Formal and Non-Formal Educational Approaches to Nation Building in Fragile States
Aims & Significance
Recent events in Timor Leste and the Solomon Islands demonstrate that transitioning to post conflict and post-colonial independence is a long and arduous process. Our partnership research program aims to investigate the means by which educational reform both in policy and pedagogy can facilitate the transition from hard won independence to sustainable peace. The objectives of the program are to determine the following:
- The role formal and non formal education policy and pedagogy/curricula plays in fostering functioning and effective post-conflict states, and in particular .
- The role formal and non formal education policy and pedagogy/curricula can play in consolidating and maintaining pathways to peace.
This project aims to fill gaps in peacebuilding not covered by programs such as the Millennium Development Goals and Education For All initiatives, as such it will particularly focus upon the needs of young people who have been alienated from formal educational processes during and post conflict. We do this recognising that sustainable peacebuilding and nation building require a long-term perspective, one which extends well-beyond the emergency and reconstruction phases of conflict and state breakdown. Having such a long time frame necessarily implies that the key questions will be resolved, not simply by current leaders, but by those who at present, are younger people. This focuses attention immediately on education, particularly for the group in the ages 15-35 who will over the next decade or two become the people most responsible for their society’s future. Unless the specific needs that these younger people have in a post conflict situation are addressed by education systems (both formal and popular), they will not acquire the knowledge, skills and values which a population must have to consolidate and maintain peace.
Our strategy is to facilitate south-south and north-south links between academic experts education and community leaders working in the two fields of education and peacebuilding, in a two-year collaborative process of policy development and review. We have a two-tiered approach with a coordinating structure being organized in America, Australia, and Japan, these three sites will work with and coordinate the activities of the research/case study sites of Indigenous Australia, Timor-Leste, PNG/Bougainville, the Solomon Islands, Philippines/Mindanao, Mozambique, South Africa, and Columbia.
The case study/ lesson learned approach is utilized to examine how countries (South Africa and Mozambique) have emerged from armed conflict to build their nation and the roles that formal and non formal education policies and curricula have played in the rebuilding / emergence of independence and sustainable peace. We define education as learning at all levels and are particularly interested in the intersections between formal and non-formal and the priority placed on each.
By creating regional partnerships/networks for critical reflection upon key experiences, the coordinating team will develop and review innovative strategies for capacity building and institution building within formal and non-formal education systems of post conflict and fragile states..
Key questions to be investigated
- How can education operate as conflict mediating tool?
- What is the role of educational reform in post-conflict/nation-building development?
- What priorities should be placed on education reform so as to consolidate the peace?
- Which reforms are important and what can be learnt from past experiences?
- How can formal and non-formal education processes educate the youth of today for leadership tomorrow within the context of trauma, disaffection, missed opportunities and alienation?
Outcomes
Outcomes will include:
- A series of manuals, which articulate the key findings of the research. For example it is envisaged that there will be a manual on Programming for Peace through Education, and a series of manuals for the formal and non formal education sectors which present key findings for those sectors.
- Increased understanding and coherence about education policy and practice across our region, which will feed into programming decisions
- Increased Linkages across countries
- Policy input to the countries under study
- Strong cohesive links between stakeholders in and between the countries involved
- A series of Symposia during which stakeholders get together to share findings and disseminate knowledge
- A series of academic articles in international journals
- Stronger Linkages between funders, academic/research institutions and educational leaders and practitioners in the countries of study.