(South Africa) photo courtesy of the ‘Learning for all’ Project (an entry for the Poster Competition)
Principles into practice
Applying these principles and lessons in established operational contexts around the world poses a particular set of problems to an international NGO like Save the Children. Based on the above, the fundamental thrust of the Save the Children programme is that local people and local groups, must do the job of service delivery themselves. Save the Children’s prime task is to motivate them to that end. After that, it reverts to a supportive – perhaps discreetly formative – role, but does not assume the responsibility for service delivery: this rightly rests with others. On the whole, Save the Children’s programme making has sought to adhere to these principles, bearing in mind the working reality in which it must operate. Market pressures oblige the organisation to deploy its stock of ideas in pursuit of opportunities in educational development as these
arise: after all, the principles have broader relevance than to ECD alone. This is perhaps the sharpest lesson of the last few years. The Village School approach which has proven so successful in Mali, Malawi and Burkina Faso – and which is now spreading into Guinea, Morocco and Ghana – rests on these working premises, even if the Village School idea itself does not embrace the totality of the conceptual model. Despite this, there are opportunities to probe into how a strong early childhood focus can be grafted on to a programme which has its initial focus elsewhere, as in Mali and in El Salvador. In Mali, village-based childcare is a responsibility of grandmothers freed from the obligations of field work. The programme has investigated how traditional childcare skills can be enhanced. In El Salvador, local community education associations have embraced the idea of ‘school for parents’ with the intention of strengthening the home background. Plans are now in hand to add an initial