Managing Education for Rural Development. Report of the Advanced-Level Workshop on Education for Rural Development (New Delhi, March 17-26, 1977).

Overview & Synopsis

Goals of a workshop bringing together 31 education and rural development specialists from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nepal, and India were to explore problems, synthesize experiences, and consider how to improve their programs of education for rural development. After giving individual country reports, participants formulated an overall plan for managing education for rural development: (1) make a total evaluation of a community's real and felt needs through base-line studies (needs included elementary schools in all communities, adult literacy courses, health and community centers, improved economic productivity, infrastructure); and indicate resources available with present modes of problem solving; (2) aim for preschool education, elementary schools with needs-based curriculums, secondary schools that involve regular students in environmental problems and integrate dropouts through extension, university teaching, research, and extension that supports rural development, nonformal education through all formal education institutions and mass media, training teachers as agents of change, and maximizing resources; (3) plan intra-agency coordination (specific actions proposed); (4) build interagency coordination on innovations discussed; (5) identify, train, and establish support patterns for change agents. Each country made a follow-up plan for education in their rural development programs. (RS)