Basic education is for all

When the term basic education is used, certain classes of people think it is for others, not for themselves. The truth, however, is that everyone, a professor included, needs basic education. I mention professors to represent a class of people who have gone to school, who have read many books and have come out with many skills. Yet they could be lacking in basic education. The misunderstanding of basic education arose from the fact that during the 1950s even authoritative institutions like Unesco considered basic education mainly to cover the early primary school cycle. In the 1970s development theory focused on basic needs and therefore the need arose for defining the content of this type of need. In the Conference of Ministers and those responsible for education in the Eastern and Southern Africa Region, basic education was defined as the "minimum provision of knowledge, attitudes, values, and experiences which should be made [available] for every individual and [should be] common to all. It should be aimed at enabling each individual to develop his or her own potentialities, creativity, and critical mind, both for his or her own fulfillment and happiness and for serving as a useful citizen and producer for the development of the community to which he or she belongs"(1) When, by 1980, the achievement of this "minimum package" through the normal school system became unrealistic, the world began to think of basic education through all the available means and in the shortest time possible. This was the subject of the WCEFA (World Conference on Education for All) which took place in Jomtien, Thailand, from March 5-9, 1990. The year 2000 was defined as the target date for achieving EFA as defined.

During the preparations for the conference, we asked the question: "What kind of education should necessarily be given to all people and how?" We went on to note that this education must be an ideal acceptable to all, and it must be easy and practical to dispense.(2) Defining it has always been a problem. During the 1950s, UNESCO referred to it as Fundamental Education (FE), in the 1960's as Universal Primary Education (UPE) and since the 1970s, as Basic Education (BE).

Attempts to actualize FE led to the definition and promotion of UPE. But the process of implementing UPE turned to be illusory due to high costs of formal schooling. The difficulty resulted especially from the institutional and structured nature of the school. In the 1970s evidence of this unrealistic approach led to the definition of the Basic Needs Strategy in the resolution of human problems. Provision of BE was seen as an approach to satisfy education as a basic need.

BE was defined by the Regional Conference held in Kenyatta University, Nairobi, in 1974, as the "minimum package".(3) The BE, according to this definition, would be common to all educated men and women. But experience has shown that up till today not many people understand or value this type of education. Formal education has continued to be the attractive model due to the obvious positive implications.

However, in the 1980s universal formal education at the primary level proved illusory. This phenomenon has been observed worldwide. In one sense therefore, the world population is losing confidence in education and the consequences tend to be dramatic. The 1980s, when education suffered a general decline all over the world, were described as a decade of lost opportunities. This is why the WCEFA was seen as necessary at that point in time.(4) But the situation has remained the same in the 1990s. Even on the eve of the 20th century BE continues to suffer due to wars, natural disasters, political and economic policies of countries and the policies of multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Due to the SAPs (Structural Adjustment Programmes) introduced by these institutions, public expenditures on education were reduced, the teachers' salaries being targets in the first place. A good example of this is Kenya by the beginning of 1998. In another article I raised issues underlining the challenge on governments, NGOs, organizations, and communities all over the world, especially Africa, regarding commitment to EFA. The issues touched on relevance, feasibility, replicability, and sustainability of EFA. The fears that I expressed in that article were justified when we look at what has happened on the eve of the new millennium.(5)

The theme of the WCEFA focused on "meeting basic learning needs", a big correlation having been observed between the ruling concept of BE and the proposed concept of EFA: Meeting Basic Learning Needs. What was new in this concept? Perhaps nothing, only that the new strategy would require being more explicit about the nature of BE, how to measure its achievement, and how to attractively reward it. This was the challenge that experts had to face to and resolve.(6)

We then pondered a little over the nature of the expected EFA. First of all, we did not assume that a detailed package of Basic Education (BE) could be applied universally. The content of BE had to be defined within transcultural guidelines, leaving room for specific applications in different settings. We underlined that the principles of BE must be universal. For example, we may take the following to be some of the universal principles that we referred to:

