ÎCtS quarterly review of education Editor: Zaghloul M o r a y Prospects is also available in the following languages: French perspectives revue trimestrielle de l'éducation (ISSN 0304-3045), Unesco Spanish perspectivas revista trimestral de educación (ISSN 0304-3053), Unesco \M\MHLÉÈA Arabic (ISSN 0254-119-X), Unesco Russian nepcneKTMBbi •onpocM o6pa30UHH« (ISSN 0207-8953), M o s c o w Chinese * w JÜ m (ISSN 0254-8682), Beijing Subscription rate: 100 French francs (one year) Single issue: 30 French francs Note. T h e above rates are valid until 15.12.1992. For prices after this date, see the subscription form at the back of this number. Subscription requests for the different editions should be sent to the UNESCO national distributor in your country, who will furnish prices in local currency.prospects Vol. XXII, N o . 2, 1992 (82) Landmarks 123 VIEWPOINTS/CONTROVERSIES T h e World Bank's policy paper on vocational and technical education and training Arvil V. Adams, John Middleton and Adrian Ziderrnan 127 Training policies in the World Bank: putting the act together Claudio de Moura Castro 141 Vocational education and training: a major shift in World Bank policy Philip Foster 149 OPEN FILE Pluralistic education in a changing world: II Case-studies Pluralistic education in sub-Saharan Africa: an overview Thomas Mulusa 159 Cultural pluralism and education in the Maghreb Ahmed Moatassime 171 T h e new educational pluralism in Latin America José Joaquín Brunner 185 Pluralism and education in India: problems and possibilities Sureshachandra Shukla 195 T h e difficult road to educational pluralism in Central and Eastern Europe Mikolaj Kozakiewicz 207 Pluralistic education in Western Europe on the threshold of 1993 Egle Becchi 216 TRENDS/CASES Education and development: African perspectives Apollo Rwomire 227 Profiles of educators: Condorcet (1743-94) Bernard Jolibert 241 ISSN 0033-1538A N N O U N C E M E N T A great number of unsolicited articles have been received by Prospects. They will be evaluated in due course. However, as of the publication of the present issue, Prospects will not accept any manuscripts for the time being. A n announcement will be published at a later date to indicate w h e n they m a y again be submitted.Landmarks PERIODICALS COLLECTION ED/SDI In our last issue, we presented a series of articles in which the authors, each in their own field of competence, outlined what could or should constitute a pluralistic education in our troubled world. We thought it would be interesting and useful to confront these guiding 'positions and propositions' with the real situation in several regions, subregions and countries. Here is the result, which can only be considered tentative at this point, given the convictions of the authors, the weight of history and the dizzying number of confusing upheavals around us which no one can claim fully to conceptualize or rationalize, at least at present. The present series of 'Open File' articles was in fact prepared just over a year ago. Since then, the regions and countries in question (and others too) have been, and many of them still are, the scene of all kinds of events, most often violent, leaving us to wonder if political pluralism and, even more so, educational pluralism, are not at present just a wish. The upsurge of nationalisms, micro-nationalisms and the emer- gence — or re-emergence - of minorities, all calling for identity and autonomy, raise the problem of pluralism in new and changing terms from region to region, from case to case. Can we think about pluralism when, here and there, long-estab- lished borders and traditional political authorities are challenged, when whole populations — women, children and the old - know only hunger, fear and exile? Where there are schools, who is thinking of sending children to them to learn about tolerance and pluralism? More likely, these schools will be used for piling up the dead and wounded. As for teenagers, in many countries, they are forced to carry weapons - and to use them. There is no need to give examples - everyone knows them and suspects there are many others. Our world is seeking a new face, one which will take a long time and be hard to fashion. No one can say what it will be like when the storm abates, as it surely will one day. Meanwhile, all that men and women of goodwill can do is yet again vigorously defend universal values. Pluralism, however one wishes to define it, is decidedly one of them. Obviously, our two Open Files are 'hot'. But were they premature? It is a choice between anticipating problems, however complicated they may be, or of resigning ourselves, in a periodical, for instance, to just recounting events, like a forensic surgeon simply registering the irre- versible. But, in fact, nothing is irreversible: whatever the devastation Prospects, Vol. XXII, N o . 2 , 1992 (82)124 Landmarks we see or suspect, pluralism always lies ahead of us. And not too far away, we all at least hope. The United Nations has declared 1993 the International Year for the World's Indigenous People. There are plans to proclaim 1995 United Nations Year for Tolerance. These are good signs - provided the words are put into practice. Z . M .VIEWPOINTS CONTRO VERSIEST h e World Bank's policy paper on vocational and technical education and training Arvil V . Adams, John Middleton and Adrian Ziderman* T h e lowering of barriers to trade internation- ally in recent years has m a d e nations more in- terdependent. Producers of tradeable goods and services n o w operate in a global market-place where competition spans national borders. T h e ability of producers to meet this competition is a key to improving national welfare in a rapidly Arvil V . A d a m s (United States of America). Cur- rently a Senior Economist with the World Bank in Washington, D.C. In addition to numerous articles in professional journals, some of his major works include The Neglected Source of H u m a n Wealth: A Study of Formal Education and Training dur- ing the Adult Years (1982) and The Lingering Crisis of Youth Unemployment (1978). John Middleton (United States of America). Task manager for the World Bank VET project. Currently Senior Evaluation Officer with the World Bank in New Delhi (India). Author of numerous works in- cluding Planning Education Reforms in Develop- ing Countries (1990). Adrian Ziderman (Israel). Former Senior Econo- mist with the World Bank; currently Professor of Economics at the Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan (Israel). Author of numerous articles in specialized publications and co-author of Utilization of Edu- cated Manpower in Industry and Manpower Train- ing: Theory and Policy (forthcoming). changing world economy. Education and skills training are important to meeting this competi- tion. T h e education and skills of workers per- mit countries to acquire and adapt the technol- ogy needed to produce better-quality goods at lower cost and to shift the structure of produc- tion to n e w markets and products. Over the past three decades, vocational and technical education and training have played important roles in education and training strategies for developing countries. During this period, developing countries, led by international assistance agencies includ- ing the World Bank, have m a d e large invest- ments to expand public vocational and techni- cal education and training ( V E T ) . However , the results have been mixed. V E T has been successful in achieving some goals, but not oth- ers. In some countries, a large proportion of V E T programme graduates find jobs that use their skills, and the value of their increased pro- ductivity broadly justifies the costs of training to taxpayers. But in m a n y other cases, both the * The authors prepared the World Bank's policy paper on vocational and technical education and training and a book containing the research background for this paper (World Bank (1991) and Middleton et al. (1993)). Prospects, Vol. XXII, [, N o . 2, 1992 (82)128 Arvil V. Adams, John Middleton and Adrian Ziderman effectiveness and the efficiency of these pro- grammes are low, leading to wasted public in- vestment. M u c h of the burden for improving the quality of the workforce in these countries has rested on the public sector. T h e World Bank issued a policy paper in 1991 on vocational and technical education and training (World Bank, 1991). T h e present ar- ticle offers an overview of the findings of the policy paper and its recommendations for m a k - ing V E T a more effective component of strate- gies to improve the ability of countries to c o m - pete in world markets. T h e policy paper was based on a review of the international V E T litera- ture and original research sponsored by the World Bank. T h e study extended over a period of four years and included a series of consultations with government policy makers, V E T officials, re- searchers, international agencies and donors. Policy makers and V E T officials from 53 devel- oping countries were part of this consultation process. The performance of V E T Vocational and technical education, and voca- tional training, by design are intended to de- velop skills that can be used in a specific occu- pation or job. V E T is the source of skills training for m a n y individuals prior to employment and afterwards on the job. It provides entry-level skills training and skills for job advancement leading to higher productivity and earnings. It offers skills enabling workers to adapt to new technologies in the workplace and to be respon- sive to changing employment needs. T h e ob- jectives and content of the curricula followed in these programmes are derived from occupational standards, or more directly from analysis of the tasks that are to be carried out on the job. T h e effectiveness of these curricula is thus primarily determined by the extent to which trained per- sons can use their skills in employment. V E T is delivered by schools and training centres, public and private, and by non-gov- ernmental agencies and employers. Both sec- ondary and post-secondary schooling are in- volved. In its various modes , V E T encompasses vocational education or vocational schools, where half or more of the curriculum is devoted to occupationally specific theory and practical courses. It m a y also refer to diversified schools that provide comparatively fewer occupational courses in an otherwise academic curriculum. Technical education is another m o d e of V E T which prepares technicians, usually at the post- secondary level. V E T also encompasses voca- tional training in schools and training centres which prepare skilled workers in programmes that generally do not lead to higher levels of formal education. T h e role of employers and private providers in skills training is often over- looked in efforts to measure national training capacity, in m a n y cases for lack of information. Attention is focused instead on the public sec- tor and schools. Historically, training for productive employ- ment was a private matter. Individuals acquired skills through apprenticeship or on-the-job train- ing, and financed their training through reduced wages during the learning period. T h e rise of mass production in the nineteenth century led to an increasing division of labour and the re- placement of craft skills with a hierarchically organized workforce in which entry-level jobs required few skills, but a high level of industrial discipline. Educational reformers in the early twentieth century saw vocational preparation as a natural role for an expanding secondary school- ing system, and the vocational school was born. F r o m these origins, it was a short step to the c o m m o n wisdom of the 1950s and 1960s that governments in developing countries needed to invest in the development of occupational skills as a complement to capital investment. Warning flags, however, regarding vocational education began to be raised as early as the mid-1960s. Research on agricultural high schools in West Africa demonstrated the value of aca- demic secondary education in helping students find wage jobs in economies dominated by public employment, as well as the failure of rural agri- cultural schools to divert youth aspirations forThe World Bank's policy paper on vocational and technical education and training 129 employment in the modern sector, phenomena described by Foster (1965) as the 'vocational school fallacy'. In m a n y developing countries, economic stagnation, rising levels of public debt and econ- omic stabilization and adjustment programmes in the 1970s and early 1980s constrained wage employment and government budgets. Govern- ment spending came under intense pressure. Public sector jobs all but disappeared. Voca- tional graduates could not find jobs, and gov- ernments could not afford vocational programmes with average unit costs often nearly twice those of academic secondary education. Quality fell and returns on public investment were almost non-existent. Access to general education was limited and vocational schools became second- choice options for academically able and often economically privileged youth. T h e World Bank's review of V E T litera- ture concluded that most modes of training prior to entry into the labour force can yield good returns w h e n there are jobs for graduates and the training is closely linked to effective employment demand, that is, w h e n training is demand-driven.1 Alone, V E T does not create jobs. Instead, this requires sound macroeco- nomic policies. Sound macroeconomic policies affecting inflation, trade, consumer and busi- ness spending and savings, and government rev- enues and expenditures are essential to job crea- tion and employment for V E T graduates. V E T has been most effective where its objective is to fill an existing or anticipated need for skilled workers. Enterprise and skills training centres are shown to be more cost-effective than vocational schooling, as earlier defined. A large empirical literature has developed over the last twenty- five years arguing strongly against vocational schooling on cost-benefit grounds. This litera- ture, comparing labour market outcomes of vocational schooling with general, academic schooling, mainly at the secondary level, has been extensively reviewed by Zymelman (1976), Psacharopoulos (1987), and Tilak (1988). A 'new wave ' of research has emerged recently to qualify this conclusion. These studies show that w h e n post-training employment opportunities are available or growing and the match between training field and occupation of employment is m a d e , the returns on vocational schooling can be higher than general education ( N e u m a n and Ziderman, 1991). Where favourable conditions for vocational schooling are absent, however, net returns on this schooling are comparatively low. T h e lit- erature on diversified secondary education is particularly strong in concluding that these schools are costly and provide students with no labour market or educational advantage over conven- tional academic or purely vocational secondary schooling. These schools combine some voca- tional courses within an academic curriculum. In the most thorough study of this m o d e of V E T , Psacharopoulos and Loxley (1985) in Tanzania and Colombia found that diversifica- tion did not provide students with any signifi- cant economic or educational advantage. It was, however, the most expensive form of second- ary schooling in both countries and a m u c h more difficult programme to implement. V E T has been found least effective where its objective is to solve broad social problems unrelated to existing or anticipated demand for skills, that is, where it is supply-driven. G o v - ernments and donor agencies have often pro- moted V E T as a means to achieving a range of social objectives. These objectives have included supplying manpower to stimulate growth by avoiding skill bottlenecks, improving the e m - ployability of the disadvantaged, providing a path to wage employment for w o m e n , and diverting youth from aspirations for white-collar employ- ment and higher education. T h e evidence as- sembled by the World Bank shows that these efforts have proved mainly unsuccessful, being based on mistaken assumptions about the na- ture of employment and skills demand and about the capabilities of formal training institutions to bring about social change. Three important messages thus emerge in the World Bank's review of V E T ' s perform- ance. First, sound economic management of the economy is important to the success of V E T . Economic policies providing incentives for in-130 Arvil V. Adams, John Middleton and Adrian Ziderman vestment and employment creation are central to providing jobs for graduates of schools and training centres. Second, adopting the right objectives for V E T is important. V E T works best w h e n focused on existing or anticipated employment and skill needs. Demand-driven V E T is responsive to market needs. It is less effective w h e n addressing supply-driven objec- tives. A n d finally, where skills training for spe- cific occupations or jobs is involved, the evi- dence favours enterprise-based training. Enterprise-based training is demand-driven, and by its nature tends to be cost-effective. Focusing government support T h e emphasis of the policy paper on the poten- tial cost-effectiveness of enterprise-based train- ing also extends to training offered by propri- etary providers, including that delivered by non-governmental organizations. Enterprise and proprietary training together are demand-driven. T h e support for a larger role of the private sec- tor in training is seen by some critics of the policy paper as a call for the demise of public V E T . However , that is not the World Bank's message. Instead, the call is for a redefinition of government's role in the financing and delivery of V E T to allow private markets to function where they work well in meeting skill needs and, where they fail, to engage the public sector. For reasons explained below, it seems clear that there will be a continuing role for government in the financing and delivery of V E T . Economic analysis of labour