NON-FORMAL AND INFORMAL EDUCATION:
While the focus of both the December 7-12 workshop and of the upcoming principals’ workshops is on school education, the December workshop recognized explicitly that learning also (and often primarily) occurs outside schools — informally in families, peer groups, and communities, and through the media, internet, and other means, and also ‘non-formally’ in courses such as Bhutan’s highly successful literacy programs geared to mothers in rural areas. Thus, ‘non-formal’ education is defined as coursework that occurs outside credentialed or degree-awarding institutional frameworks, while ‘informal’ education is defined as learning that occurs outside coursework altogether.
The December workshop therefore emphasized the vital importance of extending the Educating for GNH initiative into the informal and formal education sectors, the Education Secretary gave an introductory presentation on this subject, and a breakout group focussed on this potential on Dec. 11. A summary of this group’s significant observations and recommendations is provided here.
The non-formal and informal education breakout group explicitly praised the Ministry of Education for doing laudable work providing literacy training for adults in centres throughout the country, having graduated 140,000 Bhutanese thus far. They noted that the award-wining program is committed to raising the current adult literacy level from 53% at present to 70% by 2013.
Notwithstanding these excellent successes, the group reported that there is still a large number of Bhutanese citizens without adequate formal education, who need alternative learning models to feel productive and to enhance their self-respect and self-esteem. The group remarked that the present cut-off point for the national 10th grade exam, coupled with insufficient slots for vocational training and/or insufficient family resources to send a child to private school, is leaving many young persons without hope or options, with often devastating social and cultural consequences.
The group reported that blue collar workers (such as carpenters, masons, painters, and plumbers) and those who choose to work with their hands somehow feel as 2nd class citizens because manual labour is insufficiently valued in Bhutan.
As well, members noted that the monastic curriculum, which already contains GNH values and principles, appears to be devalued and to be falling behind what is needed in 21st century. It was noted that consideration could be given to incorporating this monastic curriculum into the general curriculum with due consideration to what might be missing that would be of benefit to current student monks.
Based on these observations and challenges, the group made the following series of recommendations.
Non-formal education breakout group recommendations:
a) Consideration should be given to moving the oversight of vocational training from the Ministry of Labour to the Ministry of Education to help create more diverse choices to provide more attractive alternatives and opportunities to students who complete the 10th grade but do not continue to grades 11 and 12.
b) The status of blue-collar workers and artisans should be elevated through substantial increases in their stipends, and through a focussed media campaign celebrating work of the hands and recognizing the country’s remarkable wealth of traditional knowledge and skills. Such a paired initiative would serve to raise the self-esteem and dignity of blue-collar and manual labour and encourage those with such talents to take this path without regret.
c) The curricular needs of monastic communities should be examined and reviewed, with a view to utilizing aspects of the monastic curriculum more effectively in secular education and conversely to evaluate what aspects of the monastic curriculum may need modification and updating for present times. Students might be engaged in active surveys of the monastic and secular communities in an effort to bridge the present and growing gap between the two sets of curricula.
d) Alternatives to the present “certificates” should be examined and ways developed to recognize mastery other than through a diploma. Such alternative forms of recognition might serve to enhance respect for key aspects of indigenous knowledge and skills.
e) A major recommendation of this breakout group is to establish a pilot Community College/Barefoot College, endorsed and supported by the Ministry of Education, that would spread the Barefoot concept (especially Barefoot Women Solar Engineers) all over Bhutan. This initiative would use the present Bhutanese Barefoot College village solar engineers as teachers to teach an initial 100 more students to be solar engineers in the short term, and at the same time:
i) Teach the value, dignity, and utility of practical skills;
ii) Be grounded in the community;
iii) Celebrate indigenous knowledge and wisdom and the holders thereof;
iv)Teach literacy, numeracy, and discernment through a pilot media literacy curriculum.
v) Stress the critical importance of a vital and vibrate local economy.
The Community College/Barefoot College recommendation was strongly endorsed by the group. Karma Yeshey offered a caveat: that this college should be sustainable, and Bunker Roy indicated that funding was already being considered for a 3-year pilot and that this initiative would be sustainable. As well, it was noted that all the principles embodied in the Community College / Barefoot College model fully reflect GNH values and principles. Such an initiative would therefore represent an outstanding extension of the Educating for GNH project to non-formal education that would provide widespread societal benefit.
Breakout group members remarked that—over and over again, from all sides—they had heard concerns about the abandonment of villages for the bright lights of Thimphu, and out-migration from the countryside and small towns to the capital. Accordingly, they applauded the Ministry of Education for locating magnet non-formal education programs in the countryside, strongly endorsed a continuation of that focus and direction, and urged its expansion with initiatives such as those recommended above.
Participants in this breakout group included Bunker Roy, Karma Yeshey, Madhu Prakash, Lama Shenphen Zangpo, Manish Jain, Sonam Wangchuk, Munna Tamang (student), Gregory Cajete, Sonam Choedeon Tobjur (student), Betsy Quammen, Tashi Wangmo (student), Cheryl Charles, JoAnn Rosemont, Adrie Kusserow, Curtis Koren, Dahlia Colman, Suk Bahadur Baraily (KUZOO FM), Kent Martin, Shafik Nanji, Supawadee Petrat, and Kent Bicknell (recorder).