 p.m.), Serer (Thursday at 7.30 p.m.) and Poular (Wed- nesday) arouse genuine interest, as attested by the plentiful mail received every week by the Directorate of Literacy from all the areas in the Dakar region.

Television, meanwhile, is not at all common in Guédiawaye; we think that a system of community television should be set up. In view of the impact of these means of community education, it is urgent to work out a planned programme of action through the media (radio, television, press and cinema).

It is impossible to settle the problems of new community education if, at the same time, there is failure to master new educational techniques. We shall return to this point in our general conclusions.

(1) For our purposes, community education has a precise meaning; it means educational activities that are organized for the people and answer their needs with a view to raising their scientific standards and inducing them to realize that they must take responsibility for their own future.

26

IV. Towards a non-formal education policy

1. THE BASES OF NON-FORMAL EDUCATION

The first essential is to be observant and meet the needs of the grassroots communities

This is an obvious imperative, as non-formal education is by its very nature hostile to any technical bureaucratic approach. It concerns sectors of the population of which the vast majority are engaged in production and have often not enjoyed the benefits of traditional schooling. In order to ensure that they are properly motivated and feel involved, the content of any educational action must reflect their everyday concerns : to improve their working and living conditions, increase productivity and ensure their cultural development, while at the same time respecting their social and cultural values, presupposes real consideration of their needs. For this reason, stress will always be laid on the need to link the content and methods of non-formal education to the experience of the broad masses of the population. We must not forget that failure to comply with this requirement is partly responsible for the tremendous gulf which exists in Africa between the school, on the one hand, and the life and environment of its pupils, on the other. There is no other way open to non-formal education, unless its most basic principle is to be vitiated.

Education must be useful or it will cease to exist

This is a key issue, as was evident from the question we were asked whenever we contacted a grassroots community : "Have you come to study us or to help us?".

The broad masses seem to have an inborn aversion to any scholarly or academic type of education, which would only inculcate abstract knowledge without giving them any practical means of improving their lot. They spurn it, as they have little time to waste, often being completely absorbed by their work.

What they are taught of modern methods of crop-growing , irrigation, health and social action interests them, as their everyday experience enables them to appreciate the advantages of this type of education. In other words, non-formal education intended for the broad masses must be sure to achieve practical results or tangible goals, or it will run the supreme risk of having no impact at all on the communities which it is supposed to help.

The effectiveness of the action undertaken depends to a large extent on this factor.

In the course of this study, we have noted the relationships existing between "natural leaders" and the grassroots communities. Action taken by the former within the latter seemed to us to have more impact than that taken by staff imposed from outside: confidence, emulation, striving to set an example, inducing others to follow it and, above all, laying the foundations for endogenous development - all these are more likely to be successful.

Leaders have emerged from all the grassroots communities we visited, whether in Senegal or Ghana, and generally play a very important role in co-ordinating training activities, group organization, liaison with the authorities and the chiefs, specifically cultural promotion work, etc.

They are usually selected to attend training or refresher courses, and to convey the knowledge they have acquired to the group in the most effective way. Staff from outside the communities can become quite effective, if they spend a long time on the spot and gain the confidence of the local population by proving the relevance of their work. Non-formal education, seen from the sociological angle, cannot rely on officials or experts who are "seconded" to work with the group and do not become an integral part of it, as is the case of those who have received a traditional type of education.

Respect for the cultural and moral values of the community

This is essential since the grassroots communities, although they form part of larger cultural, Linguis- tic and ethnic groupings, are also so many cultural microcosms, each with its own characteristic features. It is therefore necessary to identify the pattern of the grassroots community in which action is to be taken. In the course of our survey, for example, we noticed that there were substantial differences, particularly cultural, between the Damfa and Cida Tuba communities. The latter is a community with a religious basis, in this instance Moslem, where there is a deeply- rooted prejudice against schools and a clear demarcation between men and women and where the authority of the chief, who combines administrative with religious powers, is undisputed.

27

Damfa, on the other hand, is more affected by modern life, by virtues of a relatively substantial infrastructure: school, clinic, social centre, many contacts with the outside world, etc.

It is thus necessary to adopt a different educational approach to these two communities, and to bear in mind the characteristic features of each. This is in fact a methodological imperative. If an education plan or decisions concerning local participation in educational action are to be accepted, in a community with a strong hierarchical structure, the assistance or approval of the village authorities must first be secured. In such cases the first priority is to reach agreement with the chief or the traditional authorities. Unless their backing is obtained, it is often impossible to make any impact on the villagers.

Ensuring the effective participation of the population

This is the most important point: non-formal education must receive the whole-hearted support of the population involved. All the points we have made so far - identification of needs, care to ensure that educational action is profitable and useful, training of staff from or close to the people, respect for moral, cultural and social values, etc. - concern ways of inducing the local population to make its own contribution to the educational action, to the educational policy involved.

But what is meant by the concept of participation? What content should be ascribed to it?

First of all, it needs to be demythicized. Participation cannot be interpreted as a "rape of the masses" or a mass mobilization of the population. True participation gives the people an incentive and makes them feel that the programmes concern them; it thus follows that the programmes must correspond to their preoccupations, relate to their actual lives and meet their needs. The educational content will not, as in a formal school context, be an accumulation of knowledge and skills; still less will it be an academic type of education. Any policy for non-formal education must ensure that the population is involved at the planning stage.

But how is participation to be achieved? There is no infallible method, but recourse may be had to the system of opinion relays: groups of young people, of adults grouped according to sex or age, councils of elders, farmers, etc. always succeed in making their suggestions and opinions known through their representatives. These traditional relays should be used, but made more democratic.

Teachers, educators and their unions, experts on agriculture, stock-raising, health, etc. can play an important part if they are properly informed and associated in the formulation and execution of training projects.

