|
|
||||||
|
Poverty,
Education and Work
Poverty and exclusion are
two structural dimensions which numerous vast sectors of the
population of Africa, Asia, Latin America and other groups of
developed countries find very difficult to revert. The
socioeconomic situation of these regions is increasingly dual,
since high standard living concentrated sectors coexist with
sectors with unequally distributed incomes and jobs, situation
which pushes great masses of men and women from popular sectors
to poverty and even, extreme poverty (*).Graciela C. Riquelme CONICET-UBA - Argentina We are part of a double discourse and a contradictory dualization where, on the one hand, we acknowledge the existence of poverty and exclusion, and on the other hand, we are part of accelerated scientific and technologic development processes. Therefore, in these thoughts I share with the ICAE Virtual Seminar, I intend to highlight the essence of these contradictions, to bring them to the light for them to be a permanent part of the context surrounding any request and demand made to governments, international organizations and any and all party having a role in the decision-making process in favour of the excluded sectors. The world acknowledges and witnesses highly accelerated processes of productive and scientific development, of new divisions in the countries economies and jobs, a generalized modernization and globalization. But, on the other side, the polarization of the distribution of wealth is increasing, with small groups concentrating benefits, great inequalities between social groups, and the persistent use of traditional policies incapable of addressing the different and individual situations of indigenous populations, ethnic minorities and destitute and excluded populations. In this context, the demands for an Education for All (EFA) coexist with demands of excellence for training of human resources derived from the industrial policies, agricultural development, and technologic and scientific breakthroughs. The education policy must face the demands to extend the array of levels and alternatives of excellence for secondary and higher education, and to provide flexible and articulate postgraduate choices at an international level, and struggle with the pressure to assign resources to provide education for the groups excluded from these elite circuits, or for the most privileged sectors of our societies (ourselves included). Together with these education policy actions, we have labour policies aimed at supporting the economic and social development processes, by means of employment and training actions for the employees benefited with structured employment, or by means of unemployment benefits and training for the unemployed from those markets; all such programs only cover a limited population segment. During the past decades, several employee competency and training certification initiatives have been implemented by ministries and labour unions, with the purpose to acknowledge adults knowledge and expertise acquired outside formal education circuits. To successfully meet the goals of the Confintea ICAE Seminar, which aim at discussing the advocacy areas identified by ICAE as top priorities towards CONFINTEA VI: Adult Literacy, Migration and Education; Poverty, Education and Work; Adults Education Policies, Legislation and Finance, all cross-referenced by gender, it is important to accept the duality of our societies and State policies. Our regions and countries face differential policies which favour certain sectors, and involve more benefits for some over others. That is, there are at least two policies: - policies for the development of the economies, science and technologies, education and employment of dynamic sectors of societies, - policies for the social development of marginalized or excluded sectors of society. Policies for adults and EFA are among the latter ones. There is no doubt that society fragmentation is profoundly unequal, and is at the core of the resources distribution and allocation problems. Therefore, my thoughts aim at making clear for ICAE leaders and advocacy courses graduates IALLA - the contradictions that these two policy spheres imply in the design and funding for adults and EFA policies. We should develop more active empowerment strategies to generate active demands which shall cause a real "flow of resources" to expand policies for the integration and promotion of the excluded sectors. This will only be achieved with the awareness of the sectors with the power that they have the responsibility to promote active employment generation policies and alternatives that offer better living conditions for all the people (health, housing and education). Rising people's quality of life and overcoming poverty is at stake here. In the following paragraphs I develop three issues to reflect upon: the first one focus on issues of the education system and adults education; the second one, on the articulation of policies; and the last one, on the competencies and knowledge certification systems. 1 On adults’ education in the educational systems a) Review of the literacy and functional literacy concepts for their inclusion in a broad concept of lifelong learning (LLL) - We need to promote a greater awareness among national groups to review limited concepts of literacy and adult education: - Critical analysis of the "education for all" concept since it only includes primary education. - We need to address the "initial education" (see Belanger) concept as the basis for a lifelong learning (LLL). In this approach, initial education includes preschool, primary, secondary and higher or university or college education. - We should promote the idea that lifelong learning encompasses initial education plus general education, scientific and technologic education and/or technical and practical education under a wide and comprehensive notion that enables access and development in the employment world (with changes of jobs throughout the labour cycle). b) Strengthening popular education perspective - Public and popular adult workers education must be considered as a social demand, a collective need and social claim. - Popular education must be understood as a guiding paradigm of educational actions in relation to a policy to lifelong learning. - This perspective is addressed to the implementation of an emancipating education, from a deep political intentionality that starts from an unfair and unjust vision of society of developing countries (Latin America, Africa and Asia) that determines peoples working option next to groups or social classes excluded from social decisions, with an aim to take part in its organization and social participation capacity. c) Strengthening participation pedagogy. This implies to consider the State’s role and social participation in educational policy decisions: - To consider lifelong learning as a need and a right of all persons and social groups becomes a social right that the State must guarantee and be responsible for. - The State’s role as guarantor cannot be replaced by civil society educational actions. To outcome the situation of educational poverty, to democratize education, to ensure a quality lifelong education for all the population is only possible through a strengthened State’s role. - This State’s role does not imply the vertical imposition of a