• Literacy: Being able to read and write should be a universally desirable value. However, the medium of this literacy can be in any form, for example in any alphabet, depending on the requirements of a given culture.
• Functionality of literacy: This principle refers to the usefulness of literacy to the individual and the community concerned. We refer to this as applicability of reading and writing, or functional literacy. Again, this principle would traverse all cultures and stand as a permanent imperative for BE.
• Self-confidence: This is critical as a principle of BE. Self-confidence would make the individual put trust in his or her abilities to confront problems courageously and set out to look for their solutions, no matter how or when solutions are possible. The BE must make individuals self-reliant and able to develop their collective environment(s). That requirement of training for self-confidence from the earliest stages of life again is valid across all cultures.
• Spirit of Co-operation: Once again, a basically educated person must have the need and strength of co-operating with others. A person who does not see the need for positive interpersonal relationships would be lacking an essential attribute of basic education. I suppose there is no need to say that the principle of co-operation is universally desirable, irrespective of the cultural differences of different communities.
• Appreciation of work and desire to be industrious: Positive value of work should be a universal principle of education. The feeling, or the reasoning, that would promote the idea of "more income and rewards for less work" should be discouraged. Expecting to earn a lot out of little work, or for the least demanding work, should be a mark of a very uneducated person. This actually is the spirit behind corruption and theft that we witness in our society. Industriousness then should be an attribute of an educated person or community. All cultures accept the principle of hard work as a positive value to be promoted in the BE.
• Need for Recreation: We refer to this as an imperative of BE because certain people tend to downplay the need for recreation. The best function of the human organism is guaranteed when the individual is refreshed. Methods of refreshing the human organism are diverse and vary according to different cultures. The important fact is that the body and mind of the person should not be allowed to degenerate due to over-use or neglect. That must be a universal, transcultural principle of BE.

Discussing the process of EFA, we outlined how to achieve the six universal principles of EFA, as outlined above. The achievement of the first principle, literacy, is usually the ambition of most aspects of modern education. A little enlarged, this covers the sharpening of human intellectual capacities; in other words, the improvement of the cognitive domain. Most schools attempt to do this. For that reason, the only thing we may wish to say here is that in all communities, centres of learning, however simple, are necessary.

In these centres, learning resources are made available for the assistance of learners. Teachers are required to guide the learners to achieve learning in the easiest and most efficient manner possible. The difference between what we proposed and what is usually available is that the learning resources must be simple and accessible to all. That of course requires strict supervision but this is feasible.

The achievement of the second principle, application of literacy, can easily be attained if teachers will always try, in a creative way, to relate to real life all knowledge that is to be learnt. In other words, the content of literacy must be about what is happening to the learner in daily life. For example, in a pastoral community, numbers must be linked to the animals, counting for instance. Learning geometry must be related to the building of houses or other useful structures. As soon as a learner has learnt anything, circumstances must compel him/her to apply the knowledge immediately.

The third principle, self-confidence, is perhaps what has been most ignored or discouraged by traditional formal education. Undemocratic situations, where a ruler is unsure of himself, have tended to discourage the development of self-confidence and creativity in individuals. This, in consequence, has hindered the development of self-reliance. Self-confidence is trust in one's own strength and resources. This principle helps individuals to surmount most difficulties. Self-confidence must therefore be developed in individuals from the earliest stages of life. Children must be allowed to do things by themselves, with assistance only where necessary; most simple problems and challenges must be allowed to be solved by them. This process of solving one's own problems must be developed into a way of life for all individuals, from the earliest stages in life. Are there adults who have not acquired this attribute? If there are, they need this type of BE.

Developing the above principle of self-confidence must not contradict the fourth principle, the spirit of co-operation. When they co-operate in projects, people are able to do great things: unity is strength. If you teach people to co-operate, you have taught them to liberate themselves because then there is nothing they cannot do. As children are taught to be self-reliant, they must be made aware that this will best happen in a united community effort to solve global community problems. Children must of necessity be made to learn that they live in a community and they must be made to co-operate with the rest of the community for their own individual good. If there are adults who cannot co-operate with others, then they need BE.

The fifth principle, appreciation of work and desire to be industrious, is a very positive value for education. From the earliest stages children must be made to love work because it produces the fruits of daily life. The more the children work in any project, the more they should be rewarded/reinforced by the teacher. Laziness should be a contemptible attribute and should be socially reprimanded by collective scorn. By the time the children are adults they should have a positive attitude for work and a negative one for laziness.