Two kinds of participation structure had been established in the countries covered by our survey. In Senegal there were paid community workers in rural and urban areas whose task was to make the population aware of the objectives of the various training programmes for community education and of the measures which they entailed, and in Ghana the network of P.C.P. workers dating from the time of N ' K m a h , which was later replaced by the system of voluntary workers and helpers.

Neither of the two is consistently effective: both run the risk of being distorted either by

technocracy or bureaucracy or else by political propaganda, which have the effect of turning the broad masses away from participation. There is thus no ideal system. However, success is always dependent on not being separated from the masses, and on responding permanently to their needs.

2. POLICY F O R FINANCING A N D IMPLE- MENTING COMMUNITY EDUCATION PROJECTS

It is impossible either for the State or for a specialized organization such as Unesco to supply all the material assistance required to implement education programmes, for two reasons : - The education of the broad masses of the population is an enormous task requiring the mobilization of resources which the governments of developing countries, not in the main finan- cially prosperous, are unable to provide. Such material limitations have hampered the development of the traditional school; the situation is even more desperate in the case of education for the whole population. There is a tremendous disparity between the educational needs of the people and the resources at the disposal of the public authorities. - Next, even if that obstacle could be overcome, would it necessarily be a good thing?

The result would certainly be a policy of non-participation . The population would then simply be at the receiving end of bureaucratic largesse. Such a state of affairs would be contrary to the spirit of non-formal education.

Human investment and collective solidarity

One of the best ways of remedying such a situation is to have recourse to human investment and collective solidarity. These are practical ways of participating in the implementation of projects, and at the same time reflect the desire to live as members of a community and a deep-rooted feeling of solidarity.

In the course of our survey, we noted that the grassroots communities which we visited were always ready to make a direct contribution to the implementation of projects which they considered useful. In Ghana, for example, the whole system of construction work carried out by the community was based on maximum use of human investment and collective solidarity. The public authorities' contribution to the financing and execution of education projects takes the form of services of various kinds (expert fees, supply of certain essential equipment, etc.); it does not, under any circumstances, provide the labour force.

The work done by the local population is thus in the first place an investment of real economic significance, to the extent that it makes it possible to reduce considerably the cost of the projects. In the second place, it makes the beneficiaries of education feel they are bearing some of the responsibility for it, and constitutes an act of commitment on their part. They will no longer have the mentality or the complexes of people receiving assistance, but will, on the contrary, feel directly involved. The economic importance of human investment should therefore not be dissociated from its educational value. The content of human investment in a grassroots community can vary considerably. It may relate to the following sectors:

28

- Work to implement the projects (participation in building classrooms, in laying out farm schools, building roads or clearing tracks, irrigation work, etc.). The rural population is not always familiar with this kind of work, although often having time to do it. This is, therefore, an opportunity to introduce them to certain techniques, and to teach them all kinds of skills that will enable them to control and organize their environment or their everyday life. For this reason human investment must be considered as a practical form of schooling, offering the masses not only the means of solving part of the problem of financing projects, but also and above all a collective educational framework.

The maintenance of infrastructures, equipment and educational material

- Voluntary teaching work This means that the grassroots community provides teaching assistants who are neither paid nor imposed by the public authorities. It reduces expenditure on staff to a minimum.

The example of what was observed in Ghana for certain experiments in non-forma1 education would be well worth following.

The public authorities pay only the salaries of the essential supervisory staff (male and female monitors, agricultural, health and social officers, etc.). The remainder of the staff is provided by the community - voluntary educational assistants who support the educational work of the authorities, the "natural leaders", whose encouragement and stimulation is so important, etc. The principle of self-help must remain one of the pillars of the non-formal education system.

- Various other forms of participation The question of financial participation is a sensi- tive one, for the grassroots communities, particularly in rural areas, are poor and can make no contribution to the financing of community education measures.

However, in respect of some types of educational action (training courses, refresher courses, seminars, the purchase of educational material and equipment, etc.) it is possible to envisage, in addition to funds provided by the public authorities, contributions from bodies directly connected with the work of grassroots communities: for example, where the latter are organized in co- operatives, part of the common funds can be made available to finance education and promotion work. In many African countries in which experiments in co-operative living are being conducted in the countryside, such contributions are made. This is the case in Senegal, Tanzania, the People's Republic of the Congo, Somalia, etc.

to local agricultural associations, youth clubs, associations of adults of either sex, etc. In Damfa, in Ghana, the association of young villagers, not only actively co-operates with social welfare workers in the organization of literacy classes and adult education, but also administers a joint fund which makes it possible to supply some of the community's needs (purchase of educational equipment, for example).

The problems of the grassroots community's contribution, whether financial or in kind, can only be resolved, however, if it realizes that the education programme is in its interests, and that these have been correctly perceived.

In the same way, requests may be submitted

External contributions and independent action

Scrupulous observance of the grassroots communities' material commitment in educational action does not obviate the need for outside help. The reason for this is very simple: the material resources of these communities are generally limited, and not sufficient for projects to be carried out without external assistance.

The need for material support was emphasized by all the grassroots communities which w e visited. "Are you going to do anything to help us?" "How is Unesco to reach the grassroots?" "At grassroots level, we get no assistance at all". Such questions and comments obviously reflect a conscious need for external aid.

W e were particularly struck, in the course of our meetings with a Presbyterian Women's Group in a populous part of Accra, by the obstacles hindering the development of the activities of this community. This co-operative school organized by the women where, with staff from Social Welfare, they could learn to make craft products (children's clothes, local pharmaceutical products, handbags, embroidery, etc. ) was badly in need of material assistance in the form of basic materials. Its work was often hampered for lack of supplies, some of which were the more difficult to obtain as they had to be imported.

This example is typical and instructive. Independent initiative is more often than not likely to be discouraged if it does not receive some logistical support from outside. Such support can come either from the national authorities or from an international organization, which in this case would be Unesco.

1. Material assistance from the national authorities

The public authorities usually play a part in the financing and implementation of community education projects, in several forms : financial support, contributions in kind and remuneration of staff.