markets and training is needed to determine the most effec- tive role for government in the financing and delivery of V E T . T h e World Bank recognizes this role will vary. T h e role is expected to differ from country to country and within a country over time. T h e appropriate governmental role in any country is seen as an evolving, adaptive one that should reflect the country's changing training needs, which in turn will differ with its level of economic and institutional development. T h e determination of this role in every country will require economic analysis focusing on the presence, or lack thereof, of market failures and imperfections, private training capacity and concern for social equity. There is no blanket case for government financial intervention or training provision. Rather, the type and extent of required govern- ment intervention in V E T will vary from case to case, depending on a wide range of factors such as those relating to a given country's econ- omic development, the quality of existing train- ing institutions (on and off the job), and distor- tion in the economic environment that m a y militate against training development. T h e case for government intervention m a y indicate a need for government provision, but not the financ- ing of training, and vice versa. Table 1 lays out in schematic form the conclusions of the policy paper regarding the role of government in train- ing. T h e roles cast for government in the fi- nancing and delivery of V E T are conditioned by the efficiency with which markets function. O f all the arguments for a public role in V E T , the government response is clearest in the case of market failures in the form of exter- nalities. Positive externalities exist where the benefits from training that accrue to society are greater than the private benefits realized by train- ees and enterprises. F r o m a social perspective, the decisions of trainees and enterprises in this situation will lead to a shortfall of private spending on training. A n example would be a skill that if not produced would inhibit the development of a n e w industry and additional employment for a community. T h e wages offered for this skill m a y fail to reflect the social benefits attached to employment creation, with the result that short- ages of the strategically important skill impede development of the n e w industry. This version of a market failure, reflected in Table 1, justi- fies government intervention with training sub- sidies, but not necessarily training delivery. A second argument for government inter- vention in V E T involves economic and social policies that distort incentives for individual and employer investments in training from that ob- served in a competitive market (Adams, Goldfarb,T h e World Bank's policy paper on vocational and technical education and training 131 T A B L E 1. Policy options Reason for state intervention Training finance Training provision Complementary policies* Deal with source of market imperfections Build firm training capacity Reduce subsidies to trainees' peer groups Introduce selective scholarships K e y : P = T h e preferred policy approach. A = Acceptable (next best) approach. N = Policy is not justified. * = Policies m a y not be feasible. External benefits Market imperfections W e a k private training capacity Equity P A N A N N A * N - P P P and Kelly, 1992). A n example of this market imperfection would be where wages are u n - coupled from productivity in wage-setting and the wage differences are relatively small for rea- sons of social equity. This compression reduces private incentives for skills development. T h e preferred solution would be to address the policy source of the market distortion, but this m a y not be politically feasible in which case the 'second-best' solution is government interven- tion in the financing of training to offset the distortion by offering a training subsidy to re- store the competitive balance of private ben- efits and costs as a training incentive. In neither case - market externalities or imperfections - can government delivery of training be justified on economic grounds. In countries where the modern sector is underdeveloped, the size of enterprises small, and trade associations poorly developed, there m a y be an insufficient enterprise base to pro- vide the capacity for structured on-the-job train- ing, particularly apprenticeship training, to meet the needs of the economy. Small firms m a y lack the managerial competencies and foresight to organize in-house training. T h e y m a y also lack relevant personnel management capacity and costs m a y be high as they are unable to benefit from scale economies in training. This lacuna would seem to provide a clear opening for the development of specialized training institutions by the private sector, yet such initiatives m a y not be forthcoming, particularly in lower-income countries, due to a lack of k n o w - h o w or capital. In former c o m m a n d economies, a private sec- tor m a y simply not have emerged. Here, the public sector has a critically important role to play in meeting skill needs. T h e lack of private training capacity in low- income or transitional economies calls for gov- ernment delivery of V E T as a preferred policy. This is seen, however, as a transitional role with government encouraged to support the build- ing of private training capacity to balance that of the public sector. A fourth reason for the intervention of government in V E T is that of improving social equity. T h e heavy subsidies from public funds given to secondary schooling and higher education in m a n y countries are a potential source of inequity. This occurs w h e n the beneficiaries of these subsidies c o m e from privileged backgrounds. In these circumstances, the equity argument for extending subsidies to individuals undergoing training is quite strong, particularly w h e n pre-employment training is directed more towards less privileged students. T h u s , the role foreseen for government in V E T is that of letting private training markets work where they function well and, where they do not, engaging the public sector. This redefi- nition of government's roles in training finance and provision requires each country to deter- mine its o w n needs for public sector interven- tions in V E T by carefully examining the per- formance of its markets, the capacity of its private sector to deliver skills training, and its o w n pref- erences for social equity. T h e conditions calling for government intervention in V E T are found in virtually all countries, developing and indus- trialized. It is for this reason that the policy paper132 Arvil V. Adams, John Middkton and Adrian Ziderman does not anticipate the demise of public V E T . Market conditions and circumstances will cre- ate a continuing role for government in V E T . T h e transition, however, will be toward a stronger role for the private sector to exploit the c o m p - lementarities of the two sectors. Building the supply response Determining appropriate public sector roles will produce improvements in the effectiveness and efficiency of V E T , but additional policies and institutional actions will be needed to improve the supply response of training in both the pri- vate and public sectors. These policies involve (i) promotion of access to and the quality of basic and general secondary education to in- crease worker flexibility; (ii) steps to promote skills training by enterprises and private sector training institutions; (iii) steps to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of public V E T ; and (iv) development of training as a complemen- tary component of equity programmes. Detailed recommendations on h o w to carry out these actions are offered in the World Bank policy paper. STRENGTHEN PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION Strengthening general education at primary and secondary levels is the first priority for public policies to improve the productivity and flex- ibility of the workforce. In addition to generat- ing broad benefits to society, general education directly increases worker mobility and produc- tivity, and increases the access of the poor and socially disadvantaged groups to training and wage employment. T h e importance of basic education as the foundation upon which fur- ther education and training can build has long been recognized, and has been further empha - sized in recent studies (Lockheed and Verspoor, 1991; W C E F A , 1990). Training in specific skills is more effective w h e n trainees have strong literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving skills. In a constantly changing economic envi- ronment, the world of work is also in transition. International economic trends and n e w tech- nologies are rendering specific skills unneeded or obsolete. A s a consequence, it has become practically impossible to foresee the kinds of expertise (and the amounts) that will be nec- essary in the m e d i u m and long term. This has placed education authorities in a dilemma. W h a t should be the content of an education which prepares young people for such an uncertain future? Given the uncertainties created by a changing economic environment, a sound pri- mary education and an academic secondary education m a y be the best preparation for the world of work. Academic secondary education as presently configured contributes to individual productiv- ity and trainability by developing student ca- pacity to learn, to use mathematical concepts to solve problems, and to communicate verbally and in writing. Scientific knowledge is funda- mentally important to understanding both the natural environment and the artificial world of technology. Improving the quality of secondary education - especially in science, mathematics and languages - is an enormous challenge to most developing countries, and meeting it well would be a significant contribution to economic and social development. Improving student knowledge of modern technologies and production processes is an important educational objective. Mathematics and science curricula that stress the application of knowledge to local problems and conditions can provide a cost-effective educational approach to this objective, and m a y be a priority objec- tive in m a n y countries. This form of technol- ogy education has potential as a means of im- proving student understanding of technological processes and the place of technology in soci- ety. With careful curriculum design and effec- tive teacher training it can also provide a strong applied context for student learning of basic conceptual skills. For the reform of diversified secondaryThe World Bank's policy paper on schools, several options can be considered. Prac- tical courses taught in these schools, but which do not lead to employable skills, can be phased out and the resources used to improve the qual- ity of or access to general and academic sec- ondary education. For further improvements in employ ability, technology education can be sub- stituted for practical courses. Alternatively, the curriculum intensity of occupational prepara- tion can be increased, thus moving diversified schools towards a vocational training model. ENCOURAGE PRIVATE SECTOR TRAINING In addition to improving the trainability of workers through strengthening primary and secondary education, attention should be given to expanding private training capacity and reducing pressures on public financing and delivery of V E T . P u b - licly financed and provided vocational and tech- nical education and training actually provides a comparatively small part of most nations' skills training. T h e largest share of training is pro- vided by private and public employers. Even the very small enterprises in the urban and ru- ral informal sectors provide a great deal of training through traditional forms of apprenticeship. N o n - profit and for-profit training institutions also provide pre-employment and in-service train- ing. Training by private employers has both economic and institutional advantages. Costs and benefits are shared by employers and e m - ployees. T h e issue of matching training supply and d e m a n d does not arise as firms train only for needed skills. Enterprises play a central role in in-service training. A s most technological innovations enter developing countries through enterprises, employers have the equipment and technical information needed to develop n e w skills. Accountability for the results of training is direct, and firms will train as quickly and as efficiently as possible to minimize costs. Thus , there is a strong prima facie case for the cost- effectiveness of enterprise-based training. Barriers, however, exist to enterprise-based training, as suggested above in the section on and technical education and training 133 focusing government support of V E T . T h e quality and extent of training by private e m - ployers are determined fundamentally by the rate of economic growth and the prevailing patterns of incentives for investment in worker skills. T h e evidence assembled as a background to the World Bank's policy paper on V E T de- scribes at length h o w these incentives can be distorted by economic and social policy inter- ventions.2 A first step, therefore, to encourage private sector training is the identification of these policies and steps to reform them or, al- ternatively, to introduce compensating policies to offset their distortion of competitive prices and incentives. T h e evidence also shows that the extent and quality of employer training are frequently limited by two kinds of market imperfections. T h e first, addressed above, is low levels of basic education in the labour force, which increases the cost to enterprises of achieving satisfactory levels of skills in their workforces. T h e second is the predominance of small firms, which tend to train less, and less formally, than larger es- tablishments. Small firms are particularly vul- nerable to training barriers created by the diffi- culty of financing training investments, the underdevelopment of personnel and training management, and the lack of information on training benefits and services. T h e policy paper offers recommendations to strengthen employer training. Public subsidies for trainee wages encour- age employer training in cases where the de- m a n d for general training, providing skills use- ful outside the firm, is thwarted by market imperfections and potential trainees are unable to finance worthwhile investments in this train- ing. A clear case for these subsidies is found in situations where the training or apprenticeship wage that enables employers to recover the costs of training falls below the level of earnings nec- essary to maintain an adequate standard of liv- ing. Evidence on efforts to encourage employer training through tax exemptions is virtually non- existent. Direct subsidies of employer training expenses are more promising. T h e evidence indicates mat these subsidies can increase the134 Arvil V. Adams, John Middleton and Adrian Ziderman amount of training provided by larger enter- prises, though the impact on quality is uncer- tain. In an example from Singapore, the policy paper shows that small firms can be encour- aged to train with these subsidies (p. 38). T h e effectiveness of any form of subsidy ultimately depends on the capacity of employ- ers to design and implement training programmes. Technical support for enterprise training pro- vided by training institutes, public and private, can offer a solution. This support, in addition to helping identify training needs, assist in cur- riculum development, and train trainers, can be broadened to include productivity consulting, management and supervisor training, and as- sistance with the acquisition and installation of advanced technology. Enterprise associations for training, such as those found in Latin America, can also be successful in reaching small e m - ployers and creating an awareness of training benefits and services. These associations m a y be industry-wide, such as the National Indus- trial Apprenticeship Service (SENAI) owned by the Brazilian Confederation of Industries, or focused on subsectors of industry which share the cost of training. Traditional apprenticeship in small firms, often in the informal sector, is a major form of skills formation. Empirical evidence on the ef- fects of apprenticeship on employment and earn- ings indicates that it can have a positive impact, and that poor and rural individuals benefit. T h e policy paper indicates that great caution should be exercised in considering interventions in this form of training. Left alone, it meets the over- whelming share of training needs in the infor- mal sector, at no cost to the government. Rising levels of education in developing countries sug- gest that the theoretical knowledge of masters and apprentices could be improved through provision of technical information, perhaps through development and sale of texts in basic trades. Theoretical knowledge for apprentices, complementing the practical knowledge provided on the job, can be further improved through correspondence courses, or perhaps by evening or weekend classes in public training institutes. Finally, proprietary training has often been overlooked by governments in assessing national capacity for skills formation. Yet, in a number of countries schools and centres operated as non-profit organizations by non-governmental and community organizations, and on a for- profit basis, provide a large share of skills for- mation. M u c h of the training offered applies to commercial and business occupations with c o m - paratively low capital costs, and for which in- structors are in relatively abundant supply. T h e flexibility of this training m o d e is attractive, but evidence indicates that there is a great deal of variability in its quality. In addition to calling for the equal treatment of public and propri- etary training with subsidies, the policy paper calls for more information on the extent and quality of proprietary training through accredi- tation. Consumer information on the quality and