Nonformal Education in Africa: Micro-Solutions to Macro-Problems?

Abstract

In Africa, as in other parts of the world, most people have traditionally acquired their skills, knowledge, and attitudes from institutions other than formal schools. Even where formal school systems have been established (a relatively recent phenomenon), it is still difficult to separate the impact of schooling from that of one's family, community, cultural and social institutions, and training on the job. But it has increasingly become apparent in all countries that learning acquired in a life-long process, both before and after school, is of far greater importance than the more specific knowledge transmitted in schools. The modernization process, however, has continued to place a heavy emphasis on formal school systems, by defining for them a set of demanding tasks. These educational systems are expected to create useful citizens, to teach literacy, and to prepare young people for the lives they must lead in adult societies by providing them with basic minimum skills. Demands by parents for publicly-supported schooling as the principal means of escape from poverty have led to dramatic increases in the provision of educational opportunity throughout the world. These demands are reinforced, and the growth of schooling accelerated, by the recognition on the part of governments and private industry of a pressing need for higher levels of trained manpower. Econanists often disagree as to whether education is a prerequisite for development, or vice-versa. Yet the close relationship between education and human resource development leaves little doubt that one cannot proceed very far without the other. (For a useful treatment of these issues, see Anderson and Bowman 1965. See also Harbison and Myers 1964. ) In Africa the demand for education on the part of parents and governments developed rapidly during the 1960's, to the point where