The Variety and Differences amongst the Concepts of Nonformal Education
What is non-formal learning? • A genuine situation of experience; ”… a personal experience of a problem in an every day situation”
• Data supply for reflection; ”actions, facts, events, relations of things”
• Production of ideas as ”suggestions, inferences, conjectured meanings, tentative explanations” of ”possible results, things to do”.
• Testing the ideas in practice, which ”confers full meaning and a sense of their reality” and learning from the learner’s practice; ”the teacher as the learner and the learner as the teacher”
• ”Education is not a mere means to moral life – education is such a life.”
• Action: ”It is essential to maintain the continuity of knowing with an activity which purposely modifies the environment.”
A tentative definition • formal education: institution based, structured, hierarchically and chronologically graded, teacher/trainer centred education which emphasises objectivity of knowledge, memorizing and aims at certification.
• • informal learning: learning in everyday life which does not aim at certification but where a diversity of actors each with their own intentions impose meanings on the learner.
• non-formal learning: learner centred and practice based learning process which emphasises intrinsic motivation, social context of learning, the usefulness of knowledge and aims at identity growth, social change and integration into society. Learning is voluntary, involves conscious educational aims and may be credited.
FORMAL EDUCATION Teacher centered
-University -School
-Peergroups -Media & Internet -Everyday leisure
INFORMAL LEARNING Context-driven
NON-FORMAL LEARNING Learner centered
-Active participation in youth organisations, youth projects, youth clubs
FORMAL EDUCATION Teacher centered
NON-FORMAL LEARNING Learner centered
-”additional education” -”out-of-school education” -NGOs? -”unconventional learning” -Commercial youth cultures
INFORMAL LEARNING Context-driven
-Youth Centre activities? - Adventure education?
FORMAL EDUCATION Teacher centered
NON-FORMAL LEARNING Learner centered
” There are few, if any, learning situations where either informal or formal elements are completely absent… It was the blending of (both) that was significant, not their separation” Colley, Hodkinson & Malcolm: ”informality and formality in learning”, London 2003
INFORMAL LEARNING Context-driven
”non-formal learning”
differences in educational philosophy:
non-formal learning as complementary to…
formal education
Relating non-formal education to formal education • “It is time to move beyond regarding formal and non-formal learning as a binary opposition, in which non-formal represents all that is ‘good’ and formal represents all that is ‘bad’. In reality, the boundaries between the two are not firmly fixed. Their respective features fade into one another towards the centre of what is ultimately a continuum of learning contexts, contents and methods.”
•
Lynne Chisholm, Council of Europe, Youth Directorate, 2000
• ”In our opinion it is not useful for ”non-formal education” to react against ”formal education”. They are not in the opposite direction, they are complementary…It is one of the most important challenges in the near future of NFE to join the forces of the two systems”
• René Clarijs: ”Unlimited talents and non-formal education”, Prague 2008
”non-formal learning”
differences in educational philosophy:
non-formal learning as complementary to…
formal education
non-formal learning as an alternative to…
Non-formal education as an alternative Formal education Non-formal education as complementary learning
”Non-formal learning learning isis very very different different from, from, even even ”Non-formal opposite to, to, formal formal education education as as to to its its conception conception of of opposite knowledge, understanding understanding of of identity, identity,approach approach to to knowledge, education and and design design of of learning learning context’ context’ (Juha (Juha education Suoranta, Nuorisotutkimuslehti Nuorisotutkimuslehti [Journal [Journal of of Youth Youth Suoranta, Research] 2000/3) 2000/3) Research]
FORMAL EDUCATION
NON-FORMAL EDUCATION
conception of knowledge one interpretation, objectivist conception of knowledge
many relatively true interpretations of the world
understanding of identity a stable and coherent identity
a changing, multiple and contradictory identity approach to education
teacher centered
negotiation learning context
curriculum, school books
the society surrounding the school
”non-formal learning”
differences in educational philosophy: non-formal learning as complementary to…
non-formal learning as an alternative to…
formal education non-formal learning as an autonomous field of learning
“It is more important to learn Latin well than to make a class journey to Rome” Theodore Adorno
“School and youth – a normative relationship of difference” Thomas Ziehe
”non-formal learning”
differences in educational philosophy: non-formal learning as complementary to…
non-formal learning as an alternative to…
formal education non-formal learning as an autonomous field of learning
1. Non-formal education should be better integrated into formal education (complementary relation) 2. ”Standard pedagogy” of today’s school should be replaced by non-formal learning approach (alternative relation) 3. Non-formal education should be kept at arm’s length from formal education (relation of autonomy)