[Icaeaeducationdevp2015] [20 ] Zahi Azar

[Cecilia Fernández]

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ICAE Virtual Seminar

“Adult Education and Development: Post 2015”

 

Towards an Arab Adult Education Spring: Post 2015 Developmental Vision 

 

By Zahi Azar

Secretary General Arab  Network   for Popular Education (ANPE)

Ecumenical Popular Education Program (EPEP)

 

The so-called “Arab Spring” took place under essentially political themes.
Millions of deprived people revolted to take down longstanding dictators in
power.

What appeared in the beginning of the uprising to be a success concerning
the existing social realities, did not last long. In most of the concerned
countries, social reality can hardly follow politics to consolidate the
revolution. 

Dictators have marginalized to such an extent the impoverished and
illiterate majority keeping them in an incredible state of underdevelopment,
that access to power is rarely possible and the generations of youth who
took part in the uprising find themselves crushed between a return of the
old guard or the arrival of their synonyms  with Islamic hats. 

 

Although the social reality is unable to sustain the political, the new
godfathers of the “Arab Spring” are unanimous about one essential point and
that is the absence of a real social agenda for the renewal of Development,
of Education (Adult Education) and the dynamics of their interdependence.

 

The socio-political vacuum created a long time ago by dictatorships, is more
discernible after the revolutions, and  Arab societies will need several
years  to mature and to constitute “civil societies”,  able to considerably
participate in building and leading the “offer” in Education, Adult
Education and Development.

 

Today,  although the long time dismantled civil society here and there is
starting  to take initiatives, the state or the fragments of the old regimes
continue to dominate any initiative with the old, the outmoded,  the
historical and the insignificant programs in Development  and Education.

 

Although the “Arab spring” has become set in the political, many social
benefits allow us to realistically dream about the post 2015 period, in
order to renew Adult Education in the new Arab world.

 

For this, the following are required:

 

A.  At the theoretical level

     1. To renew the concept of Development in a participatory way,
including cultural development towards an integral vision of a Development
that can be only based on Education. 

 

     2. To liberate Development from the unique objective of the “global” or
“national” market, especially in order to make larger room for Education and
Adult Education. The essentially economical definition that dominates
Development holds back the value of apprenticeship and of school.

 

      3. To include Education for Development in a strong and dynamic
network where this type of successful experiences can benefit the Arab
world.  In this post revolution context, an opening at the international
level can only be extremely beneficial in a society that tends to regenerate
the old political or ideological power relations.

 

     4. To take the big revolutionary step to read correctly the surprising
failure of Adult Education in the Arab world, to draw lessons, and to
analyze them with a view of initiating new renewal proposals.

 

B. At the level of Adult Education Programs

     1. To elucidate an integral pedagogical vision including Adult
Education and its major literacy component, within a programmatic approach,
that is measurable and that can be tested.

 

     2. To redefine the role of international organizations at the
qualitative programmatic and exchange levels, in order to adequately
communicate successful experiences worldwide, and to contribute to the
elaboration of Adult Education programs at the level of NGOs, but also at
the government level in each country.

 

     3. To prioritize and allocate budget lines for building human
resources/cadres in Adult Education and to ensure their durability in the
civil sector or within state institutions.

 

     4.  To take into consideration the percentage of women beneficiaries
(80%) in the Arab world in the elaboration of Adult Education programs, and
at different levels, including “Human Rights”.

 

     5.  To note that the “Human Rights” dimension must be a transversal
component of all trainings, as well as to programs linked to Adult Education
in the Arab world, in order to meet, strengthen and teach the values
promoted par the revolutions in the different contexts.

 

     6. To include the economic project component (individual or collective)
to any elaboration of new Adult Education programs, in order to complete the
apprenticeship, to master competences , and to ensure  a practical outcome
to the educational process, thus contributing to Development (while
maintaining the ethical dimension).

 

A good new Popular Education formula (for post 2015), could include the
following:

Ø  Human Rights (Women’s Rights) 

Ø  Qualitative Education 

Ø  Collective Social Action

Ø  Training on economic projects

 

Lead to 

 

Ø  Individuals Contribute to Development

Ø  Mastering Competences and Apprenticeship

Ø  Human Vector of Values

Ø  Social Agent for Change

 

It is clear that in order to concretize these proposals in the actual
socio-political turmoil of the Arab world, a transitional period, as
difficult and delicate as it is, is needed.

 

This transitional period necessitates:

 

      1. A different awareness raising and sensitization on the necessity to
overcome the different forms of failure in Adult Education in the Arab
world, and engaging in the adventure of post 2015 in order to renew the
pedagogical approach to Adult Education and link it to Development.

    

 2. Dialogue with international organizations concerned to actively
participate in this transitional period (even in its definition) in order to
prepare for a new post 2015 momentum in the Arab world.

     

 3. Calling for a coalition of enterprises between public and private
sectors, in each country, and of international organizations to conjugate
efforts in view of reforming Education in general, and Adult Education in
particular, without forgetting to ensure the funding needed in order to
sustain this enterprise. 

    

 4. Building the capacity of state institutions, as well as that of NGOs, in
a participatory way, to be able to engage in this important renewal and to
maintain it, since the human element and the cadres are at the core of a
successful outcome. 

 

Towards a “Pedagogy of Hope” in the Arab world

 

The “Pedagogy of Hope” used by Paolo Freire can still be today, the subject
of meditation and action in a politically, socially and economically
exhausted Arab world, and I dare say pedagogically, that even the
revolutions of youth and of marginalized people, were not able to  restore
minimum economic and political dignity required.

Could a “Pedagogy of Hope” still save the desperate? This is our commitment,
the commitment of us all, to renew the Pedagogy in order to recover Hope.

 



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