stability of proprietary training institutions is recommended over cumbersome regulation of fee schedules. IMPROVE THE EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCY OF PUBLIC TRAINING Encouraging private training will not eliminate the need for public sector involvement in the financing and delivery of V E T . A s explained, so long as markets fail to function well, private training capacity is limited, or social equity pref- erences require market interventions, there will be a role for the public sector in training fi- nance or provision. T h e lack of private training capacity, for example, is a problem in countries in Central and Eastern Europe that are moving from centrally planned to market economies and in Africa and South Asia in low-income coun- tries. It is also a problem in other countries where m u c h wage employment is in smaller firms. Publicly financed or provided training is ex- pected to continue in m a n y countries. T h e ob- jective is to improve its effectiveness and effi- ciency by putting the right performance incentives in place. Three decades of investment have estab- lished public V E T systems in nearly all devel- oping countries, although with considerableThe World Bank's policy paper on variation in their effectiveness and efficiency. In most countries the first challenge is to get better use of this existing training capacity, through policies and practices that capitalize on the strengths of each element of the system to meet the skill needs of the economy. Improve- m e n t in the existing training capacity should c o m e in most countries before considering fur- ther expansions of public training systems. This improvement will begin with the better integra- tion of economic and training policy, the diver- sification of training finance, and the market- driven planning of skills supply. These changes will provide a stronger and more dynamic frame- work for public training. A s is the case with m u c h public service provision, isolation from market forces is the main threat to effectiveness and efficiency in public training. Part of the blame for this rests o n the reliance of public V E T o n rigid m a n - power requirements forecasting as a planning tool. This tool is found ineffective in the policy paper on the grounds of flaws in the technique's underlying assumptions about economic behav- iour. In its place, a market-based planning tech- nique is r e c o m m e n d e d that relies on labour market signals developed by monitoring at the local level movements in wages and employ- m e n t and the evaluation of training programmes ( A d a m s , Middleton and Ziderman, 1992). B e - yond the methods of linking and measuring skills d e m a n d and supply, the paper stresses the im- portance of co-ordinating m a n p o w e r planning with the choice of economic development strat- egies and policies. In m a n y countries, training capacity ex- ceeds both employment d e m a n d and the ca- pacity of governments to provide adequate fi- nancing. T h e result has not only been substantial mismatch between overall supply and d e m a n d for skilled labour, and consequent low levels of agreement between the training offered and that required, but also a heavy burden on scarce resources allocated to training. T o address this problem, the policy paper calls for a diversifica- tion of training finance with a larger role for employers and trainees in covering the cost of V E T . With s o m e potential for controversy, the and technical education and training 135 policy paper encourages the adoption of ear- marked payroll taxes as a source of V E T fi- nancing. In general, payroll levies should be seen as another transitional mechanism, to be dis- mantled as training institutions get stronger and as direct finance by trainees and employers is expanded. Better integration of economic and train- ing policies and the diversification of training finance needs to be joined with measures to improve the flexibility of public training, its outcomes, and instructional efficiency. These steps are important to improving the utilization of existing public training capacity. For e x a m - ple, flexibility is critical to the ability of training institutions to respond to short-term needs for workforce retraining w h e n economies adjust. T o improve the flexibility of public training, the policy paper r e c o m m e n d s the separation of education and training. Education and training place different demands on systems, institutions, instructors and administrators. Both are essen- tial to productivity, yet they are difficult to ad- minister effectively with the same institutional framework. O n e w a y to separate training and education is to concentrate skills training in institutions run outside an education ministry. This approach is most clearly needed in training for self-em- ployment. Specialized technical schools oriented to w a g e employment can be run within the ministry of education, if bureaucratic procedures can be modified to give the p rogramme the flex- ibility needed. A third w a y offered to achieve separation within education ministries is for vocational training to be concentrated at the end of the secondary cycle. In general, enabling students to choose a vocational course after completing the highest level of general education possible improves educational equity and stu- dent motivation alike. T o improve linkages of training with e m - ployment, close co-operation between employ- ers and training institutions is critically impor- tant. Involving employers in the governance of the training system supports these linkages, as does allocating resources to the process of co- operation and building the capability for link-136 Arvil V. Adams, John Middleton and Adrian Ziderman age development in the staffing patterns of train- ing institutions. Vocational guidance and place- men t services in schools, colleges, and training centres can also be effective in building link- ages. Involving employers in the design of cur- ricula is especially important in industries sub- ject to rapid technological change. World Bank experience suggests that linkages are more ef- fective w h e n more than one mechanism is used together (Middleton and D e m s k y , 1989). T h e V E T policy paper also offers other measures to improve the flexibility of public training and linkages with employers. Respon- siveness improves, for example, w h e n training institutions develop specialized expertise for a particular geographic area, clusters of related occupations, or specific sectors of an economy. Increasing institutional autonomy and account- ability are also effective instruments for improving flexibility in training. Financing mechanisms can encourage flexibility and linkages where institu- tions depend in part on contracts for funding training services. These measures encourage training that is demand-driven, closely linked with the needs of employers. Actions to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of public training also include meas - ures to improve training outcomes and instruc- tional efficiency. Professional instructors with good technical and pedagogical skills are cen- tral to quality in training, as is ensuring the avail- ability of teaching materials. T h e policy paper suggests creative ways to attract good instruc- tors (p. 50) and stresses the importance of fund- ing instructional materials and maintenance. Recommendations for reducing the cost per training graduate encourage consolidation of underutilized training capacity and the expan- sion of modular instruction, which breaks pro- g rammes into self-contained skill development units, and dual training systems. Improving public training systems is a c o m - plex task that requires good information and considerable professional and managerial capac- ity. (To respond to the needs of the economy demands a degree of freedom from short-term bureaucratic control that is difficult to achieve in certain ministries.) It also requires the capac- ity to look at training systems in a broader na- tional framework, combining public and pri- vate resources. National training authorities ( N T A s ) can be effective in this respect in more than just a transitional manner. In addition to managing training institutions, N T A s can play key roles in planning, providing professional services, organizing temporary training systems in response to emerging needs, and developing private training capacity. This is an especially important recommendation of the policy pa- per. TRAINING AS A COMPLEMENT TO EQUITY STRATEGIES Training is an important component of strate- gies to improve the productivity and earnings of the poor in the rural and urban informal sec- tors. T h e sheer diversity of employment condi- tions, skill requirements and alternatives for skill development in the rural and urban informal sectors makes training policy development ex- tremely complex. Yet, these are the sectors where most citizens of developing countries earn their livelihoods, and the sectors where poverty is most widespread and persistent. T h e evidence suggests that provision of targeted training is most effective in improving productivity w h e n complemented by two fundamental policies: creating a supporting economic environment and improving access to and quality in basic edu- cation. T h e income of farmers, small entrepreneurs and workers, and the self-employed depends most fundamentally on factors other than skills. Direct training interventions to stimulate rural self-employment are unlikely to be cost-effective where agricultural incomes are depressed. In the lower tier of the urban informal sector, market saturation in stagnant economies can impede successful entry in self-employment. T h e es- tablishment or expansion of more productive, upper-tier enterprises can be severely constrained by lack of access to credit and raw materials, or by excessive government licensing and regula- tion. These barriers limit access of the poor toThe World Bank's policy paper on better incomes, and are often accompanied by subtle forms of discrimination, especially against w o m e n . For training policy and interventions to be effective, these barriers need to be ad- dressed. Expansion and improvement of basic edu- cation is arguably the most important contribu- tor to rural and urban informal sector produc- tivity. Basic education is complementary to agricultural extension in raising farm output. In the informal sector, literacy and numeracy skills are essential for access to technical and market information, for business management, and for effective use of in-service training opportuni- ties. Completion of basic education is especially important for socially and economically disad- vantaged groups. Their ability to take advan- tage of opportunities for training and income generation is significantly handicapped where they are denied access to basic education. Thus , training contributes to improving the incomes of the poor w h e n it is part of a more comprehensive strategy that takes environmen- tal factors and basic education into account. Experience indicates that rural training pro- grammes can be effective in training for self- employment w h e n linked to local employment opportunities. Standard trades courses tied to urban occupations and trades tests, however, are less likely to be effective in training for rural self-employment. Institutional autonomy in cur- riculum development helps maintain local e m - ployment linkages, and favours schools oper- ated by non-governmental organizations. T h e skills needed for productivity in the informal sector are acquired through traditional appren- ticeship, but existing V E T institutions can sup- plement apprenticeship capacity where needed. T h e policy paper reports that shorter, more intensive programmes are best suited for the educated self-employed. Non-governmental and community training organizations can be effec- tive in delivering this training. For those with less education, other sponsored interventions m a y be needed if training opportunities are going to be equitably available. These interventions can assist the educationally disadvantaged in gain- ing entry to self-employment. Training alone, and technical education and training 137 however, is less likely to be effective for this purpose unless accompanied by complemen- tary inputs involving credit and technical ad- vice. T h e cost-effectiveness of these programmes is uncertain. Experience favours non-govern- mental and community organizations in their delivery. Owners of existing businesses, w h o are likely to have higher levels of education and technical skills, are better able to take advantage of a va- riety of in-service training opportunities. These individuals are potential customers for public and private in-service training opportunities. Often, programmes targeted at this clientele can be pardy self-financing. In general, sponsored training interventions are less important than credit and access to technical information. T h e diversity of client groups and work environments, as well as the systematic and significant differ- ences between training for informal and formal employment, indicate the need for a highly flexible structure for programme implementation. N o n - governmental and community organizations have compiled a good track record in the administra- tion of such efforts. H o w can donors assist? Virtually every developing country has received support for the development of V E T from in- ternational assistance agencies. T h e World Bank alone has financed one form or another of tech- nical and vocational education or training in ninety-five countries. In recent years, about a third of the aid for skills training came from concessional aid in the form of grants and low- interest loans. T h e balance, provided by non- concessional aid, came from loans by multilat- eral agencies, including the World Bank, which supplied about 45 per cent of all international assistance for V E T . In the period 1983-88, non- concessional aid from the World Bank and regional development banks averaged about Ç375 million in n e w commitments annually. Concessional aid actually disbursed for voca-138 Arvil V. Adams, John Middhton and Adrian Ziderman Reforming Vocational Training Policy in Togo In Togo, 73 per cent of the labour force of 1.4 million work in agriculture, 21 per cent in the urban informal sector, and 6 per cent (76,000) in the modern wage sector. Economic policy reforms in the early and mid-1980s have opened the economy to international competition, reducing policy distortions and reversing a long period of negative growth. The economy is vulnerable to rapid changes in c o m - modity prices, and the government is seeking to diversify the economy by expanding foreign investment in labour-intensive light manufacturing. T h e public vocational and technical education system was developed in the 1970s to meet social objectives. Lower and upper secondary technical schools and vocational training centres managed by the Ministry of Technical Education and Vocational Training ( M E F T P ) enrol about 3,800 students. Private vocational schools and centres enrol 2,400 more. Traditional apprenticeship is well established in the informal sector. T h e public system has been rigidly administered and inadequately financed, and both quality and efficiency have been low. M u c h private training is of low quality. The government has thus launched a significant programme of training policy reform and institu- tional development to improve the responsiveness of public training to the economy, to improve train- ing quality, and to strengthen employer and private training. The reform has three main elements: 1. Strengthening the capacity of the M E F T P to monitor and analyse the labour market, which includes establishing a Training and Employment Observatory to monitor employment opportunities and the effectiveness of training and to publish the results regularly. 2. Training managers and instructors using 'twinning' arrangements with overseas training institutes. 3. Establishing a National Training Fund administered by a private/public management committee to allocate financial resources to training projects and investments of employers and of public and private training institutions that meet predetermined criteria. Traditional apprentice masters will be eligible to apply to the fund for grants to upgrade their skills. In addition, co-operative dual training systems, using modular approaches to instruction, will be devel- oped to strengthen co-operation between employers and public training institutions. Lower secondary vocational schools will be converted to regional training centres that specialize in local training needs. They will be open in the evening and at weekends to provide theory classes for masters and apprentices in the informal sector. T h e project is supported by a credit from the International Development Asso- ciation of the World Bank. tional projects in the period 1981-86 averaged S190 million (Orivel and Sergent, 1990). M o r e than half of concessional assistance for V E T from 1981 to 1986 went to African nations, about 20 per cent to Asia, and the rest to other regions. M o s t of this aid supported pre-employment preparation for wage employ- men t in the modern sector. Secondary voca- tional education accounted for the largest share, with 40 per cent of concessional disbursements in 1981-86, followed by post-secondary tech- nical education with 22 per cent. There was some variation in this pattern a m o n g donors. T h e pattern of World Bank support for different kinds of vocational preparation differs from that provided by donors. In the first four- teen years of lending, World Bank support was roughly equally divided a m o n g diversified sec- ondary schools, secondary vocational schools, post-secondary technical education, and voca- tional training. Beginning in the late 1970s, sup- port for diversified schooling was phased out. Support for secondary vocational schools was also reduced. Support for vocational training was increased substantially. T h e m o v e m e n t was toward centre-based vocational training and away from secondary vocational schooling. Donor assistance will continue to be im- portant in the development of public training capacity. T h e policy paper calls for the devel- opment of effective partnerships between na- tional governments and international assistanceT h e World Bank's policy paper on vocational and technical education and training 139 agencies in the design and financing of effective reforms of V E T policy and practice. It encour- ages governments to develop national policy reform strategies that are based on improved economic analysis of the proper roles for gov- ernments in V E T , that recognize the impor- tance of strengthening primary and academic secondary education, that encourage the devel- opment of private sector training, that seek to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of public training, and that use training as a complement to equity strategies. A recent World Bank V E T project in T o g o (see box) includes m a n y of these features. T h e World Bank policy paper offers four ways in which donors can assist countries in meeting the skill needs required by an increas- ingly competitive world economy. First, the task of developing a comprehen- sive training policy strategy remains to be ad- dressed in m a n y developing countries and the capacity to carry out the kind of analysis needed is often weak. Flexible donor support for coun- try analysis and strategy development is thus needed. Second, donors can give a high priority to primary and compensatory basic education pro- grammes. This is especially important in low- income countries where access is limited, espe- cially for girls, and where learning achievement is low. Where primary education enrolments and outcomes are satisfactory, attention to improved access and quality in academic and general sec- ondary education will be important, especially in middle-income countries. M a n y of these coun- tries are facing the challenges of international competition and technological change. Improv- ing instruction in science, mathematics and c o m - munication skills should have a high priority. Third, improving aid co-ordination would avoid a variety of piecemeal projects that lack a policy coherence. Donors can find ways to fit their objectives and programme interests together to provide the coherent and flexible support national policy strategies need. This is illustrated by the formation in 1988 of the Donors to African Education. Finally, the record shows that international assistance for the reform of training policies and systems is most effective w h e n provided through partnerships that last a decade or more. Future assistance needs to take this perspective w h e n financing investment and institutional develop- ment programmes to support government re- form efforts. Providing long-term support is important. B y taking these steps, donors can help developing countries prepare workers for economic change. T h e need for balancing of the public and private sector roles in this prepa- ration is the major message of the World Bank's policy paper. Helping countries strike this bal- ance is a challenge donors n o w face. • Notes 1. See Chapter 2 of Middleton et al. (1993). 2. See Chapter 3 of Middleton et al. (1993). References A D A M S , A. V.; GOLDFARB, R.; KELLY, T . 1992. How the Macroeconomic Environment Affects Human Resource Development. Washington, D . C . , World Bank. (Policy Research Education and Employment Working Pa- pers, N o . W P S 828.) A D A M S , A . V. ; MIDDLETON, ].; ZIDERMAN, A. 1992. Market-Based Manpower Planning with Labour Market Signals. International Labour Review, Vol. 131, N o . 3. F O S T E R , P. 1965. The Vocational School Fallacy in Development Planning. In: C . Anderson and M . B o w m a n (eds.), Education and Economic Develop- ment. Chicago, 111., Aldine Publishing Company. L O C K H E E D , M . ; V E R S P O O R , A . 1991. Improving Primary Education in Developing Countries. N e w York, Oxford University Press. (A World Bank publication.) M I D D L E T O N , J.; D E M S K Y , T . 1989. Vocational Education and Training: A Review of World Bank Investment. Washington, D . C . , World Bank. (World Bank Dis- cussion Paper N o . 51.)140 Arvil V. Adams, John Middleton and Adrian Ziderman M I D D L E T O N , J.; ZIDERMAN, A. ; A D A M S , A. V. 1993. Skills Training for Productivity: Vocational Education and Training in Developing Countries. N e w York, Oxford University Press. (A World Bank publication.) N E U M A N , S.; Z I D E R M A N , A . 1991. Vocational Schooling, Occupational Matching and Labour Market Earnings in Israel. Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 26, N o . 2 , pp. 256-81. O R I V E L , F. ; S E R G E N T , F . 1990. External Aid to Primary, Technical and Vocational Education throughout the World: Period 1981-1986. Dijon, I R E D U . P S A C H A R O P O U L O S , G . 1987. T o Vocationalize or Not to Vocationalize? That is the Curriculum Question. In- ternational Journal of Education Development, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 187-211. PSACHAROPOULOS, G . ; LOXLEY, W . 1985. Curriculum Diversification in Colombia and Tanzania: An Evalua- tion. Baltimore, M d . , Johns Hopkins University Press. (A World Bank publication.) T I L A K , J. B . G . 1988. Economics of Vocationalization: A Review of the Evidence. Canadian and International Education, Vol. 17, N o . 1. WCEFA (WORLD CONFERENCE ON EDUCATION FOR ALL). 1990. Meeting Basic Learning Needs: A Vision for the 1990s. Inter-Agency Commission (UNDP, U N E S C O , UNICEF, The World Bank). New York, UNICEF. W O R L D B A N K . 1991. Vocational and Technical Education and Training: A World Bank Policy Paper. Washing- ton, D . C . , World Bank. Z Y M E L M A N , M . 1976. The Economic Evaluation of Voca- tional Training Programs. Baltimore, M d . , Johns Hopkins University Press.Training policies in the World Bank Putting the act together Claudio de Moura Castro* T h e Editor of Prospects asked m e to comment on the World Bank' policy paper on vocational and technical education and training. T o go straight to the point, this is a paper which I endorse to a very large extent.1 I only wish I had written it myself. In what follows I will try to indicate some issues that deserve further c o m - ment and a few minor points where w e dis- agree. M y references are to the original paper rather than to the summarizing article by A d a m s , Middleton and Ziderman presented in this jour- nal. Claudio de Moura Castro (Brazil). Economist, studied Economics at the University of Minas Gérais. Taught at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, the Vargas Foundation, the University of Chicago, the University of Brasilia, the University of Geneva and the University of Burgundy (Dijon). Was the Technical Co-ordinator of the research project on education in the framework of the Programme of Joint Studies on Latin American Economic Integra- tion (ECIEL), was the director of CAPES (Brazilian Agency for Postgraduate Education) and was the Executive Secretary of C N R H (the Brazilian social policy institute of the Planning Secretariat). At present is the Chief of the Training Policies Branch of the International Labour Office (Geneva). Has published over twenty books and over 150 scholarly articles. Drawing the lines and taking sides Training policies are not an explosive or taboo subject. B u t this does not m e a n that there is always agreement a m o n g the different tribes in the training world. T h e paper takes sides and deals directly with the major controversies. It is pertinent to note that s o m e of these classical divergences also surface inside the W o r l d B a n k . T h e world has m a n y vocational trainers, educators and economists w h o disagree strongly o n m a n y issues. S o m e vocational trainers swear by vocational schools and training centres. T h e y would like to build them everywhere in the world, as big and as well equipped as possible. S o m e educators think of vocational training as a second- rate activity, not to be confused with the real education which stresses the great achievements of human i sm, literature and science. S o m e econo- mists gloss over all these differences and tend to look only at costs and benefits. T h e y fail to * At the time of publication of this paper the author will be working for the World Bank. However, the invit- ation to comment on the policy paper was made when he was still working for the Training Department of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The author remains entirely responsible for the text. Prospects, Vol. XXII, N o . 2, 1992 (82)142 Claudio de Moura Castro see the critical differences between schools that look similar or that have similar names. W h e n , prior to the start of this study, a meeting took place in Annapolis (United States), economists were preaching the end of voca- tional training in schools. A s they said, a good general education is all that is necessary. A s for the training, enterprises would provide it. Needless to say, the range of disagreement was extreme. S o m e trainers worried that the final paper would suggest the demise of vocational schools. T h e paper is an attempt to bring some order to the discussion. Unavoidably, it takes sides. It eschews simplistic views, accepting the complexity and the geographic variety of the problems of training. It avoids the easy slogans and, without being wishy-washy, offers nuanced policies. T h e authors seem to be saying that gen- eral education alone is not enough. In m a n y cases, the government has to pay and to inter- vene directly in the provision of training. It also says that, in general, vocational and technical schools are not such a good solution, even though they m a y work under some cir- cumstances. However , the comprehensive or diversified high schools get very low marks.2 This is an American export that did not thrive very well elsewhere. In the authors' view, the winners are the independent and non-academic training centres that operate with greater flex- ibility and are not attached to academic schools or to education ministries - as illustrated by several Latin American examples. T o the simplistic statements by some econo- mists, the authors are responding by showing the complexity of the real world and the differ- entiated nature of the outcomes in different re- gions and in different institutions that work side by side. Against the blind faith of vocational train- ers, the authors stress the need for demand-driven training. In too m a n y countries, the general econ- omic situation no longer warrants training as m a n y people as the budgets allow, ignoring the market demand for them. It is very instructive to see these same con- troversies from the perspective of the World Bank's o w n actions, since, to a very large ex- tent, these were areas in which the B a n k pro- duced papers and m a d e loans. In 1970 I was working for the Brazilian Planning Institute (IPEA) and received a visit from a World Bank officer, w h o tried to con- vince m e that diversified schools were just what Brazil needed and, for that reason, the World Bank was proposing a loan to build a good number of them. At that time, I was analysing a survey showing that the atmosphere and the implicit white-collar values imbedded in such schools completely destroyed any interest the students might have in the occupations taught. But, of course, the gentleman from the World Bank was not persuaded by m y arguments, which were not unrelated to those of Foster. I a m flat- tered to see that twenty years later the World Bank is saying that I was right and m y visitor wrong. There are other issues on which the au- thors also admit that past World Bank policies were inappropriate. For instance, they admit that some training projects were proposed without proper policy content (p. 65). T h e y also admit that several projects assumed that the graduates of training programmes would go to the labour market w h e n , in fact, too often they went on to higher education (p. 72). Recent studies indicate that one of the c o m - m o n denominators of successful organizations is their ability to learn from past experience and incorporate this n e w learning in their behav- iour. Learning organizations are able to scruti- nize their experience and derive lessons from this analysis. T h e y admit past errors and prefer to accept the embarrassment, rather than per- sist in moving in the wrong direction. If that is a good criterion by which to evaluate organizations, the World Bank is setting a good example. If m y m e m o r y serves m e well, I can- not think of other international organizations that are so explicit in admitting that they were wrong. O n the contrary, the confession of sins is the last thing one is likely to find in official publications. T h e question n o w is to persuade the World Bank officials to put these ideas into practice. |Training policies in the World Bank: putting the act together 143 Even in the recent past, some Bank papers failed to incorporate the central tenets of these poli- cies. For instance, the perception that all that is needed is a general education remains alive in some minds. Is the glass half full or half empty? There are m a n y training problems that hinge on broader macroeconomic policies on which the World Bank has explicit positions. Here the authors had to accommodate their findings to these policies. A careful reader will appreciate the acrobatics required. T h e strategy has mainly consisted of accepting the general rule and show- ing that under some conditions a different policy has to be accepted in the short run. In principle, the government should not intervene in training. However , w h e n other al- ternatives are lacking and while private initia- tive is absent, this m a y be inevitable (p. 36). Subsidies are acceptable if they are temporary (p. 39). Public training should be the exception (p. 20), but as long as market distortions are there, it m a y be necessary to keep them (p. 68). Considering that countries such as the United States, the United K i n g d o m , G e r m a n y and France still rely very heavily on public training, these exceptions do not look particularly short-lived or rare. B y the same token, cost recovery is the general rule endorsed by the authors. Employ- ers should pay a larger share of the costs of training. But while market imperfections and externalities persist, it m a y be necessary to wait (p. 54). Will these externalities ever disappear? T h e background research done for the paper indicates that levies on payroll give good results in m a n y cases, and the same could be said of training funds (pp. 52, 54-5) . T o avoid con- flict with the broader tenets of public finance, which frown upon tied taxes, the paper hedges by saying that mese should be transitory ar- rangements. Nevertheless, the Brazilian National Industrial Apprenticeship Service ( S E N A I ) , which was a pioneer in payroll taxes, still needs them after fifty years. France is not ready to forgo payroll taxes and the United K i n g d o m seems to want to use them. This aspect of the paper provides a fasci- nating exercise in semantic engineering. Is the glass half full or half empty? T h e authors have done a splendid job of stating their conclusions and avoiding direct collisions with the Bank's macroeconomic policies. This makes the paper far more valuable, since it is faithful to the au- thors' empirical findings and beliefs. But there is a price to be paid. T h e paper lends itself to m a n y different readings. T h e general statements are all in line with the neo-liberal thinking that is identified with the World Bank. M a n y readers stick to them and praise or blame the paper as another eulogy for privatization, cost-recovery, and reduction in government roles. Other readers will see just the opposite, dis- counting these general statements and concen- trating on the specifics. S o m e might assume that the general statements were necessary to get the paper approved at the highest levels of the Bank. T h e critical issues This study is a step ahead in m a n y areas. It sets the record straight after a long, careful and costly survey of training papers and commissioned research around the world. Below I select some of the points that seem to m e of greatest rel- evance. INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT AND PROBLEMS OF IMPLEMENTATION T h e need to invest in the development of na- tional institutional capacity is not necessarily new, but that does not m a k e it less important. T h e strong advice to analyse the context in which144 Claudio de Moura Castro policies are generated and proposed is welcome. T h e importance of paying attention to training policies receives a good boost in the paper. T h e issue of governance and the need to have a good resource basis justifies some of the financial schemes that are disliked by public fi- nance economists but which the authors ap- prove of (p. 52). Also stressed is the impor- tance of choosing a good institutional basis for action. In fact, m a n y World Bank projects were jeopardized by a weak institutional setting. TRAINING AND ACADEMIC SCHOOLS This is one of the central points on which the paper takes a strong stand. It is perhaps the most controversial area in which a clear m e s - sage is delivered. T h e authors find that training needs to be close to the market, which requires a degree of flexibility that cannot be found in schools that simultaneously offer an academic degree (in most cases, a secondary diploma). Hence, they are lukewarm, at best, towards die vocational and technical schools (pp. 14, 31, 40, 45, 47). But the diversified schools so cherished in the past are definitely not favoured by the authors (p. 72). B y contrast, the paper gives a clear prior- ity for centre-based training, i.e. those pro- grammes that are stand-alone and not part of academic curricula. In other words, the paper leans more towards the I L O technical co- operation styles (independent training centres) and less towards the U N E S C O models which