But it should be noted in this context that in most cases there is no overall plan to assist and support the grassroots communities' experiments in non-formal education. Most material assistance goes to experimental projects or pilot projects. Such concentration of the aid provided by the public authorities very often results in an unsatisfactory distribution of material assistance. It benefits pilot or experimental communities, while many others go empty handed. One need only compare the two grassroots communities visited in the Accra region: Damfa obviously receives much more support than Cidan Tuba, as can be seen from its modern equipment.

public authorities, several kinds of material and teaching assistance are provided by a variety of institutions, including churches, family planning and home science associations, national associations for youth and adults of one sex or the other, etc.

2. Assistance from international organizations

Until now, all action, whether technical and material or educational, has generally depended

29

on the national authorities. The grassroots communities have simply been associated or con- sulted. The terms of these relations between the national authorities and the grassroots communities must be reversed. The people must elect and operate their own administrative bodies which will be responsible for managing all the resources connected with their educational promotion. It is not enough to decentralize the public service. The people themselves must take responsibility for the administrative problems connected with educational action.

After an introductory course on administration the "natural leaders", elected officials or voluntary workers will be perfectly capable of assuming administrative tasks at the level of the grassroots community.

This insistence on self-administration should not be seen simply as an administrative measure which recommends itself for economic reasons, but as an educational measure and an integral part of non-formal education.

'

Importance of being well acquainted with the material problems and needs of each grassroots community

Problems connected with training aids, the equipment of farm schools and of production co- operatives, as well as the mobilization of the material resources necessary for the participation of each individual in work for the good of the community (construction of a mini-dam, irrigation, educational and social infrastructures, etc. ) vary from one community to another.

Projects to be carried out in the framework of non-formal education must always take practical needs into account. Their correct evaluation makes it possible to fulfil the expectations of the people, who are very often available to participate in the various operations, but who are also very often disappointed not to receive the necessary means.

Need to co-ordinate material assistance

In all the cases studied, we noted that the initiative for non-formal education work proceeded from several different sources which in the field are unaware of each others' existence. The same lack of coherence is in evidence in respect of material and financial support; the State, private or religious bodies involved in training and education at the local level should therefore form an aid committee to work in close collaboration with the people and their representatives in the local administrative bodies or under their supervision. This is all the more necessary as the fragmenta- tion of material assistance leads to wastage or unsatisfactory use of resources, which are sometimes supplied without prior consultation with the people concerned.

Towards endogenous development and personal responsibility

A policy for non-formal education must encourage independent initiative at every level, with the grassroots communities themselves taking the responsibility for meeting their material and educational needs.

way of ensuring that community education is "self-reliant".

In the last analysis, this is the only radical

This personal responsibility must be reflected at the conception of edücation projects (determination of content, identification of needs, project planning), in their im lementation (determination of means, voluntary-help) and their administration (management of funds and equipment, relations with Government departments concerned with community education, etc. ) .

3. LINKS BETWEEN NON-FORMAL EDU- CATION A N D T H E EDUCATION SYSTEM

The need to open the school's doors to life and enable it to benefit from the fund of technical, scientific and cultural experience accumulated in the social environment has been recognized as increasingly important for formal education. But the nature of this type of education is such that it does not always find it easy to fulfil such a requirement: to overlook the realities of its immediate environment and more particularly the contribution that could be made by those more active in non-formal education (technicians, workers, craftsmen, doctors, artists, engineers, etc. ) . The assistance of these men with practical experience is not only extremely valuable from an educational point of view, but can give the traditional education system the depth which it needs.

In developing countries such as Senegal and Ghana, the fact that formal education has no links with the scientific, technical and human resources of its cultural environment has two most undesir- able results : - The educational content of the knowledge dispensed is alien to the pupils (who find in it no solution to the problems of the environment which they must transform to achieve their development), to the local cultures (this raises the whole problem of incompatibility with the local socio- cultural environment) and to the requirements of development. - Formal education is more often than not responsible for the cultural dichotomy characteristic of these countries, which have, on the one hand, a privileged, alienated, imitative culture and, on the other, the neglected, national, cnl- ture of the people. In most cases there is no contact between these two cultures, which take no notice of each other, although they live side by side. Thus most African States, including the two countries in which we have studied certain educational structures, have proclaimed their determination to reform their traditional educational systems with a view to breaking down their rigid structures and, above all, preventing their isolation from non-formal education. Efforts to relate the two types of education to each other generally entail the adoption of measures (a) to enable practitioners in modern branches of knowledge with specific social responsibilities to pass on the fruits of their experience to the formal education system, and (b) to encourage inclusion in the latter of some knowledge of the skills and crafts and the "traditional" culture which form the core of the social heritage.

the fund of knowledge which exists outside the formal education system, and which is the basis of non-formal education, in all the disciplines of a classical type of education.

It would also be interesting to examine the contribution made by the classical education system to the development of non-formal education.

it is introverted and has a tendency

In other words, the first step is to reinvest

30

These two series or types of problems will, of course, be considered in the context of experience of educational policy in Ghana and Senegal.

A . Ghana

Links between non-formal education and the traditional education system are neither organized nor reflected in any specific educational policy. This new approach to educational problems has not yet been systematically applied. The situation in Ghana is very far removed from the half-work, half-study system operated in China, whereby both pupils and teachers in the classical education system literally become the pupils of persons on the job (farmers, workmen, technicians, engineers, etc.). The Ghanaian approach tends to be sectoral and pragmatic: there is no attempt at systematic reinvestment of the capital of non- formal education, although the traditional education system nevertheless has contact in some clearly defined areas with the techniques and content of non-formal education.

Vocational education courses will not be studied from this point of view, as they regularly benefit from the assistance of actual practitioners in non-formal education. This is true of medical, agricultural, stock-raising and veterinary schools, schools for social workers, training colleges, schools of commerce, etc. Such assistance is all the more common as there is a shortage of full- time teachers. The same phenomenon is to be encountered in developed countries, but to a much smaller extent.

