Nonformal Education

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Nonformal Education

Nonformal education includes a range of organized instructional activities that usually occur outside of the formal educational system. Popular, alternative, adult, experimental, and grass-roots education are terms that have been used to describe recent non-formal educational activities in Latin America.

While many examples can be found in early Latin American history, including the creative educational programs sponsored by religious institutions and the Sociedad económica de amigos del país, the term "nonformal education" more appropriately refers to twentieth-century educational activities. The activities were at times linked to traditional educational institutions, but they usually relied on different methods and served different populations.

Mexico, which initiated many educational innovations outside of the traditional school setting during the colonial period, was often at the forefront of educational experimentation in the twentieth century. It was one of the first countries to have a "popular university," established by intellectuals and educators in 1912, to educate workers. Popular universities followed in many countries, most notably the González Prada Popular Universities in Peru, which offered courses in culture, health, and vocational training. Mexico was also the initiator of another, more comprehensive program of grass-roots education in the 1920s. Under the leadership of José Vas-concelos, the famous cultural missions program sought to transform rural life in Mexico. Interdisciplinary teams of teachers, health professionals, and technical workers traveled to remote villages for short periods to teach and to promote social change. Variants of the Mexican cultural missions were adopted in other Latin American countries (the socio-pedagogical missions of Uruguay, for example) and in Spain during the early 1930s. In addition, rural schools, emphasizing technical and vocational training along with academic subjects, had appeared in many Latin American countries by the 1930s.

These activities set precedents for broadening the scope of nonformal educational activities during the 1940s. In response to development needs and the inadequacy of formal educational systems, individuals and groups created new methods of attacking the massive social problems of illiteracy, unemployment, and malnutrition. Experimental programs sought to improve the education, health, and welfare of the poor. At times these programs were comprehensive national efforts, designed to increase literacy and basic skills in the hopes of integrating marginal populations into a national polity and economy; at other times they were grass-roots movements, emerging from individuals, communities, and religious organizations.

Extension education, though a part of formal educational and governmental organizations, has long supported nonformal, alternative educational activities. Extension programs that emphasized social development rather than simple cultural diffusion became an avowed aim of Latin American universities, especially after the Córdoba Reforms of 1918 initiated efforts to make universities more socially responsible. During and after World War II international and national development agencies relied on extension to promote development. One of the earliest of these was the Inter-American Cooperative Food Production Service in Peru, started in 1942 by the Institute of Inter-American Affairs, and designed to increase food and fiber for domestic and international markets. Through agent contact with farmers, youth, and women's organizations, and diffusion of information, all essential to extension programs, most Latin American ministries of agriculture had tried to initiate some type of agricultural extension program by the late 1950s.

Population increases and social and economic needs led to the rapid increase of nonformal education in the 1960s. Brazil offers an example of the range and diversity of programs that were established for literacy (Fundação Movimento Brasileiro de Alfabetização), vocational training (Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Comercial and Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Industrial), using television for primary education (Fundação Centro Brasileiro de Televisão Educativa), university extension (Centro Rural Universitário de Treinamento e Ação Comunitaria), and for merging religious beliefs and social action (Comunidades Eclesiais de Base).

As popular education became recognized as an agent of social change, reform and revolutionary movements employed it as a method of achieving their objectives. The Cuban literacy crusade of 1961 set the standard and was imitated by other countries in Latin America and Africa. One well known example was the creation by the revolutionary Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the 1980s of a corps of ambulatory teachers who went from town to town in the rural countryside to teach. Important theoretical and practical work came from Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich. Freire developed a program for literacy and conscientização (critical consciousness) that influenced many grass-roots educational efforts around the world. Ivan Illich, recognizing the inability of Latin American nations to provide traditional education to all, stressed the need for flexible, alternative education. More recently, new methods and educational programs have been created in many Latin American countries to address the growing number of street children. New pedagogies, adapted to the complex cultural milieu of street life, are a part of programs that provide shelter, food, clothing, health care, and job training to street children. These programs, like those before them, are based on the conviction that traditional educational institutions are no longer capable of addressing the changing needs of Latin America.

From the 1950s to the 1980s, international institutions like the World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) actively supported nonformal education programs. Since the 1990s, multilateral agencies have shown less enthusiasm for these programs and have instead pushed 'market-based' solutions for education needs. Nevertheless, nonformal education continues to provide learning alternatives.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Thomas J. La Belle, Nonformal Education and Social Change in Latin America (1976) and Nonformal Education in Latin America and the Caribbean: Stability, Reform, or Revolution (1986), provides a good introduction to the diversity of programs and philosophies.

Carlos Alberto Torres, The Politics of Nonformal Education in Latin America (1990) analyzes adult education.

Adriana Puiggrós, La educación popular en América Latina: Orígenes, polémicas y perspectivas (1984), gives a theoretical overview of the history of popular education.

Myles Horton and Paulo Freire, We Make the Road by Walking (1990), compare experiences in nonformal education.

Additional Bibliography

Arnove, Robert F., and Carlos Alberto Torres. "Adult Education and State Policy in Latin America: The Contrasting Cases of Mexico and Nicaragua." Comparative Education 31:3 (1995), 311-325.

Arríen, Juan B. and Miguel de Castilla Urbina. Educación y pobreza en Nicaragua: Las apuestas a la esperanza. Managua: Universidad Centroamericana, Instituto de Educación de la UCA, 2001.

Belle, T. J. L. and Carlos Alberto Torres. "The Changing Nature of Non-formal Education in Latin America." Comparative Education 36:1 (2000), 21-36.

Jung, Ingrid and Linda King, eds. Gender, Innovation and Education in Latin America. Hamburg, Germany: Unesco Institute for Education; Bonn, Germany: German Foundation for International Development, 1999.

John C. Super

Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture