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THEME 3: Poverty
Education and Work
Poverty, Education
and Work
Some introductory thoughts
Ana Agostino
“Adult education thus becomes more
than a right; it is a key to the twenty-first century. It is both a
consequence of active citizenship and a condition for full
participation in society. It is a powerful concept for fostering
ecologically sustainable development, for promoting democracy,
justice, gender equity, and scientific, social and economic
development, and for building a world in which violent conflict is
replaced by dialogue and a culture of peace based on justice. Adult
learning can shape identity and give meaning to life. Learning
throughout life implies a rethinking of content to reflect such
factors as age, gender equality, disability, language, culture and
economic disparities”. The Hamburg Declaration, 1997Poverty and inequality are the biggest challenges human beings face in the 21st Century. Global poverty statistics do not always coincide with the extent of the problem, as there are different approaches on how to measure and -above all- how to understand and define poverty. But independently of whether 1,6 billion people live in poverty (if taking the World Bank definition of living on less than USD 1 a day), or more -or less- if taking other definitions, the numbers are always a reason for indignation. Precisely because they are not numbers, they are human beings who live in a world of plenty and in spite of the over-consumption, squandering and waste that characterizes the capitalist global society, millions of children, women and men live without the possibility of satisfying their most basic needs, die from preventable and curable diseases, are excluded from democratic processes, suffer discrimination and exploitation and lack the possibility to autonomously decide the path of their lives. Overcoming poverty and inequality is therefore the most important task that should motivate policy formulation, research and also the field of education and of adult education in particular, if looking at the above quote from the Hamburg Declaration. But how we understand and define poverty is not irrelevant as the paths to follow will vary if we stick to the traditional definitions that only refer to the material and economic aspects of poverty or if we take as our framework a human rights approach to poverty eradication. When one defines poverty as the systematic denial of social, economic and political rights one moves away from an approach for which economic growth provides the solution. If human rights are placed at the centre of a paradigm rather than profit, human beings are not expected to exclusively operate according to market rules and live with the consequences but norms are put in place to ensure that every person has the means for the full development of his/her personality and citizenship. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recognizes that “in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ideal of free human beings enjoying freedom from fear and want can only be achieved if conditions are created whereby everyone may enjoy his economic, social and cultural rights, as well as his civil and political rights”. Therefore, a central strategy to combat and prevent poverty is to put in place social policies that ensure citizens the full enjoyment of their rights. This goes beyond the access to income and material resources to guarantee the means for livelihoods and the satisfaction of basic needs. It has to do as well with active participation in democratic processes, human security, equality within society and within the home, environmental protection, among others. And it has to do also with having the capabilities to engage in these processes being able to choose a path for one’s own community that has not been previously identified and imposed by others. This idea of imposition is very important when debating around strategies for poverty eradication as one of the results of the process of gobalisation has been the denial of diversity and the homogenisation not just of the way in which the world is understood but of the practices and mechanisms in which diverse peoples are expected to respond to their particular challenges and needs. If we agree that poverty is multidimensional and that it manifest itself in different forms, caused by global conditions as well as by regional and local ones, we must also agree with the fact that solutions must necessary be multidimensional as well and above all, culturally determined. There are no universal answers for poverty and inequality except for those that have to do with the global system: fair trade (rather than free trade), elimination of debts that keep national economies unable to respond to local needs, withdrawal of conditionalities attached to development aid so that national plans can be drawn according to national priorities are examples of global measures that will have an impact on different societies around the globe. But beyond that, it is necessary to advocate for the right of each society, and for specific groups within each society, to implement responses that are culturally and socially relevant for them. This is already one of the major challenges for adult education in relation to poverty eradication: to be able to support processes of self determination and self discovery rather than being oriented towards efficiency and economic growth. Education can be instrumental in the sense of providing human beings the necessary skills to integrate into the production system and perform efficiently (with personal results in terms of income and results for the good performance of the markets) or it can focus on the integration of human beings not just in the economic sphere of their societies but into the social, cultural and political dimensions as well. This has to do with an understanding of how societies function, of our place within society, of the different role-players that interact with their specific contributions and shortcomings and of the possibilities that are there or that need to be constructed in order to transform that society for the benefit of all its citizens, fully respecting their differences and particularities. In the same way then that defining poverty as the lack of material goods or the systematic violation of human rights will impact on the strategies chosen for poverty eradication, whether we see education as instrumental for the well functioning of the markets or for the full development of human beings into active citizens will have an impact on how we approach adult education in relation to work. First of all work must be seen as multidimensional as education itself. We should not stick to definitions of work that link it to relationships of dependency mediated by income generation. Work is a productive task that gives human beings a sense of capability, of creativity and of realisation that result in securing livelihoods. Understanding work within this framework allows for the inclusion of essential tasks, usually performed by women, which are the basis of social reproduction but whose contribution for the well being of society is generally ignored. It also allows us to move away from a traditional understanding of the concept of economy based on the scarcity principle. This one is founded on the assumption that means are scarce and that these insufficient means need to be allocated in the best possible way to provide for endless needs. That is to say, they should be maximised or economised and the privileged space to do this is the market. A different understanding of the economy has to do with human beings’ dependency for their survival upon nature and fellow humans. From this point of view the interaction between human beings and their environment is, also, the economy. Taking this approach leads to a conceptualisation of education and work oriented towards the development of life skills, of the recognition of people’s abilities and assets (not just material and economic but personal, cultural, social, etc.) that will facilitate their integration into society and their active involvement in its transformation. Education and work will be mutually determined in the sense that education will not be seen exclusively as instrumental for the acquisition of specific skills that will allow human beings to be incorporated into the labour market but as a means in itself. In this way work the implementation of productive activities that result in improved livelihoods- will also serve the aim of expanding educational opportunities by providing human beings a better understanding of themselves, their culture, their societies and the world at large. It will also promote reciprocity in the understanding that improving life conditions is not limited by the available income but that it also depends on interactions among human beings and the support they each provide according to their capabilities and knowledge. Massa Arzabe, Patricia Helena: “Human Rights. A New Paradigm”, in van Genugten, Willen and Perez Bustillo, Camilo (Editors): “The Poverty of Rights, Human Rights and the Eradication of Poverty”, Zed Books, London and New York, 2001, p. 30. See Polanyi, Karl: “The Livelihood of Man”, Academic Press, New York, 1977. p. 20.
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