Outside the structures of vocational education, the contributions of non-formal education are mainly organized on an ad hoc basis. Parti- cularly interesting examples are to be found in the work of the National Youth Council and that of the Youth Leadership Institute in Ghana.

The National Youth Council's educational work for students and schoolchildren In Ghana all sectors of youth - young workers, rural youth and students - are represented on a single council. Students and schoolchildren thus have an opportunity to escape from their respective "ghettos" and benefit from contact with other young people, most of whom have already embarked upon their working life, as manual workers, farmers, clerical workers, etc.

The National Youth Council is formed of a dozen student organizations, some of which are national, regional or local associations, while others are national sections of international organization( 1).

It is explicitly stated in the declaration of the National Youth Council that "the Ministry of Education shall be responsible for the development of youth in formal educational institutions". The need for action within the structures of formal education is thus clearly recognized.

Objectives of the youth organization's action in the formal education system

(a) the creation of a patriotic spirit; (b) community service and development in

the sense of a feeling of responsibility for the - people ;

(c) the encouragement of initiative; (d) the development of a creative approach

towards study ; (e) civic education; (f) vocational education; (g) the encouragement of leisure activities.

Programme of the National Youth Council In addition to vocational training and physical education, the programme includes training students to direct community affairs - this involves teaching students to lead groups, using direct, practical methods (excursions, camping, sightsee- ing trips to other African countries m co-operation with the competent official bodies), and the acquisition of cultural knowledge (teaching of folklore and popular traditions and arts).

Organization of the National Youth Council Each school appoints a person responsible for youth affairs, then those responsible for mass institutions or organizations, the members of the committee of the National Youth Council and student leaders responsible for working out and implementing training programmes. Such consultation takes place at the national as well as the regional level. Meetings, lectures and regular debates are organized to inform students and raise their level of awareness. Inter-school debates are also encouraged.

The most interesting activity is probably the manual and vocational training organized by the National Youth Council (metalwork, woodwork) and above all the formation of mixed groups of students and young rural workers, intended to be models for community living and serving to promote the farm-school experiments (with the assistance of experts from the Ministry of Agriculture).

Work of the Youth Leadership Institute This training establishment is directed mainly towards young people, including schoolchildren and students. It is stipulated that they must be provided with "all the knowledge that will enable them to orient their attitude towards the living values of their society, with a view to developing their civic awareness and community spirit".

As the Institute includes in its syllabus practical training in all sorts of activities (fishery, agriculture, masonry, machine repairs, etc. ) , it enables schoolchildren and students to acquire this non-academic, practical knowledge which they normally have no opportunity to obtain within the school and university system.

(1) National associations and national sections of international associations : - The International Movement of Catholic

- Ghana United Nations Students Association - Students Movement for African Unity

- National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) - Ghana M u s h Students Association Regional and local associations : - Northern Student Union - Marya Kirobo Student Union - Kumasi Students Union - Bechem Scholars Union - Ho Students Union

Students

(GUNSA)

( SMAU)

31

This non-formal intervention in the school and university area has two objectives : - to enhance the practical subjects taught in schools and inculcate in students a respect for manual work; - to give a better practical background to those who will be responsible for student involvement in grassroots communities, particularly in rural areas, and prevent them from having a purely theoretical approach.

practical type of education. For this reason, student leaders who are called upon to direct education campaigns (mainly during their vaca- tions) among young people and organizations in rural areas need to acquire technical knowledge and manual skills. The effectiveness of their work will depend on this.

Such experience of the introduction of non-formal types of education in spheres which until then were governed by the norms of traditional school and university education is certainly useful, to judge by its results; most school and student "leaders" who work with grassroots communities in rural areas have received this non-formal training thanks to the assistance of the Youth Leadership Training Institute. Their contribution to community education is the more appreciated by those affected, because they have already worked, at the Institute itself, in close co-operation with young people from rural areas, representatives of relevant organizations, etc.

At Damfa and at Cidan Tuba, young student volunteers (men and women) have worked on several community development projects. Students who have undergone this training also take part under the "National Service plan" in work on a specific project for a specified period of time. Unfortunately this system does not affect all students. The training activities of the National Youth Council and the Youth Leadership Training Institute affect onlv Dart of the school and univer-

Rural communities are accustomed to a more

sity sector. It i; more a training for student leaders than a generalized system introduced as an internal part of all formal education.

The generalization of this system in Ghana

sity sector. It i; more a training for student leaders than a generalized system introduced as an internal part of all formal education.

The generalization of this system in Ghana would presuppose the formulation and implementation of a general policy designed to make place for non-formal education in the national education system. At the moment, its introduction is frag- mentary and sectoral and organized in a pragmatic manner. This is the case as regards training sessions organized in the world of work and production for certain schoolchildren and students ; practical training in the leisure sector, as on building sites and in offices, is generally intended for those who wish to acquire some experience before embarking on their professional life. This type of non-formal practical training is offered in varying degrees in all countries. Here again, there is no systematization, such as, for example, the linking, in the course of an academic training, of study and production, school work with an introduction to occupational skills and the practical problems of professional life.

These disconnected efforts to establish a relationship between non-formal educational activities and the traditional school and university system which are being made in Ghana, on an experimental basis, are practically non-existent in Senegal. B. Senegal In Senegal there is no youth organization or

training institute which mobilizes the beneficiaries of the educational system to participate in non- formal education.

Senegal is an unusual case, in that State bodies responsible for non-formal education are divorced from the school and university world or have no common ground with it.

Student organizations take no part in any out-of-school training work, as they are politically at odds with the Government. In fact their activities are not even legal, as they have all been dissolved as a result of anti-government strikes or demonstrations. Co-operation between students and the public authorities in the field of education on the Ghanaian model is generally only possible if there is a minimum of political or ideological consensus.