emphasize technical and vocational schools inside the regular academic system.3 DEMAND-DRIVEN TRAINING It is easy to imagine that this paper will be known as the birthplace of 'demand-driven training'. While the idea was floating in the air in the late 1980s, the authors had the great merit of for- mulating and diffusing it at the right m o m e n t . ( O n a purely personal basis, I regret that they got a lot more publicity than papers dealing with the same issues produced in the I L O 4 dur- ing the same period.) Training had an explosive development in the post-war years, particularly in high-growth countries. For a long time, trainers and admin- istrators were concerned with getting the funds, creating schools, training trainers and prepar- ing course materials for the thousands of pro- grammes created everywhere. T h e problem of training was a problem of supply. However, particularly during the 1980s, growth slowed d o w n at the same time that the scarcity of well-trained workers became less serious in most parts of the world. It is not that training became redundant or unnecessary. O n the contrary, high-performance economies need more training than ever. But quantity alone is not enough. It must be die right training for the right person at the right m o m e n t . A n d the only way to achieve this fine-tuning of training is to monitor demand very closely. Training must be driven by the demand of tiiose w h o will use the skills imparted. But after decades of supply-driven train- ing, it is hard to retool the minds of trainers and administrators. Most systems still do not have the mechanisms for responding to demand. T h e underlying hypothesis is that employ- ers know what m e y need and that they are in- terested in increasing productivity, lowering costs and improving quality. While this is in general a fair assumption, there are exceptions that cannot be ignored. A case in point is Eastern Europe, where a significant proportion of the enterprises seem to be very inefficient, remaining protected from competition by their monopolistic posi- tion and remarkably unwilling to improve qual- ity or adopt methods of production that chal- lenge tiieir workers. At the same time, m e y work very closely with the vocational and technical schools, influencing their practical training and curricula. T h e end result of this truly demand- driven training is that students are prepared for repetitive operations and for jobs mat lack im- agination and initiative. D e m a n d from medio- cre or incompetent firms tends to request of students the same undesirable skill and behav- iour profiles that are found in their workers,Training policies in the World Bank: putting the act together 145 creating a vicious circle. T h e demand from an enterprise that produces shoddy products is for workers w h o need not do better than that. Education and training are instruments for changing society. There is a delicate balance between the Olympic disregard for demand, too c o m m o n everywhere, and complete conformity to established routines. VERDICT: IN FAVOUR OF TRAINING (WITH SOME QUALIFICATIONS) At a more general level, the authors find a sig- nificant n u m b e r of successful training pro- g rammes around the world. Their qualified conclusion is that training can pay. G o o d studies and competent policy analy- sis are required to hit the target. M u c h can go wrong. But several studies have shown good and generous economic returns on training in m a n y countries, particularly for those pro- grammes offered by training centres, rather than regular schools. Some minor disagreements M y disagreements with the authors are minor. Nevertheless, there are issues which I would treat differently or give a different emphasis. THE INDIRECT EFFECTS OF TRAINING: JUST A FOOTNOTE? In line with other authors w h o write on the sub- ject,5 there is a tendency to underplay the role of indirect effects, external economies and the non-cognitive aspects of training (pp. 36, 54). A s economists claim, the most important ef- fects of training are captured by the remunera- tion offered to the recipient of the training. W h a t is left out is marginal, deserving perhaps a foot- note. I happen to disagree. However, it must be admitted that the arguments are empirically weak on both sides. O n the average, more productive people earn more and this tends to be partly the result of education and training. But are e m - ployers solely concerned with immediately tan- gible results? D o earning differentials capture most of the consequences of training? H o w important are the consequences of training on attitudes and perceptions? This is where the authors and I tend to see the world somewhat differently. G o o d working habits, pride of crafts- manship, and a positive attitude towards work are the hallmarks of good workers - at any level. Employers always emphasize these traits. T h e y are at least as important as skills proper. But these are not skills that can be added or sub- tracted from the curriculum of a course, like an automobile that can be delivered with a larger engine or air conditioning. Russian industry and schools are locked in a vicious circle of low quality and low dedication that is very hard to break. O n the other hand, in countries like Brazil and Singapore, a good training system was instru- mental in creating a tradition of good crafts- manship where none existed before. A Brazil- ian worker w h o is informally apprenticed in a workshop staffed by S E N A I graduates will benefit almost as m u c h from the decades of heavy in- vestment in this institution as another w h o di- rectly takes its courses. Singaporean technical schools invested heavily to create a workforce to deal with a high-technology industry that did not exist at that time. A n y employer today will benefit from this past investment. It is instructive to notice that w h e n official documents from the European C o m m u n i t y re- fer to the roles of training, the chief expectation is that it should create a technological culture in Europe.6 In other words, they take as the main objectives of training what others leave to a foot- note. W h e n w e look at the training policies of the most successful enterprises, training is a means to reach m a n y goals. But sharing, reinforcing and developing the corporate culture is almost always one of the most important targets. There are no cost/benefit ratios that can be estimated for that or for the improvements in worker loy- alty or motivation. Training some key workers146 Claudio de Moura Castro is an initial investment that should pay for itself in the form of better work practices that spread in the firm in ways and means that cannot be traced back to the original training. W h e n a firm trains its maintenance workers., the ben- efits are machines that last longer, not necessar- ily higher salaries for the trainees. T h e most successful multinational enterprises can spend more than 10 per cent of their payroll on train- ing. But in a typical situation, part of the results will accrue in the long run and training tends to go together with changes of equipment or or- ganization, making it impossible to impute re- sults to this or that part of the investment. In addition, wage changes are not associated with the decision to train. Under those circumstances, any analysis of cost/benefit is pointless. Not even theoretically can one tell which results are di- rect and which are indirect. M a n y societies - as well as large enter- prises - see training as a means to acquire tech- nology. W h e n Norwegian oil enterprises wanted to acquire offshore drilling capability, they signed contracts to train their engineers in some of the multinational petroleum corporations. This train- ing cannot be evaluated in terms of costs and benefits of the programme that was organized or the salary gains of the concerned engineers but as an investment in buying technology. Training is a means to carry technology; its measurable effects on trainees bear no relation to that. W h e n a society wants to embark on m a n u - facturing, structured training is not a means of imparting skills that has to be compared with other forms of delivery. Training becomes a form of investment in transfer of technology, where salary differentials are the least impor- tant of the concerns and where the cost of the entire operation will have consequences that cannot be quantified. But, in addition, training institutions have another role. They are the loci of accumulated experience. T h e learning that takes place in the trial and error process is analysed and stored by them. They are the curators of the institutional m e m o r y of the skills of transmitting skills. In fact, casual observation seems to indicate that private training spins off from these institutions. Training materials are copied, plagiarized or even stolen from them. Their officers often leave to create their o w n training firm. This is h o w it should be. T o have good private training, soci- eties need good public or semi-public institu- tions that take a long-term perspective and in- vest in staff training and course materials. B y contrast, training that is scattered in thousands of small operations or improvised to meet im- mediate demand tends to lack cumulative ef- fects. T h e success of the Chilean experiment in privatization of training is mitigated by the fact that the n e w National Professional Training Institute ( I N A C A P ) invests less in training materials and tends to offer programmes that are shorter and more conventional.7 T o s u m up, m y arguments suggest that the indirect effects of training are at least as important as those that can be captured by looking at micro-economic indicators. TRAINING IN THE INFORMAL SECTOR T h e first versions of the paper paid hardly any attention to the problems of the informal sec- tor. Responding to pertinent comments offered by outside observers, the published versions acknowledge the importance of the informal sector (p. 61). But inasmuch as the authors grant the importance of the subject, the treatment is still too brief. After all, the informal absorbs today more workers than the modern sector in most countries of the world. O n e of the issues w e have tried to intro- duce in the I L O policy agenda is the strategy to convert thousands of training institutions around the world that were created on the expectation that the modern sector would expand until it absorbed the others. A n d this was exacdy the opposite of what happened. T h e informal sec- tor is growing and encroaching on m e modern. Those training institutions have s o m e h o w to be retooled to respond to this lower end of the labour market. But ten years of experiments suggest that this is not easy.Training policies in the World Bank: putting the act together 147 CAN WE TRAIN THE POOR WITHOUT EDUCATING THEM? T h e authors take the straightforward stand that training requires good basic education. Since education tends to be weak in too m a n y coun- tries, there is little that can be expected of train- ing under such circumstances. Hence, the strong pitch for basic education that is found in the paper. A s a broad macro-social policy, it is hard to disagree with the need to reinforce basic edu- cation. However, this is too simplistic and glosses over some key issues. It is not always true that training requires basic education. M u c h of the training that is being offered to low-literacy societies has been conceived in ways that require little if any lit- eracy. In fact, literacy, to be of any functional- ity, requires m a n y years of schooling of reason- able quality. B y contrast, workers can be taught useful and productive skills in a few weeks, even if they are illiterate. W e can go even further and remind our- selves that the 'basic skill' movemen t turns the sequence upside d o w n . Training is seen as an opportunity to create a favourable environment to teach basic literacy and numeracy skills. At the same time that concrete and useful skills are transmitted, workers become more motivated and better prepared to read, write and c o m - pute. T h e essence of the strategy is that they learn the basic literacy skills by being trained to deal with the specifics of their jobs. WHERE ARE THE SOCIOLOGISTS? A s an economist, I can afford to say that the paper would benefit from a little more sociol- ogy, without being accused of lobbying for that discipline. A n d , indeed, the authors grant the importance of factors such as status and pres- tige, but the comments take up just a few lines (pp. 28, 72). T o understand the logic of decisions taken by students, status and prestige are as impor- tant, if not more so, than economic returns. T h e low status of several vocational programmes haunts them and turns students towards other alternatives, even w h e n white-collar jobs are harder to find and pay less. T h e widespread failure of diversified schools has m u c h to do with the presence of an academic ethos which devalues the vocational subjects to the point where they are not taken seriously, even by working-class students.8 Prejudice drives behav- iour. Social class moulds perceptions which af- fect economic behaviour. T h e best and the worst training m a y differ in the dynamics of inculcat- ing the values of work as m u c h as in the excel- lence of instructors and equipment. A little more sociology would make the paper even better. HOW TO TRAIN WHEN THERE ARE NO JOBS? T h e postulate of demand-driven training is very straightforward. If there is no d e m a n d for the training, there is no training. This is very op- portune advice, in view of the persistent fail- ures of vocational and technical schools to pay attention to the demand for their graduates. However , h o w far can w e go? In econ- omies undergoing serious difficulties, where is the demand for training to be found? Take some of the Eastern European countries where un - employment is growing and the prospects of recovery and significant labour absorption are dim. T h e demand for training is likely to be very small, if it materializes at all. Should voca- tional and technical schools be closed down? Replaced by what? W h a t to do w h e n d e m a n d grows again and all instructors are gone? Are unemployed fitters unhappier than unemployed high-school graduates? •148 Claudio de Moura Castro Notes 1. For four years I was deeply engaged in discussing with the authors the matters treated. Should I claim to have influenced them in some of these matters? They surely convinced m e on several points. But w h o persuaded w h o m ? Did they need m e to arrive at their conclusions? 2. Regular academic high schools which also offer voca- tional training subjects (as illustrated by the American high schools). 3. See C . de Moura Castro, ' H o w Well Have the I L O Practices Survived the Test of Time?' , Norrag News, July 1991, pp. 44-5. 4. C . de Moura Castro, Training When There Are More People than Jobs, I L O , 1987; C . de Moura Castro and A . Cabrai de Andrade, 'Supply and D e m a n d Mis- matches: Can Anything Be Done?' , International La- bour Review, N o . 3, 1990; G . Kanawaty and C . de Moura Castro, ' N e w Directions for Training: A n Agenda for Action', paper presented at the Employ- ment Committee of the I L O and published in the International Labour Review, N o . 6, 1989. 5. See, for instance, M . Blaug, Where are We Now in the Economics of Education?, Paris, O E C D , 1982. 6. See, for instance, I L O , Réunion tripartite européenne sur les répercussions des mutations technologiques sur le travail et la formation, p. 61 and passim, Geneva, ILO, 1991. 7. O . Corvalan, The Evolution of Chile's National Voca- tional Training Institution. (In press.) 8. C . de Moura Castro et al., Ensino técnico desempenho e custos, Rio de Janeiro, IPEA, 1972.Vocational education and training A major shift in World Bank policy Philip Foster W h e n the Editor of Prospects asked m e to write a commentary on the World Bank's policy pa- per on vocational and technical education and training I felt it might be useful to place that essay within a broader historical and theoretical context, for it represents a stage in the evolu- tion of an educational controversy that has lasted for some twenty-five years. Moreover, the Bank's current prescriptions can be examined in the light of an early article of m y o w n that is fre- quently assumed to have touched off that de- bate (Foster, 1965). This is flattering but un - true. In the 1960s the prevailing conventional Philip Foster (United States of America). Holds degrees from the London School of Economics and the University of Chicago, where he was a faculty mem- ber from 1959 to 1978 and Director of its Compara- tive Education Center from 1973 to 1978. He was Professor of Education and Head of School at Mac- quarie University (Australia) from 1978 to 1981. In the succeeding decade he was Professor of Education and Sociology at the State University of New York at Albany and is now Professor Emeritus. His principal research and writing has focused on problems of education and development with particular reference to sub-Saharan Africa. Besides numerous contributions to professional journals his major works include: Education and Social Change in Ghana (1965); The Fortunate F e w (1966) with Rémi Clignet; Ghana and the Ivory Coast: Per- spectives on Modernization (1971) with Aristide Zolberg; and Education and Rural Development (1973) with James R. Sheffield. wisdom concerning the role of education in economic development argued for the superi- ority of school-based vocational training to meet industrial and agricultural needs over the provis- ion of general or 'academic' schooling. Indeed, in the case of less developed countries (many of which were then subject to colonial rule) it was often suggested that colonial emphasis on the expansion of academic-type schooling had ac- tually impeded economic development. This 'ir- relevant' type of education, it was suggested, had generated unrealistic preferences for white- collar employment, thus leading to agricultural stagnation, a flight from the land and the growth of unemployment a m o n g the educated. T o be sure, m y original piece argued that this view was erroneous, but it is worth noting that in the developed world some economists had already m a d e a case for the greater productivity of gen- eral as opposed to school-based vocational train- ing (Becker, 1964). Furthermore, in the colo- nial context a few perceptive observers had noted that some colonial powers, far from emphasiz- ing academic education, had attempted to pro- vide a more vocational and practical curricu- lum in the schools, usually with disastrous results. H o w could it be, given the powerful intuitive appeal of the vocationalization argument (par- ticularly with respect to school-centred agricul- tural training) that outcomes had fallen so short of objectives? In 'Vocational School Fallacy . . .' I at- tempted to provide historical and economic rea- ProjpecB, Vol. XXII, N o . 