Transcription of Interview 7

Transcription of Interview 7
Date: July 19, 2009 (Saturday) Time: 11 AM to 11:30 AM
Researcher: Sir, let me put my first curiosity. It seems that we have focused more on formal education? Are non-formal and informal learning important as equally as formal learning? Do you think the three forms of learning are equal? If not, what do you think we should do to make them equally important?
Respondent: Thank you for this opportunity. Well, I think to address this issue we have to see the history of education. Informal learning is the beginning of education. Gradually, people realize that informal education couldn’t deliver knowledge completely. To compensate this formal education came into practice. The foundation of our knowledge or education is informal education. If you see the intellectual development of an individual roughly 80% of learning comes informally. So informal learning leads our life and it is enhanced by formal and non-formal education. The basics of our knowledge are informal. Formal education adds value to these basics. If formal education system misses out something and is unable to provide appropriate delivery then only we go to non-formal education. That’s why, I think, the concept of giving importance to either one or the other modes of learning is not so important. The three modes of learning take place in the life of all individuals.
The knowledge and skill that is delivered through societal and family system is informal learning. The society gave the responsibility of providing knowledge on the basis of contextual relation to formal education. Before 4/5 hundred years ago the responsibilities of delivering formal knowledge was taken by religion and some social institutions. Therefore, if you take the things in this sense the formal education system emerged as an alternative of informal education system. In the due course of time the system of schooling developed. In this way schools came as an agent of education to deliver knowledge which the family was not able to deliver.
Schooling could sole some of the problems but as all the people couldn’t have access to school and schools didn’t fit for the ones who were in different social context. For imparting knowledge to them the non-formal education system developed as another facet of formal education. Thus non-formal and formal educations are in complementary relationship. Non-formal is not the thing to challenge formal education.
Sometimes the issue of formal, non-formal and informal learning has to bees seen through the state-relation perspective. Informal education grows as per the interest of a family or a society. Schooling is organized by a state. So school is a state agency, it’s a state business because it quenches the thirst of the state. The state uses it to fulfill its objectives. Hence informal is societal business and formal is state business. Non-formal overlaps to them. Sometimes it is societal business and sometimes state-business. Broadly, non-formal and formal are in state-territory whereas informal education is in non-state territory.
So far as the issue of recognition of one mode of learning to another mode of learning, formal education deserves credit and it is compatible and comparable. Its recognition is transferable. It claims value in a concrete manner. But the credit award system of non-formal education is not so concretized and recognized. It doesn’t have any recognized framework. The requirement of non-formal education in different parts of the world may be different. Thus, one the basis of global family need, for survival need, there is informal education and formal education is attached to it. And non-formal education takes place when formal education is inadequate to deliver the desired knowledge to the desired people. So formal education is defined and shaped by curricular framework but non-formal education goes beyond such curricular framework. On the basis of recognition formal education is globally recognized because it is comparable, compatible and standardized.
Researcher: Sir, can we recognize non-formal and informal learning as formal learning? If yes, how should it be done?
Respondent: There is nothing as such. It can be done but a number of things have to be done for this. The credit system has to be concretized. The value of education that has been attached to formal education has also to be given to non-formal education. We have to go in a comparable credit system which is called accreditation. For accreditation we have to consider some of the important things for example content load, mode of delivery, authenticity of assessment, etc. Formal system defines and concretizes the knowledge gained by an individual and certifies it.
In the context of Nepal some efforts have been made to recognize non-formal learning. Non-formal participants have got chance to enter into formal education system. Attempts have been made to make non-formal and formal education comparable. We have tried to put non-formal education in an accreditation system. For making non-formal education creditable like formal education it must adopt some of the vital features of formal education such as examination, curriculum, etc. If they are not made so they can’t be made comparable. Without making them comparable one can’t replace another.
Researcher: Sir, can we recognize the learning achievements of informal learners and certify them as formal learners? For example, if a person, who has never gone to school, claims that s/he has knowledge and skills equivalent to the one who has passed Bachelor Degree? What problems do you see certify his/her existing knowledge and to allow him/her to enroll in Master Degree?
Respondent: You have to see the relation between knowledge and certificate through a different perspective. Knowledge is a fundamental thing. To make it instrumental we need to certify it. Knowledge is what one knows, what s/he can do or perform. So knowledge is axiomatic, grows informally. It is not all the time necessary that it should be certified. Certification is needed only when we have to make value transfer of need mobility from one form to another. People used to prove their ability and talent by doing some extraordinary thing in the past. Only to make it instrumental such provision of certification was brought. That’s why what I believe is that certificate doesn’t represent the knowledge of an individual in its totality.