Some activities are organized by a National Union of Youth, but no student organization is active within it, and it has no individual student members. Furthermore, it offers no education programme for school and university students designed to broaden their outlook through non- formal education (civic information and training, practical introduction to traditional activities, manual skills in a rural setting, etc.).

In order to make good this deficiency, which is due to the present political situation in Senegal, the State has introduced an original reform, which associates non-formal with formal teaching methods within the same education structure. This type of education is known as "intermediate practical education".

This is a particularly apposite term, as it reflects a genuine effort to distinguish this training from a purely academic education based on the acquisition and accumulation of theoretical knowledge.

It does not mean, however, that this characteristic feature of formal education has been completely excluded, but theoretical learning is combined with a non-formal approach which places the emphasis on practical and experimental methods, using instructors who are not professional teachers, placing education within the context of everyday life in the natural and social environment and concentrating on the learning of manual skills or crafts leading directly to career outlets, etc.

Recognition of the many failures resulting from the education system led to the introduction of this approach, which combines a theoretical education with non-fcrmal methods. On complet- ing the third year of secondary education, many pupils come to a standstill and, finding it difficult to gain entry to the higher stage of secondary education, often join the ranks of the unemployed, as all they have acquired is a general background knowledge. The overwhelming predom- inance of the formal system means that they enter the employment market without any qualifications or any real preparation for professional life, the requirements of productive activity or integration into the various kinds of development action (administration of rural affairs, grassroots organization, insertion in the various networks of the national economy, etc. ) .

All these considerations led to the introduction of the "intermediate practical education". A network of educational institutions based on this model covers the whole country - there is one in almost all the seven regional capitals - under the supervision of the Ministry of Education and the State Secretariat for Human Advancement.

32

4. WHICH EDUCATIONAL STRATEGY SHOULD B E ADOPTED?

We consider this question to be a crucial one, for it determines all the solutions that can be offered to the problems of non-formal education in African countries. It is not enough to "bring literacy" to the masses or to disseminate practical knowledge in the various areas of community education (agriculture, health, civic education, social advancement, family education, etc. ). The precise ends which training activities are intended to serve must be clearly perceived.

In the light of the experiments in non-formal and community education which are being conducted both in Senegal and Ghana, it seems necessary to lay down clear lines of strategy from the beginning if empirical improvisation is to be avoided. At the moment we can discern three objectives which could be assigned to an education strategy : - linking of non-formal education with community development; - linking of occupational training with the education of fully responsible individuals and communities ; - clear determination of criteria for the formulation of a non-formal education policy (profitability and preparation for working life, cultural content, education and the formulation of a model for society).

In order to appreciate the true importance of this point, it should be borne in mind that the traditional model of the Western colonial type of school is largely responsible for undermining the foundations and structures of African community life, for various reasons, and particularly the

- The system is essentially designed to benefit the individual and is not concerned with problems of promoting the community. - It is selective and, in a colonial context, tends to encourage the formation of an élite in the service of the colonial system as such. Logically enough, this system is devoid of any concern for national and cultural liberation of the communities concerned, which are not taken into consideration. - The cultural values attached to this type of education are not only foreign, but based on the development of the individual in such a way as to corrupt the values of solidarity and community spirit which characterize African culture, and in a more general way societies whose ideological and moral structures, particularly at grassroots level, reflect the old community basis of economic life.

Non-formal education cannot be developed in the wake of the traditional colonial school. This would not be in keeping with its function and, in Africa, if it is to fit in with cultural traditions, it must of necessity be based on community development. In other words, stress must be laid above au on the need for education to promote the grassroots community, considered as an entity, a collective body, which will have to assume responsibility for its own educational experience, whose cultural identity must be respected and which will be the first to benefit from educational action.

Rising above the artificial opposition between individual and collective development, non-formal education responds to the major task of integrating individuals into their grassroots community and ensuring their development within it.

following :

In countries such as those of Africa, where community traditions are very strong, non-formal education cannot be imagined as existing outside a community education strategy.

In other words, the objectives of such education must be devised to serve the community to which its beneficiaries belong. It must not only be useful to the community in question, it must also enable the individual to fulfil himself and acquire all the knowledge necessary for the various functions of the group; hence the role which must be played by all those active in educational and cultural propagation. In this context arises the question of a necessary solution to the problems of co-ordination and interdisciplinarity .

Excessive specialization runs the risk of confining education to a set of mere formulae; the continuous training of extension workers must therefore be planned within a multidisciplinary framework, particularly as the rural population may be engaged .in a variety of activities, ranging from the improvement of rural techniques to hygiene or popularization of the various methods of social advancement (family planning, child- rearing, sewing, etc.). This approach to education would, in addition, be much more economical.

Outside the African context, it is customary to set vocational training in opposition to cultural training. In such cases, the aim of vocational training is often to impart a technical know-how which will help to increase output. This strategy - which is in any case very open to criticism from the point of education ethics - seems to us to be necessary only in the culture of the industrialized countries.

To link vocational training to awareness of participation in a culture, in short to the training of individuals responsible for their own cultural destiny, seems to us the strategy best suited to the objectives of development, particularly if the latter is seen as taking place within a community framework.

It follows from our survey that the following criteria should be adopted:

- Profitability and preparation for working life

This criterion is obviously necessary because, as we have emphasized throughout this study, non- formal education is by its very nature designed to help communities to solve development problems encountered in all areas of their existence - agriculture, health, social advancement, etc. '

This means that non-formal education cannot adopt the criteria that are applied to an academic training.

- Cultural training This is a particularly valuable criterion, as even the villages in Africa are subject to the depreda- tions of external forces, such as the mass media and the influence of urban areas, dispensing a culture which places the cultural identity of whole populations in jeopardy. This is why it is necessary in any education policy, and particularly in a policy for non-formal education, to stress knowledge of the cultural environment and popular traditions, in fact of everything which goes to make up the heritage accumulated by the community in the course of its history.