The sixth principle, the need for recreation, can be achieved through both knowledge and practice. Children and adults should know why they need recreation; otherwise, a habit will not be cultivated. The human organism needs periods of refreshment when, either through physical exercises or though changes of activities, body functions are recreated and a feeling of well-being restored. Physical exercises strengthen the muscles, relax the joints, and irrigate the body tissues through an increased flow of nutrients in oxygenated blood; toxins are removed from the tissues as the increased flow of wastes are removed. Body functions are, consequently, better activated after recreation.(8) All people, as a matter of education, must be accustomed to recreation. Sometimes, professors, or other professionals neglect this. What is their attitude on physical education? Did their physical education end with primary school? How can they describe their life routine? Sleep, wake-up, enter the car, drive to work, sit behind a desk till evening, then get into the car, drive back home, sit comfortably on the sofa, eat and sleep, to start the cycle again, every day, every week, every year? Do they engage in regular physical exercises? If not , they are rotting physically and deteriorating very fast. They need BE.

The above six principles can be regrouped into three domains: cognitive, affective, and psycho-motor. As we said earlier, these are the three imperatives attributable to an integrally educated person. This is the type of EFA we need to aim at as we execute it.(9)

Looking at the actual WCEFA held in Jomtien, Thailand, the concrete goals were expressed as follows:

• To improve primary education and make it so widely available that at least 80% of 14-year-old boys and girls world-wide will be able to equal or surpass a nationally defined level of learning.
• To cut adult illiteracy rate to half its 1990 level, and achieve parity between male and female literacy rates.
• To provide more educational opportunities to meet the diverse needs of youth and adults, including literacy programmes, skills training and specialized education on such topics as health, nutrition, safe water, child care and family life.(10)

• To uphold the primacy of learning achievement over school attendance, ensuring that children really master basic knowledge, acquire the tools of literacy and learn how to think.
• To promote a broader vision whereby learning is not reduced to formal schooling; where the ultimate end of learning takes precedence over financial and material means.
• To include all programmes (formal or informal; for children or for adults) - all channels, and all educational institutions, are now seen as part and parcel of BE, provided they contribute to effective learning achievement.

Notes

2. Cf. Comments of Dr. Wadi Haddad, the Executive Secretary to the Interagency Commission for the WCEFA, in the Report of African Regional meeting on WCEFA held at UNESCO/BREDA, Dakar, 22-23 June, 1989, par. 2.

3. See Definition in Note 1 above. UNESCO/UNICEF Co-operative Programme, Nairobi, 1974.

4. "Today, education faces a global crisis" (see the release of sponsors): UNDP, UNICEF, UNESCO. The World Bank, World Conference on Education for All - Meeting Basic Learning Needs, p.1; see also Annex 2 of the executive Director's circular, 15/5/89, p. 11: (i) What are the aims of the World Conference? (ii) Why this initiative now? (iii)- What is the scope of education for all? See also Dieter Berstecher, "Basic education for all: a vital concern" in Basic education forum, Vol. 1, May 1992, pp. 1-3.

5. See Gichuru, F.X., "Which way education for all?" in Basic education forum, Vol. 1, May 1992, pp. 5-7.

6. Cf. Gichuru,. F.X. "The concept of EFA", in BERC Supplement, Vol. 2, September 1989, p. 4.

7. Cf. Gichuru, F.X. "The nature of EFA" in BERC Supplement, Vol. 4, November, 1989.

8. The Kenya Minister of Education, Hon. Kalonzo Musyoka, warned schools on neglecting physical education as a subject in the primary schools. He emphasized that physical education is vital for the development of the total person. See Daily Nation, June 15, 1998, p. 5.

9. Cf. Gichuru, F.X., "The process of EFA", in BERC Supplement, Vol. 5, December 1989, p. 2-3.

10. Cf. World Conference on Education for All, op. cit., Jomtien 1990.

11. See Dieter Berstecher, "Basic education for all: a vital concern" in:Basic education forum, Vol. 1, May 1992, pp. 1-3. Many efforts are being made to achieve this ambition. See, for example, Unesco, Education, innovation and information, March 1996, International Bureau of Education, Geneva. Also see Unesco, Sources, Special Issue, No. 72: Unesco in 1996-97, "Joining Forces for the 21st Century"; The Unesco Courier, April, 1996, "Education for the 21st Century: Learning to Learn."

12. Berstecher, Ibid.., p.3. By 1998 it appears that national leaders have not been able to do this due to competing demands of politics and economy.

---

A JOURNAL OF SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CONCERN
Published Quarterly by DR. GERALD J. WANJOHI
Likoni Lane - P .O. Box 32440 - Nairobi - Kenya
Telephone: 720400

---

The Online publishing of WAJIBU is by Koinonia Media Centre.

---

GO TO WAJIBU HOMEPAGE