New Schools of the People: New Orientations in Reform and Research in Education.

Overview & Synopsis

Emergent reforms in education in the formal and nonformal sectors in the Philippines are changing the answers to traditional research questions and ways in which educational research will be carried out. Informal education is the ongoing process of transmission of knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes by a society to its youth. Formal education is distinguished by the three processes of abstraction, systematization, and specialization. Nonformal education involves a systematization of knowledge with immediate and practical relevance and value to learners. Two projects are attempts to model and demonstrate the viability of educational programs which, in their attempts to strike at the problems of Philippine education, are substantially different from present programs."Enrichment of the Education Programs of the Cordillera Administration Region" attempts to systematize local knowledge and include it in the formal education curricula. "Comprehensive Education and Community Development Program of Valencia" ties community development and education in a comprehensive programs that includes all sectors of the community in formal, informal, and nonformal education. Three common perspectives animate these projects: view of development; participative research process woven into the programs; and wholistic and integrative frameworks of the ongoing projects. Additional research could be organized around these three perspectives. (10 references) (YLB)