This is, in our opinion, the best way of protecting the grassroots communities against the

33

forces of cultural debasement. In short, these communities can only take an active part in their own education if that education respects the values and traditions of their cultural environment.

This consideration makes it imperative for teachers to realize not only the need to combine vocational and cultural training, but also the vital importance of preliminary investigations to ascer- tain the practical cultural requirements of the community in question.

All these criteria should be seen as so many ways of setting education within the context of a plan for a society whose aim is the fulfilment of individuals at one with their culture and equipped to work for its overall development.

There would be little point to a non-formal

education policy which did not encourage the emergence of grassroots democracy.

Such a democracy would not be merely a pretence at resurrecting traditional forms of participation; on the contrary, it would involve continuous action to ensure that the different components of the grassroots community (young people and adults of both sexes) had access to the planning and development of life in a community which excluded all enslaving hierachies .

This proposal obviously postulates a clear political or ideological choice, involving formulation by the grassroots communities of their own strategies for self-management in terms of their own specific needs.

34

Conclusion

The need to integrate the contributions of non- formal education cannot be overlooked in the formulation of educational policy in a continent such as Africa. If it is, the real benefits which are expected to accrue from a willingness to listen to the grassroots communities, the urban masses, the semi-proletariat and the rural population, are likely to be lost. In the first place, this new approach responds to a concern for democratiza- tion, particularly for the vast majority of the people, who are usually forsaken by the traditional school system, which has other preoccupations. In the second place, it would be impossible to conceive a non-formal education policy integrated in the development process which did not rely heavily on increasing the action capacity of the broad masses of the population. The quality of their contribution to the development effort depends on their mastery of skills and their assimilation of knowledge and methods necessary for production. In fact, as well as giving them access to these tools, community education makes them aware of the political and economic implications of development itself.

But the requisite conjunction of non- formal education with the aspirations of the people as expressed in the grassroots communities calls for the implementation of a strategy of action, if approximation, improvisation and uncertainty are to be avoided. This strategy cannot be expressed in set formulae. It must always be based on first-hand knowledge of the human environment and the needs of the people involved, as they themselves express them. This is the approach which we have tried to adopt in this study. Rut whatever care is taken in analysing the necessary data. there is one principle which non-formal education in the service of the grassroots communities cannot fail to observe, that of respect for the cultural identity and dignity of the people concerned. Otherwise they urill not participate in study. education or any development effort. O n the other hand, what availability and willingness they display, when they feel involved and valued and are fully aware of Lhe benefit which they can dci-ive from the un der t a k in g !

U NE S C O PUB L I CAT I ON S : NAT I O NA 1. D I S T R I BU TORS Argentina Australia

Austria

Belgium Benin Bolivia Bruil

Bulgaria Burma Canada

Chi!e Colombia

Congo Costa Rica

Cuba

Czechoslovakia

Denmark

CYP“

Egypt EI Salvador

Ethiopia Finland France

French West Indies German Dem. Rep.

Germany, Fed. Rep. of

Ghana

Greece Hong Kong

Hungary Iceland India

Indonesia

Iran

Iraq Ireland Israel

Italy

J a P m Jamaica

Kenya Republic of Korea

Kuwait Lesotho Liberia

Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Luxembourg Madagascar

Malaysia Malta

Mauritius Mexico Monaco

Mozambique Netherlands

Netherlands Antilles N e w Caledonia N e w Zealand

Niger Nigeria

Norway

Pakistan Peru

Philippines Poland

Portugal Southern Rhodesia

Romania

EDILYR S.R.L.. T u c u m h 1699 (P.B. *A’), 1050. BUENOS A ~ R ~ s . Publications: Educational Supplies Pty. Ltd., Post Office Box 33, BROOKVALE 2100. N.S.W. Periodicals: Dominie Pty. Subscriptions Dept., P.O. Box 33. BROOKVALE 2100, N.S.W. Sub-agent: United Nations Amxiation of Australia (Victorian Division), 2nd floor, Campbell House, IW Flinders St., MELBOURNE 3000. Dr. Franz Hain, Verlags- und Kommissionsbuchhandlung, lndustriehor Stadlau, Dr. Otto-Neurath-Gase J. IZZO WIEN. Jean D e Lannoy, zoz, Avenue du Roi, 1060 BRUXELLES. CCP ooo-00708~3-13. Librairie nationale. B.P. ZN. PORTO Novo. Loa Amigos del Libro: casilla postal 4415, LA PAZ; Perú 3711 (Esq. Espda), casilla postal 450. COCHABAMBA. FundaçBo Getúlio Vargas. Editora-Divirao de Vendas, caixa postal g.o5z-ZC-oz, Praia de Botafogo 188.