If we use certificate to value knowledge, then the certificate can undermine knowledge itself. What is considered important is certificate rather than knowledge. Knowledge has its ingenuity. We can’t compare certificate with ingenuity. What I have seen is that the most fundamental part is knowledge and experience of an individual. Just to make it representative it has been converted into certificate. Moreover, in order to recognize traditional value and norms we don’t need to certify it. Certificate itself is a testimony; nonetheless, it can sometime give misrepresentation. It has many flaws. It can’t represent the total knowledge of an individual. For example, in SLC examination one-third of the total knowledge is able to provide the certificate. First of all 100% itself is not the total knowledge of an individual. Even if we consider it a total knowledge, just one-third is enough for the certificate. We shouldn’t see totality of knowledge in certificate. They don’t have one to one relation. If we do so it may mislead.
In my opinion, in the case of traditional knowledge, wisdom and skill it has to go on getting values as it has been getting since past. As far as modern education system is concerned the certification has got credit because it has given global mobility and transferability of one’s knowledge and skill. Now-a-days people have started talking about decertification. Rather than giving importance to certificate we have to consider knowledge, skill and competence of an individual.
Researcher: If s/he without certificate has knowledge, skill and competence equivalent to the one who has done Bachelor Degree…
Respondent: Yes, that is what it should be. Certificate is an artificial arrangement only. It is not an absolute truth. The absolute truth is knowledge. We have been using certificate because we don’t have other alternative to see the absolute truth. Had there been a better option certificate wouldn’t have been used. The reason behind decertification is that it hasn’t made a reliable representation as expected. But it doesn’t mean that we have to destabilize the existing system.
Researcher: Sir, let me put you related but a bit different issue. As you said earlier people acquire knowledge and skill, no matter whether they acquire through forma, non-formal or informal means. Then, can we identify such knowledge and skill and keep them in a single National Qualifications Framework and level them as per the complexity in acquiring them in order to make all three forms of learning equivalent?
Respondent: It’s an interesting facet but it may have some unwanted consequences. For example, the knowledge system as a whole may inclined towards commercialization. Indigenous knowledge may be commercialized. It is potential rather than commercial. It is a non-commercial asset. I don’t think it should be treated as a commodity. If we use it as a commodity it may lose its ground. I think if we start treating indigenous knowledge it won’t posses its wisdom and preciousness. Indigenous knowledge has been preserved in the form of religion, culture and the faith of an individual. If we start certifying them it may lose it value. If we give monetary value to indigenous knowledge it may develop a negative tradition. Therefore, every time certificate may not provide value to informal learning.
Our indigenous knowledge deserves value without certificate. If we go on certifying the vast treasure of knowledge our ancestors preserved and transferred to us it will be a great injustice. Thus, certification can go against justice. To go for monetary system certification is needed but if certification gets space in spiritual values it may develop some kind of negative tradition.
Researcher: Sir, in order to preserve and promote such knowledge and skill what should be done?
Respondent: The most important thing is trust. We have to build up trust. The society moves on trust. For example, one goes to visit doctor because of trust. The patient doesn’t see the certificate of the doctor. We have to be accountable to the trust. Sometimes certificate can work as an instrument of trust but it can’t be the replacement of trust. Trust is virtue. So, we have to promote indigenous knowledge and skill in terms of trust.
We are bound by a kind of code-of-conduct. It has been working without certificate on the basis of faith system. If we keep everything on certificate and move accordingly we may lose many precious things of our culture and tradition. Furthermore, the tendency will degrade the given value of the indigenous knowledge.
If we respect indigenous knowledge in its own status it gets value but when we try to certify them some artificial knowledge may outwit such precious wisdom. I mean to say the artificial knowledge of an individual that s/he uses to get certificate may replace his/her real knowledge.
Researcher: Finally, what should we do to enhance lifelong learning and continuing education in the context of Nepal?
Respondent: The issue you have raised in very crucial. The main thing is how to make knowledge functional. If there is a positive relation between knowledge and its function it will enhance lifelong learning and continuing education but if it is not knowledge can deteriorate. Retention and promotion of knowledge is its application. In a professional community or organization we have to drive knowledge to its fullest we have to create a system of knowledge sharing and cross breading in order to make knowledge and skill functional. Our knowledge and skill can be multiplied by sharing. The system of sharing is needed in order to make our knowledge and skill contemporaneous. Knowledge earned 10 years ago may not be the same knowledge earned today and the knowledge likely to be earned after 10 years. There is no absolute truth in the world. Truth differs according to time and space. If a doctor has a certificate that s/he achieved 5 years ago it represents his/her knowledge of that time. The knowledge may not be functional if it is not made up-to-date. It may not give appropriate service and may culminate into unfavorable consequences. Therefore, knowledge has to be made contemporaneous. Thank you very much.
Researcher: Thank you very much sir for your time and valuable inputs for my research.