When community learning centers matter: An introduction of the Bridge program in Sub-Saharan Africa

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday IV)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Learning, curriculum & pedagogy

Proposal

The Education 2030 agenda, an essential part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), codifies “networks of Community Learning Centers (CLCs)” as one of the Indicative Strategies under the Target 4.a relating to the Means of Implementation. This is because CLCs can help target and empower marginalized groups such as out-of-school children, youth, deprived women, and illiterate adults in poor communities. Yet, potential roles of multi-purpose CLCs that can play as a venue for providing local communities with lifelong learning opportunities has not been fully examined. Only a few small-scale studies were conducted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), focusing on Asia. Little is known about roles of CLCs in other regions such as Africa, where CLCs have important implications given huge gaps in education to bridge between urban and rural communities as well as across demographic backgrounds such as tribe, gender, and age. In the inadequate learning environment, CLCs can serve as local educational institutions outside the formal education system for rural villages.

In the current study, we address this need for research by introducing a program called Bridge that, since 2010, has engaged seven African countries, including Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Sponsored by South Korea, in collaboration with UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa, Bridge has helped establish CLCs in villages where few or no other educational institutions previously existed and there was a high rate of low-literate and low-skilled youth and adults, as well as relatively poor educational attainment. CLCs supported by Bridge focus mainly on improving access to three types of education including early childhood care, adult literacy, and vocational skills training, among which linkage and synergy are pertinently pursued. In 2017 alone, approximately 2,000 people at 13 CLCs across the participating countries benefited from the intervention.

The study uses data collected and reports published by the participating countries in 2017. The study finds that strong commitment and engagement of communities is a success factor in enhancing the sustainability of educational activities at the CLCs. In addition, the study finds that the exchange of knowledge and experience within the networks of CLCs, as well as among participating countries, helps make the external intervention more efficient and effective in the context of South-South collaboration. These findings suggest the positive role of CLCs as an important strategy for development aid in non-formal education in this region. Of course, due to the nature of CLCs as being uniquely positioned in different cultural backgrounds, educational needs, and demographics, the CLC strategy may not be able to serve as a universally applied policy framework. Nonetheless, the study confirms past findings in other regions, introduces lessons learned from the experimental program, and opens avenues to further discussions on the potential of CLCs in Africa.

Authors

• Sangkyoo KANG, Pennsylvania State University

• Soo-Yong Byun, Penn State University