Hemus. Kantora Literatura, boulevard Rousky 6, SOFIJA. Trade Corporation no. (9). 550-551 Merchant Street, RANOOON. Renouf Publishing Company Ltd., zi8z St. Catherine Street West, MONTREAL, Que., H 3 H tM7. Bibliocentro Ltda.. Constitución n.’ 7, Casilla 13731, SANTIAOO (II). Editorial Losada, calle IBA, n.O 7-37. apartado aéreo 5829. BOGOTA; Edificio L a Ceiba, oficina 804. calle 5z n.O 47-28, MEDEILIN. Librairie Populaire, B.P. 577, BRAZZAVILLE. Libreria Trejos S.A., apartado 1313. SAN Joob. Instituto Cubano del Libro, Centro de Importacibn, Obispo 461, LA HABANA. ‘ M A M , Archbishop Makarios 3rd Avenue, P.O. Box 1722. Nicosta. SNTL, Spalena 51, PRAHA 1 (Pcrvncnt display); Zahranicni literatura. i t Soukenicka. PRAHA i. Fm Slouakw only: Alfa Verlag Publishers, Hurhanova nam. 6, 893 31 BRATISUVA. Ejnar Munksgaard Ltd.. 6 Nsrregade, I i65 K~BENHAVN K. National Ceotre Tor Unesco Publications, I Talaat Harb Strret. Tahrir Square. CAIRO. Libreria Cultural Salvadoreiia. S.A., calle Delgado, n.o i 17. apartado postal 2296, SAN SALVADOR. Ethiopian National Agency for Unesco, P.O. Box 2996, ADDIS ABABA. Akateeminen Kirjakauppa, Keskuskatu I. SF-ooioo HELSINKI IO. Librairie de l’Unesco. 7. place de Fontenoy, 75700 PARIS. CCP Parir i25g&48. Librairie ‘Au Bod’ Mich’, I Rue Perrinon and 66 Avenue du Parquet, 97200 FORT-DE-FRANCE (Martinique). Buchhaus Leipzia. Postfach 140. 701 Letpzio or international bookshops in the German Democratic Republic. S. Karger GmhH, Karqer Buchhandlung. Angerhofstrasse g. Postfach 2. D-8034 GEnb%eniNo/MüNcHeN. For scientific naps only: Geo Center, Postfach 800830. 7000 STWOART 80. For ‘ T h e Courisr’ (German edition only):

RlO DE JANEIRO, R.J.

Colmantstrasse SZ. 5300 BONN. Presbyterian Bookahop Depot Ltd., P.O. Box 195, ACCRA; Ghana Book Suppliera Ltd., P.O. Box 7869, ACCRA; The University Bookahop of Ghana, Accru; The University Bookshop of Cape Coast; The University Bookshop OC Legon, P.O. Box i, LEOON. International bookshop (Elefheroudakis. Kauffman. etc.). Swindon Book Co., 13-15 Lock Road, KOWLOON; Federal Publications (HK) Ltd. 5a Evergreen Industrial Mansion. II Yip Fat Street. Wong Chuk Hang Road, ABERDEEN. Akadémiai Könyvesbolt. Váci u. zz. BUDAPEST VI. Snaebjörn Jomson & Co., H.F.. Hahantraeti g, REYRJAVIK. Orient Longman Ltd., Kamani Marg. Ballard Estate, BOMBAY 400038; 17 Chittaranjan Avenue, CALC~~TTA 13; 36a Anna Salai. Mount Road, MADRAS 2; B-3/7 Asaf Ali Road, N e w DELHI I; 8011 Mahatma Gandhi Road, BANOALORE 560001; 3-5-820 Hyderguda. HYDERABAD 500001. Sub-depofs: Oxford Book and Stationery Co., 17 Park Street, CALCUITA 700016; Scindia House, NEW DELHI 110001; Publications Section, Miniatv of Education and Social WelCare, 511 C-Wing. Shastri Bhavan. NEW DELHI 110001. Bhratara Publishers and Booksellers, 29 JI. Oto Iskandardinata i I I. JAKARTA; Gramedia Bookshop, JI. Gadjah Mada 109. JAKARTA; Indira P.T., JI. Dr. Sam Ratulangi 37, JAKARTA PIJSAT. Iranian National Commission for Unesco, Avenue Iranchahr Chomali no. 300. B.P. 1533. TEHRAN; Kra- razmie Publishing and Distribution Co., 18 Vessal Shirazi Street, Shahreza Avenue, P.O. Box 31411486. TEHRAN. McKenzie’s Bookshop, Al-Rashid Street, BAOHDAO. The Educational Company of Ireland Ltd.. Ballymount Road, WalLinstom. DUBLIN II. Emanuel Brown, formerly Blumstein’s Bookstores. 35 Allenby Road and 48 Nachlat Benjamin Street, TEL AVI% g Shlomzion H a m a k a Street. JERUSALEM. Licosa (Librería Commisionaria Sansoni S.p.A.). via Lamarmora 45. casella postale 551, JOIZI FIRENZE. Sanpster’s Book Stores Ltd., P.O. Box 366. 101 Water Lane, KINOSTON. Eastem Book Service Inc., C.P.O. Box 172ß. TOKYO 10og2. East Atrican Publishing House, P.O. Box 30571, NAIROBI. Korean National Commission for Unesco. P.O. Box Central 64. SEOUL. The Kuwait Bookshop Co. Ltd., P.O. Box 1942, KUWAIT. Mazenod Book Centre, P.O. MAZENOD. Cole & Yancy Bookshops Ltd., P.O. Box 286. MONROVIA. Agency for Development or Publication and Distribution. P.O. Box 34-35, TRIPOLI. Librairie Paul Bruck, zz Grande-Rue, LUXE~OURO. Commission nationale de la République démocratique de Madagascar pour l’Unesco. Boite postale 331, T~ANARIVE.

..