transformation. To build a joint and democratic educational policy implies having as an axe the participation of the teacher and all the educational community. - It is necessary to build a Participation Pedagogy that creates initiatives of joint building and learning from real participation in education for the whole of the educational community. d) Challenges for education and training for work The challenges for education I consider key ones within a process of structure recovery of the educational system in order to fulfil educational adults needs should turn around: - Education and training for work guidance must be reviewed in order to specify the urgent demands of a better quality of socially necessary knowledge appropriation. This implies the design and the establishment of activities that ensure learning spaces with more class hours, extra class hours, compensatory and complementary spaces, subjects departments or intensive learning working workshops. - Technical and secondary education teachers training is the basis or the grounds of any transformation. In this sense, renovated training updated programmes should be faced up that exceed the teaching training activities of the decade of the ninety. They must be «custom-made curricula» that imply engagements of success or outcome for each teacher. Some of these activities could be continuous internships. - Education and training for work programmes must also give priority to the quality of knowledge avoiding fostering focal specific activities and courses not having a solid knowledge basis. A key subject is the rationalisation of resources available in programmes that overlap from educational, working and social development public sectors. - It is necessary to outline workers’ knowledge intervention and management lines, as the relation between education and labour market involves the population, an active or passive subject of education and training demands, the state and social, educational, working policies, the private sector that provides education and training, the corporate sector, human resources employees, organized trade unions representative of certain workers’ groups, new social movements derived from the critical social situation and the civil society. 2- Articulation of adults’ education policies and the EFA with the rest of state policies. A problem that should be included in the debate about AE resources within the whole of the Latin American, Asian and African educational priorities is the evaluation of the resources applied from other spheres of public policies and that are aimed to young and adults, in order to being able to recover financing resources for literacy and the recovery of the less educated population, under situations of poverty and exclusion. With this aim it is necessary to: - - - - - - In these programmes, executed from ministries of labour, social or communitarian development or youth, many resources are destined that, through adequate and coordinated management, should strengthen and broaden adults educational institutions actions and programmes. The idea is to search for more rationality of social expenditures in educational, social and labour policy that strengthens the attention paid to the right to education, understood as a “social debt with the population” in our countries. These policies, driven to the implementation of continuing education for the population implies to acknowledge the extension of guarantees to: - - - - The design of integrated policies should be stipulated from the national level through the genuine efforts “between sectors” and through “interests’ coordination” among multiple programmes and projects that have to tackle these populations. 3- Knowledge at risk by competencies certification processes. Within the critical context of the socioeconomic situations of developing countries, and situations of marginality of huge sectors of the population excluded and poor of countries in Africa, Asia and America, it is worth calling peoples attention on young and adults difficulties to grab knowledge socially necessary or productive within the context of educational and training systems that have been fragmented by reforms during the last decades. In the central countries, workers competencies certification initiatives started to be developed as mechanisms of access and follow up of adult workers careers. These systems and models have been extended as a result of globalised practices of productive organizations to make workers movement between companies easier. At the same time, and through international agencies, these models are being transferred to countries with previous social debts on education, which implies a juxtaposition of systems, even when there still are some priorities to be solved. These practices have been established within the sphere of labour ministries, which absorb resources and take the attention out of the EFA and adults education, as they give priority to the acknowledgement of training success outside education. If attention is only paid to concrete certifications, the context of knowledge building necessary for the labour processes is neglected, as well as the training development of individuals within a life project. The following table simplifies the situation but enables to make clear the dimensions at stake. At the ICAE seminar, it is important to acknowledge those situations which divert efforts away from education policies and waste resources in the individual quantification of achievements. In practice, these certification actions, as regards training functions, assessment and certification, are delegated on a group of public and private authorized institutions. Some studies alert us on the risks of the certifications market since it leads to commercial practices which sometimes involve states and public services. This might deepen the dispersion which prevails in many countries due to the multiplication of poorly coordinated labour education and training offers of diverse quality. The solution to these situations cannot be left in the hands of the free interaction of supply and demand; it requires state regulation in its different intervention levels. The State must define policies to overcome social exclusion, and widen employment offers within the framework of a sustainable development of productive growth, and science and technology advancement. This will require: to expand secondary and technical education; to design job education and training programs appropriate to the productive growth; to implement education recovery programs for young people and working adults, in coordination with AE and EFA. These are top priority policies which must be put before the certification of competencies. If we intend to overcome the exclusion processes and the social and education differentiation of workers, we should encourage the implementation of initiatives of acknowledgement of expertise and knowledge. We still need the State to recreate a steady and regulated growth, and intervene in the mediation of social processes, sole guarantee to overcome poverty and exclusion. (*)Nowadays, the increase in the costs of raw materials is causing great inflation in the prices of food chain items, which will undoubtedly cause an increase of marginalization and exclusion, with the corresponding consequences on population hunger and disrespect of food right. Table 4
|