Chapter IV - Programme Design and Delivery

Chapter IV - Programme Design and Delivery

Design and delivery dimensions deal with the arrangements envisaged for implementation of adult education programmes, such as, institutional set-ups as well as organizational and management structures and implementation modalities designed, capacity building and professionalisation of personnel directly involved in implementation as well as the orientation and sensitization of other stakeholders whose cooperation is necessary for its success, are also part of design and delivery parameters.

The Belem Framework does not deal separately with programme design and delivery dimensions, especially in respect of institutional and organizational infrastructures for implementation of adult education programmes. The reasons are not far to seek. Unlike LIFE, which is global strategic framework for implementation of literacy efforts, Belem Framework is a diagnosis of adult education initiatives in the world, and deals with all aspects in totality, including policy, funding, planning and implementation of adult education programmes, learner needs resonance of its contents and local context resonance of implementation modalities, etc.

The different aspects of its diagnosis that informed the design and delivery architecture included: (a) Recognition and accreditation of non-formal, informal and experiential learning; (b) Advocacy efforts across a number of fronts and strong inter-ministerial cooperation, organizational structures and links between adult education and other sectors;(c) Establishing adequate financial planning to enable adult education to make a telling contribution of the future; (d) Matching decentralization with adequate financial allocation or delegation of budgetary authority; (e) Adult education programmes being responsive to the needs of women, SCs, STs and minorities, rural population and migrants; (f) Diversity of learners by age, gender, cultural background, economic status, unique needs and language and its reflection in programme content and practices; and (g) Professionalisation and training opportunities for adult educators, and so on.

Since it is a strategic framework to assist national literacy efforts, LIFE lays particular stress on programme design and delivery dimensions. These include: (a) Providing governments with technical support for the design and development of context-specific programmes, with delivery mechanisms that are locally relevant, geared to the empowerment of learners and focusing on gender parity and poverty reduction; and (b) Strengthening existing national institutions and operational infrastructures, which are responsible for the design and delivery of literacy programmes (government, NGOs and other providers), in order to implement LIFE through effective management of resources – human, financial and material. Staff and structures should have the capacity to facilitate inclusion of the most marginalized groups (Jagmohan Singh Raju, 2011[1]; UNESCO, 2006: 28).

LIFE also stressed the need to: (i) Address the deficit of qualified personnel through training of trainers, literacy facilitators and supervisors, undertaking these programmes through learner-centred, learning-by-doing, participatory techniques and the adaptation of regional resources and training packages, exchange of experiences and networking. (ii) Putting in place delivery mechanism that is locally relevant, geared to the empowerment of learners and focusing on gender parity and poverty reduction. (iii) Strengthening of existing national institutions and operational infrastructures, which are responsible for the design and delivery of literacy programmes. (iv) Ensuring that staff and structures should have the capacity to facilitate inclusion of the most marginalized groups. (v) Engaging the private sector in facilitating literacy training for their workforce.

Emerging Perspectives

The design and delivery dimensions recommended represent the handmaid of strategic shift from literacy to lifelong education articulated in the NCFAE Report and endorsed in the Workshop: (a) The instrumentality to translate the new perspective of adult and continuing education in the lifelong learning perspective, would have a nodal agency at national level, viz., National Authority on Adult Education in place of the present NLMA, as a permanent body with its state level counterparts; (b) A dedicated administrative cadre for adult education at state, district and Block levels; (c) The institutional set ups in the form of Adult Education Centres, which are multi-utility – extension – centres; (d) AECs at Block and District levels for higher levels of adult education; (e) The State Directorate of Adult Education (SDACE), as administrative head of the hierarchy of adult education administrative set-up and cadre, with District and Block level offices and cadres for delivery of adult education programmes; (f) The institutional set up for academic and techno-pedagogic support system for adult education at State level, viz., the SRCs would need to undergo a complete overhaul with respect to new vision of adult education in lifelong learning perspective; (g) Professionalization of AE Cadre: The Adult Education Teachers – the Preraks - are first level information providers to all line Depts. and facilitators of multi-utility programmes of AECs. By their systematic and intensive training, they are also expected to be the foot soldiers of adult education and vanguards of NLMA’s larger social objectives; (h) The inter-sectoral character of adult education envisaged should also entail systematic and concerted sensitization of line Department functionaries; and (i) Same is the case w.r.t. decentralisation, viz., sensitization and capacity building of the Panchayati Raj Institutions, Education Departments, the ZSS functionaries, besides the personnel in State Directorate of Adult Education.