2, 1992 (82)150 Philip Foster sons for this paradoxical situation, but in so doing I was almost inadvertently led to develop an alternative perspective on the role of edu- cation in development that ran directly counter to the prevailing orthodoxy of the 1960s. I would submit that the controversy then and n o w is not simply about vocational and general edu- cation but also reflects a profound disagreement about the nature of the development process as between two radically different schools of thought. W h a t is the controversy really all about? Twenty-five years ago thinking about econ- omic development was heavily influenced by a small group of Western 'development econo- mists' w h o contended that the tenets of conven- tional neo-classical economics were inapplica- ble to the problems of the Third World. T h e poorly educated masses in these countries, it was averred, could not be expected to react ra- tionally to those market incentives and relative price changes which had earlier undergirded the growth of Western economies (Lai, 1983). Rather, it was suggested, Third World growth would rest upon a central role being accorded to the state and the development of centralized non- market-oriented planning models. T h e educa- tional analogue of this type of reasoning was to be found in the then influential ' human resources' approach exemplified, for example, in the work of Harbison and Myers (Harbison, 1967; Harbison, 1973; Harbison and Myers, 1964). This approach indeed accorded great impor- tance to the role of education in development and argued for the provision of a greater stock of skilled manpower to meet 'economic needs'. However, the estimation of these economic needs bore no relation to conventional conceptions of effective market demand but rested upon dubi- ous long-term manpower calculations. In short, given a set of projections of future manpower requirements, it was the main task of education systems to operate largely as passive suppliers of manpower to meet mese imperatives. In prac- tice, the ' h u m a n resources' school tended to emphasize the expansion of higher and second- ary education over primary schooling and the desirability of providing more vocational and technical training in the schools to enhance di- rectly the stock of appropriately trained indi- viduals. Whether they knew it or not these plan- ners largely shared the assumptions of contem- poraneous Soviet manpower strategies! T h e 'vocational school fallacy' took issue with this whole approach. First, it suggested that any examination of the pattern of actual job opportunities in the modern sectors of less developed economies revealed that the academi- cally educated enjoyed greater opportunities for employment and enhanced income than the products of vocational programmes. Thus stu- dents (and their parents) were acting perfectly sensibly in response to market incentives. Far from being irrational, the preference for white- collar employment was entirely rational: in ef- fect, 'academic' education was essentially a form of 'vocational' training. Misunderstanding about this issue still dogs contemporary debate: when educators speak of vocational training they think in terms of a curriculum with an industrial, ag- ricultural, or possibly commercial content, but for the economist a 'vocational' curriculum is defined with respect to outcomes, whether meas- ured with respect to increased income or possi- bly enhanced opportunities for social mobility. F r o m this perspective, it was apparent that the products of the schools in the Third World were acting no less rationally than their Western coun- terparts in response to market opportunities and the relative prices for different types of educa- tional product. Second, manpower plans based upon sim- plistic sets of extrapolations of assumed market trends could not become the basis for educa- tional development. Manpower projections were usually wide of the mark and, in practice, the relationship between vocational or narrow types of skill training and subsequent job placement was often non-existent. In effect, what was hap- pening in the educational systems of the Third World had less to do with the fantasies of m a n - power planners than with the logic of market forces! Third, the h u m a n resources school had argued for the enhancement of the supply of trained, educated manpower in line with planned targets. In effect, this was leading to educatedVocational education and training: a major shift in World Bank policy 151 unemployment in terms of access to jobs in the small m o d e r n sectors of local economies. H o w - ever, the gratuitous assumption was then m a d e that the unemployment problem was due to curricular deficiencies: if a 'useless' academic curriculum were to be replaced by school-based vocational and agricultural training then the 'unemployment problem' would largely disap- pear. T o the contrary, I argued, the unemploy- m e n t p h e n o m e n o n would not be solved by cur- ricular change, since it resulted from a deficiency in effective d e m a n d for the educated in local labour markets. Moreover, simply increasing the supply of educated people would not, in itself, lead to economic growth without correlative changes occurring in local economies, and these changes should be based on market-oriented - not manpower-based - strategies. While not denying the role played by schooling in econ- omic development, I argued that the d e m a n d for education was itself a result of prior changes that had already occurred in local economies in terms of a m o v e m e n t from predominantly sub- sistence to exchange-type activities. T h u s , to be productive, educational expansion should be related to demands generated by the realities of local labour markets, and this led to what w e n o w term a ' d e m a n d ' - rather than a 'supply'- based perspective on educational development. F r o m this stance a n e w set of policy e m - phases could emerge. First, centralized plan- ning models and the whole apparatus of m a n - power planning should be replaced by economic strategies designed to enhance the efficiency of local labour markets. Since local populations were no less rational in their response to market forces than their counterparts in the developed worlds economic and educational policies should be based on the provision of incentives for indi- viduals to invest in both physical and educa- tional capital. This argued for a diminished role of the state in the direct provision of marketable skills for, since it was impossible accurately to predict market d e m a n d , it would seem more desirable for the state (or other educational pro- viders) to concentrate on the extension of a sound general education. T h e provision of most voca- tional training could be left to a developing pri- vate sector with an emphasis on on-the-job train- ing which could meet most market needs even in developed economies. Since agricultural development was then as n o w of central concern, it is worth noting m y original c o m m e n t : Vocational instruction in agriculture by itself can- not induce youth to take up farming until an institutional complex exists which makes the utili- zation of new techniques profitable and meaning- ful . . . no amount of formal technical, vocational or agricultural instruction alone is going to check the movement from the rural areas, reduce the volume of unemployment or indeed have any effect on the rate of economic development - the crucial variables lie instead within the structure of incentives within the economic system and the degree to which the institutional milieu is support- ive of entrepreneurial activity (Foster, 1965, p. 152). Research since that time has largely supported this conclusion: education plays a role in agri- cultural development but in terms of literacy and numeracy a m o n g farmers in the context of a market-oriented agriculture, and not as a result of agricultural instruction in the schools. T h u s the whole thrust of this approach provided a neo-classical economic perspective on the whole education/development issue, and its assumptions ran directly counter to those of the 'development economics' and ' h u m a n re- sources' school. While recognizing the role of education in development, it argued that indi- vidual and social returns on educational invest- men t could only be maximized in the context of a market-based and avowedly entrepreneurially oriented economic model and that technistic target-oriented educational planning should be replaced by incentive-based educational strate- gies. Finally, the article concluded with the ob- servation that the task was: (1) to ascertain where government activity in the field of education can make a contribution and w h e n it cannot; (2) to identify potential situations in which other agencies can with adequate in- ducements take over a large number of educa- tional functions; and (3) above all, to indicate what are the comparative advantages and limita-152 Philip Foster tíons of various types of educational programs in the schools and outside of them in economic growth (Foster, 1965, p . 162). T h u s current Bank policy concerning skills train- ing rests u p o n a set of assumptions about de- velopment derived from a neo-classical perspec- tive and represents an attempt to place the general observations m a d e in the preceding paragraph within a m o r e directly policy-oriented frame- work. Yet these were certainly not the Bank's views in the 1960s and 1970s and its present position represents a quite revolutionary change in its approach to the whole education/develop- m e n t controversy. In fact, in earlier years it was clear that the Bank's educational lending strategy rested in large measure on the assumptions of the early h u m a n resources approach. For the most part, support w a s funnelled into the provision of physical capital (educational buildings, equip- m e n t and technology) and major emphasis was placed o n vocational and technical training at the expense of the quantitative and qualitative improvement of general education, particularly at the primary level. Moreover, at the second- ary level, the B a n k supported the development of so-called 'diversified curricula' which in es- sence consisted of introducing vocational tracks or streams into the offerings of hitherto largely academic or general secondary institutions. N o w , w e are informed that the Bank proposes to re- duce massively its assistance to vocational and technical education and increase its support for improvement in the quality of general education at the primary and secondary level (World Bank, 1991). W h y has this change occurred? First, the accumulation of empirical evi- dence over the last quarter of a century largely points to the greater productivity of general as opposed to school-based vocational or specific skills training (Middleton et al., 1993). With few exceptions, the link between such training and subsequent job access is very loose. Fur- ther, the measured private and social returns on vocational training are usually lower than those accruing to general/academic education, while the products of vocational institutions are m o r e likely to be unemployed than their generally trained counterparts. At the same time, the Bank's o w n evaluations of its diversified curricula pro- g r a m m e show pretty clearly that it has been a failure (Psacharopoulos and Loxley, 1985). Apart from the results of specific field stud- ies, w e can also rely u p o n an impressive a m o u n t of historical evidence. Those societies which are usually regarded as the development 'success stories' of the post-war years - Ta iwan , the Republic of Korea, H o n g K o n g , Japan, and Singapore - all invested massively in education in their transition from low-income status. Yet public investment in schooling was overwhelm- ing concentrated o n the extension and qualita- tive improvement of general education: specific skills training was largely left to the private sec- tor, which trained its employees through a vari- ety of strategies ranging from informal on-the-job instruction to m o r e formal-type programmes . M o r e cogently, however, these programmes were successful in so far as they were conjoined with more general market-oriented development poli- cies. N o one can deny that the state played a significant role in initiating these strategies, but they were not based on the assumptions of cen- trally planned c o m m a n d economies of the ear- lier Soviet or Chinese type. Yet, empirical and historical evidence alone might not have led to substantial policy orientations at the Bank itself unless that insti- tution had begun, for the first time, to think very systematically about the role of education in economic development. For a long period, its o w n support for technical/vocational train- ing or diversified curricula rested on no m o r e than the prevailing 'conventional w i s d o m ' , but- tressed neither by hard evidence nor a body of coherent economic theory. T h e situation began to change, however, w h e n a n e w group of econo- mists schooled in a ' h u m a n capital' approach based on the tenets of neo-classical economic thinking began to play an increasing role in the work of the Education Department at the Bank . This group was not influenced by earlier tradi- tions of m a n p o w e r planning or supply-oriented educational policies but rather by a notion of incentive planning conducted within the frame-Vocational education and training: a major shift in World Bank policy 153 work of decentralized market-oriented econo- mies. In short, major decisions concerning the allocation of resources to and within the educa- tional sectors of less developed countries were economic decisions that could no longer be left only to the conventional orthodoxies of profes- sional educators or manpower planners. This commentary has attempted to explain why the Bank's educational policies with re- spect to skills training have changed. They are not the result of some n e w educational 'fad' or 'fancy' (we always have a plethora of these) but are rather the consequence of a long-term sea-change in the Bank's whole orientation on development issues. In broad context, they con- stitute a rout of the assumptions of the older 'development economics' tradition by a neo- classical perspective, while in the narrower edu- cational setting they represent the demise of the h u m a n resources tradition and its replacement by a market-oriented h u m a n capital approach. O n e only hopes that this rather lengthy set of observations will n o w enable the reader to return to the article by A d a m s , Middleton and Ziderman, published in this issue, with a clearer notion of the basic rationale that sustains it. Otherwise, some readers might get lost in a plethora of policy detail couched, perhaps, in the esoteric language of professional economists. Further, this essay will not reiterate the article by taking issue with it point by point. It is pref- erable to recast its prescriptions within a more general and perhaps shorter format, as follows: T h e Bank's present stance in no way re- flects a lessening of its general support for edu- cation in less developed countries. Indeed, one might anticipate a general increase in its total lending for education over the next decade, since the present climate at the Bank favours it. Thus w e might see a redirection but not a diminution in the general level of educational investment. Governments will be encouraged to increase their support for the quantitative expansion and above all qualitative improvement of primary and secondary general education, and presum- ably Bank lending will reflect this n e w e m p h a - sis. Hitherto, governments have often been told that they were spending too m u c h on 'academic' schooling and not enough on vocational edu- cation; but n o w they are informed that they have been doing the right thing but not doing it well enough. In practice, this means that schools will n o w be able to concentrate on the job that they do best, i.e. the provision of literacy and numeracy along with a background of general knowledge and elementary science: students will increasingly learn what they are expected to learn and no longer emerge from several years of schooling wimout even these basic skills. In an efficient market economy the state's formal educational role would be confined to the provision of better-quality general school- ing while specific skills training for employment would, by definition, be entirely handled by the private sector through a variety of programmes that would m o v e training closer to the realities of the market-place: ideally the state should m o v e out of the vocational education and skills train- ing business altogether. Thus , as a number of countries are n o w moving away from centrally planned toward market-based economies in re- sponse to the Bank's injunctions (along with their o w n generally disastrous experience with centralized planning), w e should also expect the direct public provision of skills training to dim- inish. T h e Bank is, however, perfectly aware that its ideal market economy does not exist, and thus the policy paper takes pains to specify four conditions (i.e. market