Federal Publications Sdn. Bhd., Lot 8238 Jalan zzz, Petaling Jaya, SELANOOR. Sapienzas, a6 Republic Street, VALLETTA. Nalanda Co. Ltd, 30 Bourbon Street, PORT-LOUIS. SABSA, Insurgentes Sur. mo 1032-401, M~XICO II, D.F. British Librar), 30. boulevard des Moulins, MOWTE-CARLO. Instituto Nacional do Livro e do Disco (INLD), Avenida 24 de Julho, 1921-rjc e i o andar, MAPUTO. N.V. Martinus Nijhoff, Lange Voorhout g. ’s-GRAVENHAGE; Systemen Keesing, Ruysdaelstraat 71-75. AMSTERDAM 1007. Van Dorp-Eddinr N.V.. P.O. Box zoo. Willcnstad, CURAÇAO, N.A. Reprex S.A.R.L., Boite postale 1572. NOUM~A. Government Printing Office, Government bookshops: Mulgrave Street, Private Bag, WELLMOTON; Rutland Street. P.O. Box 5344. AUCKLAND; 130 Oxford Terrace, P.O. Box 1721, CHRISTCHURCH; Alma Street, P.O. Box 857. HAMILTON; Princes Street, P.O. Box 1104. DUNEDIN. Librairie Mauclert, B.P. 868, NIAMEY. The University Bookshop of Ife; The University Bookshop or Ibadan, P.O. Box 286; The University Bookahop of Nsukka; The University Bookshop of Lagos; The Ahmadu Bello University Bookshop of Zaria. Publicalionr: Johan Grundt Tanum, Karl Johans gate 41/43. OSLO I. For *The Courier’: A/S h’arvesenr Litte- raturtjeneste. Box 61n5, OSLO 6. Mirza Book Agency, 65 Shahrah Quaid-e-azam. P.O. Box 729. LAHORE 3. Editorial h a d a Peruana, Jir6n Contumaza 1050. apartado 472, LIU. The Modern Book Co., 926 Rizal Avenue, P.O. Box 632. Murru D-404. ORPAN-Import, Palac Kultury, ~ Q O I WAWZAWA; Ars Polona-Ruch, Krakowrlrie Przedmiescie No 7, o0068 WAWAWA. Dias & Andrade Ltda., Livraria Portugal, rua do Carmo 70. LISBOA. Textbook Sales (PVT) Ltd.. 67 Union Avenue, SALISBURY. ILEXIM, Romlibri Str. Biserica Amzei no. 5-7, P.O.B. 134-135. BucuREqn. Periodicals (subscripfionr): Rom- presiïlatelia, Calea Victoriei ur. zg. BUCWRYTI.

Senegal

Singapore Somalia

South Africa Spain

Sri Lanka Sudan

Sweden

Switzerland Thailand

Togo

Turkev Uganda U.S.S.R.

United Kingdom

United Rep. or Cameroon

United Rep. ofTanzania United States Upper Volta

Uruguay Venezuela

Yugoslavia

Zaire

L a Maison du Livre. 13. avenue Roume, B.P. 20-60. DAKAR; Librairie Clairalrique. B.P. 2005. D-; Librairie ‘Le SknCgal’, B.P. 1594. DAKAR. Federal Publications 6) Pte. Ltd.. no. I N e w Industrial Road, off Upper Paya Lebar Road, SINOAPORE IO. M o d e m Book Shop &d General, P.O. Box 951, MOOADISCIO. Van Schaik’s Bookstore (Pty.) Ltd.. Libri Building, Church Street, P.O. Box 7a4. PRETORLA. MUNDI-PRENSA L I B R O S S.A., Castel16 37, MADRID I; Ediciones LIBER, Apartado 17, Magdalena 8. ONDARROA (Vizcaya); DONAIRE, Ronda de Outeiro, 20, Apartado de Correos, 341, LA CORUÑA; Librería A L - A N D A L U S , Roldana, I y 3. SEVILLA 4; LITEXSA, Librería Técnica Extranjera, Tuet. 8-10 (Edificio Monitor). BARCELONA. Lake H o w Bookshop, Sir Chittampalam Gardiner Mawata. P.O. Box 244, COLOMBO 2. AI Bashir Bookshop. P.O. Box 1118, KHARTOUM. Publicafionr: A/B C.E. Fritzes Kungl. Hovbokhandel, Fredsgatan 2. Box 16356, 103 27 STOCKHOLM 16. For ‘BE Courier’: Svemka FN-Förbundet. Skolgränd 2, Box 150 50, S-104 65 STOCKHOLM. Europa Verlag, &mistrasse 5.8024 ZÜRICH; Librairie Pavot, 6, rue Grenus. 1211 GENEVA II. Suksapan Panit. Mansion g. Rajdamnern Avenue, BANGKOK; Nibondh and Co. Ltd.. 40-42 Charoen K r u g Road, Siyaeg Phaya Sri. P.O. Box 402. BANOKOK; Suksit Siam Company, 1715 R a m a IV Road, BANGKOK. Librairie evangélique, P.B. 378. L o M ~ ; Librairie du Bon Pasteur, B.P. I 164. L o ~ b ; Librairie Moderne, B.P. 777, LoM~. Librairie Hachette, 469 Istiklal Caddesi. Beyoglu, ISTANBUL. Uganda Bookshop, P.O. Box 145, KAMPALA. Mezhdunarodnaja Giga, MOSKVA. G-zoo. H.M. Stationery Office, P.O. Box 569, LONDON SEI 9NH; Government Bookshops: London, Belfast. Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Manchester. Le secrétaire général de la Commission nationale de la Rkpublique Unie du Cameroun pour l‘Unesco, B.P. 1600, Y AOUND b. Dar es Salaam Bookshop, P.O. Box 9030, DAR ES SALAAM. Unipub, Box 433. Murray Hill Station, NEW YORK, N e w York 10016. Librairie Attie, B.P. 64, OUAGADOUGOU; Librairie catholique ‘Jeunesse d‘Afrique’, OUACADOUOOU. Editorial Losada Uruguay. S.A., Maldonado logn. MONTEVIDEO. Librería del Este.Av. Francisco de Miranda, 52, Edificio GalipAn. Apartado 60337. CARACAS; L a Muralla Distri- buciones, S.A., 4a, Avenida entre 3a. y 4a. transversal, ‘Quinta Irenalis’ Los Palos Grandes, CARACAS 106. Jugoslovenska Knjiga, Trg Republike 5/8. P.O. Box 36, II-OOI BEOOM; Dnavna Zalozba Slovenije, Titova

L a Librairie. Institut national d’études politiques, B.P. 2307, KINSHASA; Commission nationale zaïroise pour l’Unesco. Commissariat d‘ktat charge de 1’8ducation nationale, B.P. 31. KJNSHASA.

c. 25, P.0.B. 50-1. 61-000 LJUBLJANA.

[51

[B8] ED-79/XXIV/35 A

ISBN 92-3-101659-8

Non-formal education and education policy in Ghana and...

Documents

Transcript of Non-formal education and education policy in Ghana and...