» Topic List
	6.1 The situation
	6.2 The rationale
	6.3 The vision
	6.4 Long-term objective
	6.5 Medium-term objectives
	6.6 Short-term objectives
	6.7 Program modalities
	6.8 Key tasks
	6.9 Indicators

6.1 The situation » Up

Many widely-scattered non-formal education initiatives have developed over the past decade, the vast majority of which are implemented by non-governmental agencies. These include learning activities focused on adult literacy, income-generation, health and nutrition, child care, agriculture and general rural development. They have emerged because the formal education system does not have the capacity to meet people's learning needs in all areas, especially among the poorest youth and adults, women, ethnic minorities, in remote rural areas and in urban slums. Additionally, the flexibility and clear targeting of non-formal education activities can often better respond to local needs. Several of these initiatives have successfully used an integrated community approach to learning, where a variety of activities are undertaken at a simple local facility such as a temple or a commune council office. This approach also aims at fostering local community management of learning activities. Although data is not complete, there are currently at least twenty community learning centres operating around the country and an estimated 4,000 temples, mosques and other kinds of community centers providing different forms of learning to the people.

6.2 The rationale » Up

It has become obvious that a holistic approach is needed for non-formal learning and development in terms of linkages between different activities which often focus on the same families and communities as well as fostering community ownership. Adults, children and communities do not learn in a nice, neat linear progression from one issue to another. People's lives, including learning and development activities, cannot be divided into neat separate compartments. Life is an integrated whole where everything affects everything else to a greater or lesser degree. Communities operate in a similar fashion. It is critical that learning programs are integrated at the community level. It is also important to develop linkages with non-formal training activities undertaken at the community level by other agencies in health, agriculture, rural development and women's affairs. All these activities must be viewed as components of a coherent community-based education and development strategy for poverty reduction and social development.

It has also become apparent that, while more affluent communities are able take non-formal education initiatives on their own (such as private-sector foreign language and computer training in urban areas), most poor communities require assistance to develop sustained structures for personal and community development. A learning center initially responds to specific personal social and economic needs but, as it develops, it tends to broaden its objectives and activities. These community institutional bases for holistic life-long learning and community development are being called "community learning centers".

6.3 The vision » Up

To encourage and support an integrated approach to non-formal learning and development through community learning centers, managed by local people and providing multiple learning opportunities for children and adults leading to improvement in quality of life and community development. They must be much more than a physical location. They must be an effective, almost organic, mechanism for empowering individuals and the community. They must cater for lifelong learning; reach out to the community; promote development of the community; have programs responsive to local needs and aspirations of community members; and draw their mandate from the community.

6.4 Long-term objective » Up

To ensure the establishment and effective operation of one or more community learning centers in all communes, with balanced gender staffing and management, by 2015.

6.5 Medium-term objectives » Up

1. To ensure the establishment and effective operation of community learning centers in at least 800 communes by 2010;
2. To ensure that 50% of all center facilitators are female by 2010.

In partnership between all relevant ministries and NGOs:

1. To ensure the establishment and effective operation of community learning centers in 100 communes by 2005;
2. To ensure at least 40% of center facilitators are female by 2005.

Learning centers will normally be encouraged at the commune level, which a majority of the local population can easily access. They will be initially tend to be managed by a non-governmental organization with a good local presence and strong working relationships with commune as well as provincial and district authorities. Often, they may be located at a religious center or near commune council offices, but it is important that they be placed somewhere which is already a busy center of community activity. They should not be placed in a new, sterile environment.

There are currently 1,623 communes in the country, the majority of which are reasonably accessible by surrounding villages. The program will aim at establishing at least one community learning center in each commune to act as a focal point for all non-formal education initiatives, including adult literacy, primary and lower secondary equivalency, income-generation, early childhood care and post-literacy classes and activities. Within the commune, the center will focus on identifying high poverty and illiteracy pockets, using existing data such as "poverty maps" as well as visits upon which to focus the various programs. In remote communes which cover a wide area with poor infrastructure and also in densely-populated urban communes, more than one CLC may be established as needs require. In the next thirteen years, an estimated two thousand centers will become established.

As mentioned, the centers are not simply physical locations, they are live community networks. The heart of each center will be its resident facilitators and the extent to which the community feels ownership. Normally, a center will have two or three full-time local facilitators, all of whom will have multiple functions including general community facilitation plus additional responsibilities such as managing the library/reading facilities and instructing in one or more of the structured learning activities for children, youth and adults. At least half of the facilitators must be women.

Over time, if the centers are to be sustainable, the commune must accept more and more responsibility. Sustainability depends upon the community viewing the centers as successful at meeting their needs, in the same manner as a well-supported community temple or mosque. As attitudes move towards actively supporting children's education; as individual incomes are seen to increase as a result of learning; as children become healthier; and as new economic activities gradually appear, such as marketing cooperatives, the sponsoring agency can slowly relinquish responsibility and hand over to the community. As mentioned under the income-generation component, revolving credit schemes should be established in association with each learning center.

Each center will offer and support several or all of the following learning activities:

1. Adult functional literacy and family life improvement;
2. Income-generation skills and entrepreneurship;
3. Primary and lower secondary equivalency for children and youth;
4. Post-literacy and continuing education materials and information;
5. Family education for early childhood development.

6.8 Key tasks » Up

Build partnerships between governmental and non-governmental agencies at the commune, provincial and district level to:

• Develop decentralized planning and implementation: Train provincial, district and commune authorities how to plan and facilitate development of community learning centers, usually in co-operation with non-governmental agencies. Train authorities and facilitators in community "mapping" technique and how to target programs by poverty, age, gender, ethnicity, social group, etc.;
• Select and train trainers: Develop guidelines and training materials for selecting and training provincial/district trainers who will work with communes to select learning center facilitators. They should be increasingly female;
• Select and train local facilitators: In a similar manner, develop guidelines and training materials for selecting and training local learning center facilitators, who should be at least 50% female. Adult learning methodologies must be used and emphasized. Local facilitators should be exposed to the full range of NFE and development training programs available or planned for their community;
• Monitor learning centers: With local commune authorities, NGO staff and community representatives, undertake joint reviews to monitor performance of trainers and facilitators as well as the operations of the center. Short-term objectives will be revised each year depending upon progress.

• Increased number of fully-functioning community learning centers;
• Increased number of NFE activities run by/through community learning centers;
• Increased number of related community development activities (health, agriculture, etc.) run by/through community learning centers;
• Increased number of female facilitators;
• Increased number of active community management committees;