One aspect of ASPBAE work which has been most appreciated by its members through the years, has been its ability to promote „Communities of Practice‟ on adult education – across the diverse contexts, experiences and perspectives of the sector in the Asia Pacific region. These arenas for interaction and joint work have been pursued through issue-based or „thematic‟ programmes namely: Adult Literacy, Women‟s Education, Education for Citizenship and Good Governance, Education for Peace and Conflict Prevention, HIV/AIDs Education; Indigenous Peoples Education. This approach was eminently successful as the practice and understanding of „adult education‟ was enriched by the work of a highly dynamic civil society sector and various movements of change in the region. It enabled the ASPBAE network to expand its membership, drawing from pro-poor, human-rights oriented, gender-just communities of action. It solidified ASPBAE‟s positioning in the cutting-edge development discourses of civil society regionally and globally on a range of issues.
Increasingly, however, the greater effectiveness of these arenas has come to question: As the programmes continued through years, the demand for more follow-through activities at various levels; and more sustained and frequent activities became greater. The demand for more issues and more thematic areas for ASPBAE to cover also expanded. All these, exerted great pressure to grow ASPBAE‟s financial allocations to the thematic programmes through time. Alongside this however, donor funding has increasingly been less available to support what are perceived as a disparate set of „workshops for workshops sake‟. While it is undisputed that „learning‟ does occur in these arenas, and no doubt, the participants would have found these useful – these are considered unconvincing for funding priority as greater demands/expectations are set for demonstrating „impacts‟, „tangible outcomes‟. As a result, the limited resources of ASPBAE, divided across a wide range of thematic programmes began to severely constrain the conduct of more meaningful and substantive activities in each of the thematic programmes – ASPBAE was increasingly spreading itself thin.
It is therefore proposed that ASPBAE continue to organize spaces for practitioners and advocates of adult education to come together in regional/cross-country spaces for interaction, exchange and learning along themes which better lend to accommodating a wider spectrum of adult education interests and issues. However, these should also be designed in a manner where follow-through or outcomes useful to ASPBAE are more readily evident.
The proposal is to build consensus around defining a vision for all the thematic programmes of ASPBAE, specifically by defining Benchmarks for Quality Adult Learning. The idea is to draw from the rich practice in each of the thematic programme to quantify & qualify what adult learning means in the respective thematic.
This initiative, it is hoped would fill in a serious gap in adult education work: in clarifying „quality‟ adult learning in the myriad forms and expressions adult education takes in the context of the Asia Pacific region. The outcomes of this initiative will be very useful to advocates, policy makers, practitioners and scholars in adult education. For advocates, these can inform the thinking on alternative policies – especially on governance and financing - away from a minimalist/residual approach to adult learning. For practitioners, these will help set guidelines or yardsticks from which to assess their own work – in trainings, curricula, facilitation etc. It will certainly contribute to building a more robust knowledge base on adult education, drawn from the very rich experience of NGOs and community educators in the Asia South Pacific. This approach also strengthens a more organic link between the thematics and advocacy work – building on the efforts in the last years.
A Thematic Consultation Workshop would be organized, followed by Right to Learn Festival. The Right to Learn Festival is envisaged as a means to:
1) provide a common platform and space for adult education providers, especially from civil society, to come together to promote their work and learn from each other‟s practice;
2) through media work and mobilizations, draw broad public attention to this field of work and generate citizens/public interest in participating in adult learning activities and programs;
3) provide a sustained space to call attention of governments and decision-makers to the outstanding policy issues of adult education – hence a space for advocacy, policy engagement and dialogue.
A Working Group has been constituted to conceptualise the Thematic Workshop and the Right to Learn Festival in greater detail; deliberate on its form and content, and define its roll-out strategy.
Both the Thematic Consultation Workshop and the Right to Learn Festival are targeted to be held towards the end of this year/early next year.
Reported by Anita Borkar, ASPBAE Co-ordinator, Training for Transformation
Capacity Building and Adult Education Thematics