imperfection, market failures, lack of private training capacity and dissatisfaction with the equity of market out- comes) under which the state might play a very constructive role in the provision of skills train- ing in a variety of pre-employment and post- employment settings. However, such interven- tion will be more efficient and equitable if it is done in close association with private employ- ers and aims to strengthen - not undercut - for example, traditional apprenticeship programmes and other types of privately inspired training. Just as vocational training is complementary to, and not a substitute for, general education, so state policy should attempt to complement, not replace, potentially viable private initiatives. All this suggests, then, that public agencies154 Philip Foster will normally still be left with a quite substantial agenda in the field of skills development in most less developed countries, although the character of this involvement will change: ideally, private training but, in practice, a fair degree of public involvement. T h e Bank is also fully aware that there are already a good number of very viable and efficient links between die public and pri- vate sector in a number of less developed coun- tries (particularly Latin America) and future policy initiatives will have to take a very careful look at what works and what doesn't in a whole range of different contextual situations. T h e present paper, however, pays scant attention to the fact that identification of successful experi- ments presupposes the existence of quite soph- isticated research, monitoring and evaluation capacity in less developed countries themselves. This is a point to which I shall return. T h e paper suggests that more general econ- omic reforms, especially in the operation of la- bour markets, are needed along with the n e w skills-training types of policy. T h e point must be m a d e that in a large number of less devel- oped countries a major restructuring in the di- rection of more market-oriented, decentralized economies is an essential pre-condition for the success of the Bank's n e w educational pro- g r a m m e . T h e current skills training initiative, in fact, reflects Bank and International M o n - etary Fund ( IMF) strategies for more general economic restructuring in some Third World nations: strategies which have often proved rather unpopular. Yet unless the 'skills training initia- tive' is conjoined with other structural econ- omic reforms I a m not sure that it will be suc- cessful. O n e might be forgiven for being rather sceptical about the viability of such policies in countries like the United Republic of Tanzania unless the governing élite of that nation aban- dons its whole policy of 'Education for Self- reliance'. Indeed, given its n e w market-oriented reforms, the People's Republic of China might provide a better locus for successful implemen- tation! Indeed, the problems of implementation are likely to prove formidable, for innovative strategies, however well-conceived, often fall by die wayside as a result of sheer inertia or the existence of a hostile political climate, and for a variety of reasons w e should not be too san- guine about the outcomes of the Bank's n e w policies. First, although the 1990 Jomtien Confer- ence represented an attempt to generate n e w enthusiasm for the greater provision of basic general education in poorer nations, there is lit- tle doubt that in some of them there is a degree of disillusionment arising from the apparent lack of benefits deriving from earlier educational expansion ( W C E F A , 1990). In particular, the nations of sub-Saharan Africa, which have m a d e herculean efforts to expand educational oppor- tunities over the last three decades, must w o n - der whether they have been worth while. Thus , yet another ' n e w initiative' m a y be met with a degree of scepticism. Moreover, as a result of the 'intuitive appeal' of the vocational school argument some countries are attempting to re- place general curricula with more vocational or 'practically' oriented offerings in their basic educational systems. Thus Kenya is implementing changes along these lines while, until very re- cently, the Republic of Indonesia was attempt- ing to introduce a substantial vocational c o m - ponent into general school curricula. However misguided these efforts m a y be, they run pre- cisely counter to the thrust of the Bank's initia- tive. Second, successful implementation rests in part on the credibility of the messenger. O n e cannot deny that there is currently widespread (if misplaced) resentment in some less devel- oped countries at the policies for economic re- construction being urged upon them. T h e fact that these policies often emanate from the I M F and not the World Bank does not prevent re- sentment spilling over onto the latter institu- tion. Furthermore, since local educational plan- ners are n o w being asked to accept a strategy which represents an almost total reversal of the Bank's early prescriptions, ministers of education can hardly be blamed for observing: 'If you say your earlier policies were misguided then w h y should w e believe you n o w ? ' Unless the Bank is prepared to undertake a substantial effort toVocational education and training: a major shift in World Bank policy 155 explain why its n e w strategies are soundly based rather than present them as a series of ready- m a d e prescriptions, it is not likely to be very convincing, and dare I say that Bank representa- tives are frequently respected for their analytic but not for their diplomatic abilities? Third, as the Bank well knows, implemen- tation capacity is crucial and, as is so often the case in the world of development aid, it is in the poorest nations that are most desperately in need where implementation will prove most difficult. Ironically, in so far as the Bank supports selec- tive well-timed involvement by the state in train- ing, its policies are more likely to be successful in more rather than less developed countries, for die research, monitoring and evaluation ac- tivities that are crucial to successful implemen- tation mandate the existence of a body of local expertise the development of which must itself constitute a part of the Bank's o w n training endeavours. Fourth, powerful interests always exist to confound change. M a n y of the élites in less developed nations, reared in the traditions of dirigiste state planning and still strongly opposed to the growth of a decentralized private sector, will find it difficult to c o m e to terms with the Bank's strategy. Local bureaucracies will also resent any diminution of their power to control directly all types of educational and training programmes, while it needs to be said that in ministries of education and international agen- cies, vocational educators still constitute p o w - erful political constituencies that will not look kindly upon these initiatives. Finally, two essential prerequisites must undergird any development strategy. These are so obvious that they receive virtually no atten- tion in the literature or are simply taken for granted. First, no policies are viable without the precondition of political stability and internal order: these are essential to the type of forward planning by individuals or institutions that is at the heart of market-oriented educational decis- ions. Second, all development programmes are obliged to proceed on the assumption that the state exhibits a genuine commitment to enhancing die welfare of its citizenry. T h e sad experience of some of the nations in the Third World in recent decades sometimes makes us sceptical of this assumption and, to m y knowledge, there is no development theory, market-oriented or not, that begins with the premise that in some na- tions the state is a 'predatory' and not a devel- opment-oriented institution. H o w far economic and educational reform can proceed without having profound implications for the political structures of some less developed nations is, perhaps fortunately, beyond the scope of this commentary! • References B E C K E R , G . S. 1964. Human Capital: a Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education. N e w York, National Bureau of Economic Research. (Distributed by Columbia University Press.) F O S T E R , P . 1965. The Vocational School Fallacy in Development Planning. In: C . A . Anderson and M . B o w m a n (eds), Education and Economic Development. Chicago, 111., Aldine Publishing Company. H A R B I S O N , F. H . 1967. Educational Planning in Human Resource Development. Paris, UNESCO/International Institute for Educational Planning. . 1973. Human Resources as the Wealth of Nations. N e w York, Oxford University Press. H A R B I S O N , F. H . ; M Y E R S , C . A . 1964. Education, Man- power and Economic Growth; Strategies of Human Resource Development. N e w York, McGraw-Hill. L A L , D . 1983. The Poverty of Development Economics. London, Institute of Economic Affairs. M I D D L E T O N , J.; Z I D E R M A N , A . ; A D A M S , A . V . 1993. Skills Training for Productivity: Vocational Education and Training in Developing Countries. N e w York, Oxford University Press. P S A C H A R O P O U L O S , G . ; LoxLEY, W . 1985. Curriculum Diversification in Colombia and Tanzania: An Evalua- tion. Baltimore, M d . , Johns Hopkins University Press. (A World Bank publication.) WCEFA (WORLD CONFERENCE ON EDUCATION FOR ALL) . 1990. Meeting Basic Learning Needs: A Vision for the 1990s. Inter-Agency Commission ( U N D P , U N E S C O , U N I C E F , The World Bank). N e w York, U N I C E F . W O R L D B A N K . 1991. Vocational and Technical Education and Training: A World Bank Policy Paper. Washing- ton, D C .O P E N FILE Pluralistic education in a changing world: II. Case-studies jPluralistic education in sub-Saharan Africa A n overview Thomas Mulusa With a long history of devastating slave trade and slavery, followed by about one hundred years of colonization and political domination by alien minorities, and brutal exploitation of the indig- enous people of Africa, sub-Saharan Africa should be at the forefront of the current effort to re- store pluralism wherever it has been eroded in the world. Indeed, during the struggle for lib- eration from colonialism, Africa had m a n y ad- vocates of pluralism w h o eloquently spoke for 'one m a n , one vote', the equitable distribution of wealth and equal access to, and benefits from, public institutions. Education was seen as an important force in determining progress from colonial oppression to political and social plu- ralism. In the process of bringing change to all sectors of national life, education was also ex- pected to reform and prepare itself for future challenges in a m o r e plural society. T h o m a s Mulusa (Kenya). Former Director of Ex- tramural Studies at the Institute of Adult Studies and Senior Lecturer in Curriculum Studies in the College of Education and External Studies at the University of Nairobi, he is currently doing private consultancy work. His fields of interest include curriculum studies, evaluation research and adult education. Recent pub- lications include a chapter in Development A d m i n - istration: T h e Kenya Experience (Oxford Univer- sity Press) and Evaluation Research for Beginners: A Practical Guide (published by the German Foun- dation for International Development and the Uni- versity of Nairobi). Colonial education was seen by African nationalists as irrelevant at best to the African environment. It was imported from industrial- ized, Western and Christian societies and could not fulfil the needs of a rural, peasant society in sub-Saharan Africa. A t worst, colonial education was a process of dilution of African traditions and aspirations, and an imposition of European norms and values. Furthermore, colonial edu- cation was characterized by discriminatory prac- tices and prejudice based on ethnic, religious and gender differences; disparities in the distri- bution of educational supply between different regions and communities; and the evolution and/ or enhancement of inequalities between indi- viduals and communities. T o serve the aspira- tions of African nationalists towards developing an egalitarian society in sub-Saharan Africa, colonial education needed a drastic transforma- tion. It is surprising that o n attainment of politi- cal liberation mos t countries of sub-Saharan Africa seemed to lose the interest and will to reform their educational system for use in trans- forming other sectors of life. W h a t went wrong , one might ask? Is it possible that pluralism was a ploy used to wrest political power out of the hands of the colonialist and to be discarded once the political battle was w o n , or have African leaders changed their post-independence agenda, relegating pluralism to an inferior status? African leaders cannot claim to have been short of ideas o n educational development dur- Prospects, Vol. XXII, [, N o . 2, 1992 (82)160 Thomas Mulusa ing the post-independence period. Over the past three decades educational strategy has been a subject of intense interest and investigation by educational philosophers, planners and research- ers w h o have generated a wealth of ideas, strat- egies and models on educational structure in poor countries. International, national and local educational conferences, seminars and workshops have at the same time m a d e numerous sugges- tions on h o w best to develop education in poor countries. In this article, educational pluralism is de- fined as providing equal access to and benefits from an education system. T h e article attempts to examine nine selected issues which seem to be closely associated with educational pluralism in sub-Saharan Africa, namely racism, tribal- ism, growing income disparities, regional dis- parities in educational supply, religious influ- ence in education, language policy, sex inequality, age prejudice and discrimination against handi- capped persons. Developments in each of these issues will be examined with a view to identify- ing broad policy directions for the future. A s might be expected, there are strong link- ages and areas of overlap between the issues selected for the article. It should also be ex- pected that the occurrence and intensity of the issues and the manner in which they interact with education would vary from country to coun- try. A n d , above all, the issues selected for this article do not necessarily represent all the fac- tors that impinge on educational pluralism in sub-Saharan countries. Other analysts m a y choose to describe or label the factors differently, but the important point is to show whether the is- sues are relevant to the provision of, access to and benefits from an education system. A s implied above, in this article 'sub-Saharan African' refers to all countries in Africa that are south of the Sahara, including the Republic of South Africa. Obviously, the Sahara is not a precise geographical divide. A number of coun- tries which clearly fall in the sub-Saharan re- gion, such as the Sudan, Chad , Niger and Mali, extend deep into the Sahara desert. However, the geographical limits of a country are not a major concern of this article and do not make a significant difference to the range or intensity of the issues under discussion. Racial segregation in schools T h e main curse of colonial education in sub- Saharan Africa was classification of schools on racial bases. In East Africa, especially Kenya, separate schools were developed for Europeans, Indians, Arabs and Africans, while in South Africa the main racial groupings were Europeans, Asians, coloureds and Africans. T h e countries which had small ruling communities exercised their racial segregation informally by providing high- cost elementary education for European chil- dren locally and sending them, at government expense, for higher education to Europe or to countries which had institutional segregation in eastern, central and southern Africa. O n e of the objectives of segregation in schools was to control educational supply to different racial groups. Before the Second World W a r all school-age European children in Africa had ac- cess to primary and secondary education while, according to Rodney only 10 per cent of African children in former British territories and 5 per cent in French territories had access to primary education. Over 50 per cent of the Africans w h o were admitted to primary school dropped out before they completed the primary cycle, and only 10 per cent of the primary-school leavers secured places at the one or two secondary schools available in each country. In 1938, the French provided education to 77,000 pupils out of a population of 15 million in French Wes t Africa (Rodney, 1972, p . 265). In 1959 Uganda spent £11 on educating an African child, £ 3 8 on an Asian child and £186 on each European child per year. T h e expenditure gaps were wider in Kenya, Z imba- b w e (formerly Rhodesia) and South Africa, where race segregation was at that time institutional- ized. Differential funding was reflected in the quality of educational opportunities provided to different races on the one hand and the drop-Pluralistic education in sub-! •Sanaran Africa: an overview 161 out rate o n the other. T h e European schools, which could afford essential educational facili- ties, equipment, materials and highly qualified teachers, had a high retention rate, while Afri- can schools, with inadequate resources and teach- ers, had a high drop-out rate, especially at the lower levels. T o justify political domination by alien minorities and school segregation in pre-inde- pendence sub-Saharan Africa, colonialists in- voked the theories of Caucasian intellectual su- periority over black races as propounded by various nineteenth-century scientists in G e r m a n y , the United K i n g d o m and the United States. A black m a n could not be educated, he could only be trained to work with his hands and eyes. T h e concept of an inferior black m a n found s o m e sympathy with the Asian residents of Af - rica, whose social system w a s based on the caste system. A s the colonial classification placed them in between the Caucasians and the Africans, they were m a d e to feel superior to Africans and fairly close to the Europeans. T h e British Colo- nial Office embraced the concept of an intellec- tually inferior black m a n as well as the proposi- tion to provide a practical, skills-oriented education to Africans o n the lines of the Jeanes School M o v e m e n t for American blacks in the southern United States. T h e British Colonial Office appointed the Phelps Stoke Commiss ion in the 1920s to sell the idea of practical edu- cation to African leaders in Wes t , East and South Africa. American blacks and D r Aggrey of G h a n a were appointed to the commission to give cred- ibility to the concept of practical education for Africans. T h e strength of racial segregation in sub- Saharan Africa w a s also its greatest weakness. Claims to racial superiority, whether valid or not, did not morally justify political domination and exploitation of the majority by an alien m i - nority. H e n c e , the struggle for political libera- tion in which school segregation was an impor- tant item on the agenda. O n attainment of political independence most sub-Saharan countries i m - mediately enacted n e w laws abolishing segrega- tion in public schools, and giving the govern- m e n t greater control over the education system. Legislation alone did not physically abol- ish the inequality inherent in the formerly seg- regated structures. It was argued, for example, that the schools for the privileged races pro- vided quality education and should therefore continue to serve the newly independent coun- try provided they opened their doors to all aca- demically qualified children. Meanwhile , n e w private schools emerged to cater for foreigners working in African countries plus the rich and powerful Africans w h o wanted special educa- tional opportunities for their children. A t this juncture, the ranks of the African nationalists were split, with one group insisting o n equal opportunities for all while the other felt that individuals w h o could afford higher-quality edu- cation for their children should have the free- d o m to establish and run their schools privately; otherwise they would be tempted to send their children out of the country. Tribalism Like racism, tribalism is based o n unfounded beliefs about the superiority of one's ethnic group over other groups and the fear of either losing privileges presently enjoyed or being exploited by m o r e powerful tribal groups. Tribal feelings are often intensified w h e n m e m b e r s of the same ethnic group live in the same geographical re- gion or belong to the same religious organiza- tion, political party or other social m o v e m e n t . Western education w a s not evenly supplied to all tribal groups in the region during the forma- tive stages of m o d e r n education. T h e initial re- lationship between the missionaries w h o con- trolled educational opportunities and the different groups determined the location of schools. G e n - erally, densely populated regions, centres of tra- ditional rulers and areas not influenced by Is- lam and other competing religions attracted Christian schools. Between the colonizing p o w - ers and the Christian groups in the field, it was decided where, and under which missionary organization, each tribe should fall.162 Thomas Mulusa Tribal groups which had access to m a n y schools built up the literacy level of their m e m - bers rapidly, produced teachers and other so- cial workers for the local area and tended to dominate both the public service and the na- tional business sector. T h e educational gap be- tween the tribes which thus developed during the colonial period became an economic gap in the post-independence period. In order to retain the tribal balance or domi- nance, schoolchildren are encouraged by teach- ers, parents and community leaders to excel in public examinations and assure themselves of positions of responsibility in the national workforce. Because of tribal competition in public examinations in Kenya, for example, school- children start classes two hours before the offi- cial start of the day, continue with classes two to three hours after the official end of the day, and study on Saturdays, Sundays and during school holidays. Thus they spend twelve hours a day in class instead of seven or eight hours, and their academic year is over 300 days in- stead of the official 180. T h e learning process is modified to fit the cut-throat competition for high grades in pub- lic examinations. T h e teachers use all the tricks they can to enable their children to perform well in public examinations, including drilling them on h o w to answer examination questions and giving frequent trial tests, k n o w n in Kenya as m o c k examinations. It is not k n o w n h o w m u c h cheating goes on in this system, since the public examina- tions are set and marked by individuals from competing communities. Cases in which exami- nation papers have been opened in advance and children trained h o w to answer the questions have occasionally been suspected or detected. But m u c h more examination manipulation could be happening to reward or punish friendly or enemy tribes than is k n o w n or admitted of- ficially. Unlike racism, tribalism is difficult to legis- late against, especially w h e n it is encouraged by powerful individuals in government. Those w h o practise it are the first to condemn it, but they dare not introduce rules that might expose them. Forms of tribal competition within xhe. school system are often subtle and difficult to detect. T h e more m u n d a n e features of tribal competi- tion, such as excluding teachers or pupils from outside the tribe or district from the local school, do not normally happen openly. In Kenya, schools are required to reserve a m i n i m u m of 85 per cent of the places available for the children from the district in which the school is situated, leav- ing a m a x i m u m of 15 per cent for outsiders, while in Nigeria students from outside the state are m a d e to pay higher school fees. Growing income disparities T h e most dramatic development in sub-Saha- ran Africa during the past three decades has been the increasing income gap between indi- viduals, families, ethnic groups and regional areas. A small class of wealthy and politically power- ful people w h o o w n large tracts of land and property and have a controlling influence in industry and commerce has emerged and as- sumed responsibility for setting standards for the rest of society. Alongside the rich and the powerful, a weaker but more numerous middle class of salaried public servants, middle-level managers in industry and commerce, small-scale farmers and tradesmen is emerging. This class lives slightly above the poverty line, and some of its members are in transition either up to the wealthy and powerful class or d o w n to the poor and powerless. Nearly 80 per cent of the popu- lation falls in the poor and powerless class of subsistence farmers, sharecroppers, squatters living at the mercy of their landlords, menial and subordinate workers in wage employment and unemployed poor urban dwellers w h o live below the poverty line. Because most countries of sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford to provide free education to all school-age children, the quality and quan- tity of education available are determined by one's income group. T h e wealthy and powerful can afford to pay for expensive education fromPluralistic education in sub-Saharan Africa: an overview 163 local private schools, public schools or schools in foreign countries, which are out of the reach of middle- and low-income groups. Even w h e n admitted to the same school, children from different income strata do not enjoy equal learning opportunities. Children from wealthy and powerful families have the medical care they need, regular and nutritious meals, suitable learning materials and equipment, and time for h o m e study, all of which enable them to secure more than their share of the national educational opportunities. Children from low- income groups are not able to afford the basic requirements for low-cost schools, which include simple clothing and minimal learning materials such as paper and pencils, not to mention the supportive environment which consists of medical services, regular meals, decent learning space, out-of-school learning opportunities and gen- eral social security. A m o n g the poor children w h o enrol in primary school a large proportion, varying from 30 to 60 per cent, drop out before they complete the primary cycle. At higher lev- els the poor continue to drop out at a higher rate than children from rich families. D u e to unfair competition in public and expensive schools, attempts have been m a d e in a number of countries to provide poor c o m m u - nities with cheaper schools on a self-help basis. In practice, however, community schools in- variably turn out to be more expensive than public schools, as they have to pay teachers, buy their o w n equipment and materials and meet m a n y other expenses which are paid for in public schools by the taxpayer. Despite this heavy ex- pense to the poor, the community schools pro- vide very low-quality learning opportunities. Studies of the harambee, or community sec- ondary schools, in Kenya during the 1970s showed that the schools were so expensive that, instead of serving the poor for w h o m they were devel- oped, they had become outlets for children from middle-income groups w h o could not compete for places in the public school system or afford the cost of local private or overseas schools. M o s t of the very poor drop out of the school system at the end of the secondary cycle, and those w h o remain in the system must pass with distinction to win scholarships for higher edu- cation, as their parents cannot afford to pay for private university education locally or out of the country. T h e current World Bank and Interna- tional Monetary Fund doctrine of structural ad- justment for most of sub-Saharan Africa will further disadvantage the poorest, w h o are least able to share the cost of their education and other social amenities widi the government. Regional disparities Vast areas of sub-Saharan Africa fall within two regions of semi-arid lands which stretch from Senegal and the G a m b i a to the west, through Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad , the Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia to the north and Namibia, western parts of the Republic of South Africa, Botswana, the south of Angola and the south- west of Zambia to the south. T h e semi-arid lands constitute a harsh environment with very high and uncomfortable temperatures and lack of water for domestic use and for economic production. T h e harsh environment forces the population to m o v e over large areas to find adequate water and grazing. Consequently, or- ganized educational activities tend to have low priority in the lives of the nomadic people of the semi-arid lands of sub-Saharan Africa. Provision of educational opportunities in semi-arid lands is expensive and difficult to ad- minister, but nevertheless some of the following measures have been tried to enable the nomadic people to acquire education. First, residential schools have been provided from the lowest lev- els of primary education to enable children to continue with education while their parents m o v e around vast areas in search of water and pasture for their animals. Secondly, attempts have been m a d e to establish mobile schools which can m o v e along with the population. Thirdly, it has been proposed that both electronic and print media, and more specifically the transistor radio, should be used increasingly in the education of no- madic communities.164 Thomas Mulusa All the alternative teaching methods de- signed for nomadic populations are m u c h more expensive than conventional learning places used in the more wealthy areas, and do not c o m - pletely fulfil the needs of the nomadic family. Both the boarding schools and mobile class- rooms expect parents to forgo the help nor- mally expected from children during the aca- demic term or die working hours of the day, while the electronic or print media approach assumes that the learners have the motivation, discipline and learning skills to conduct their o w n learning with remote assistance from the radio station or correspondence college pub- lishing houses. T h e governments in the semi-arid regions and their donors see education as the panacea for development of the nomadic people and mistakenly feel that the development priority for the area is educational materials and equip- ment. According to the World Bank policy study on education in sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank, 1988), the percentages for enrolment of school- age children in 1983 in the region were: S o m a - lia, 21 per cent; Mali, 23 per cent; Niger, 26 per cent; Burkina Faso, 27 per cent; Chad, 38 per cent; and Ethiopia, 38 per cent. In contrast, the percentage enrolments in the higher rainfall areas were: Guinea, 79 per cent; Mozambique, 79 per cent; the United Republic of Tanzania, 87 per cent; Zaire, 90 per cent; Zambia, 100 per cent; T o g o , 102 per cent; Lesotho, 110 per cent (in 1982); Swaziland, 111 per cent; and Zimbabwe, 131 per cent. T h e trends of development in southern arid regions, as exemplified by Botswana with an enrolment of 102 per cent, suggest that the arid regions are capable of development. Compara- ble dry lands in other continents have higher school enrolments and higher standards of living. Religious influence A s stated above, early development of modern education was influenced by Christian organi- zations which sent their missionaries alongside the colonizing forces to carve out areas of influ- ence for their churches. Naturally, the domi- nant religion from a colonizing power tended to work closely with the colonial administration, to influence all sectors of social development, and where possible to make it difficult for other religions to take root within the colony. Education became an important weapon in the spread of Christianity. Communities which embraced the dominant church were admitted to the schools sponsored by the church, while individuals and groups w h o held fast to their traditional beliefs or associated with less influ- ential religions were excluded. T h e churches brought up young people to believe that reli- gions other than their o w n were misguided and sinful. In territories which had strong traditional rulers like Uganda, Christian missionaries es- tablished special schools for the rulers, such as King's College B u d o for Protestants and Namiliango College for Catholics, to intensify their control over their communities. At independence, most African countries found it necessary to reduce the influence of religions in public schools to guard against ex- cluding individuals from educational institutions because of their religious beliefs. While religious competition in school management was easy to reduce by legislation, the indirect influence through political education was impossible to curtail. T h e problem that has not been resolved by most African countries is h o w to cater for the individual's conscience without handing school control back to religious organizations. Language T h e two main issues associated with language in schools in sub-Saharan Africa are the choice of the official language to be used in teaching and learning all subjects and the teaching of other languages as a means of integrating dif- ferent ethnic groups and creating unity in the country.Pluralistic education in sub-! •Sanaran Africa: an overview 165 In all the sub-Saharan countries, the colo- nial era determined what language each coun- try would use in its schools. A s a rule, the lan- guage of the colonial ruler became the official government language and the m e d i u m of in- struction in schools. In the former British colo- nies English was a compulsory subject in all public examinations and a measure of educa- tional advancement and success at school. If a candidate failed in English at a certain exami- nation, he/she failed the entire examination ir- respective of performance in other subjects. T h u s Africa emerged out of the colonial period with three m a i n language regions: anglophone, francophone and lusophone. Colonialism thus helped to reduce the h u n - dreds of African languages to three international languages. But there are still numerous ques- tions to be asked about: the effect of foreign languages o n African culture; the judging of educational achievement o n the basis of m a s - tery of a foreign language; the levels at which foreign languages should be introduced in school; whether illiterate adults should be taught en- tirely in local languages, or be required to read and write in national languages; and what should be done to give learners from rural areas and illiterate h o m e s a fair chance in an educational system dominated by a foreign language. These simple questions do not have simple answers. Local languages, o n the other hand, pose insurmountable problems. G h a n a has fifty dif- ferent languages and dialects, Côte d'Ivoire has five, Z a m b i a has five and K e n y a about forty languages and dialects, of which one category has basic reading materials such as the Bible and elementary school books, a second category has a script and no written materials and a third category has no script. S o m e of the languages which are spoken by a population as small as one hundred people would be very expensive to develop. Since most African countries already have difficulties in providing sufficient reading materials in the present official languages, they would have even greater difficulties in trying to develop several languages to be used in the school system. Politically, however, all languages are equal and n o African will accept that his or her lan- guage is minor or inferior to other languages and therefore should not be developed. In coun- tries where the colonial regime developed one language at the expense of other widely spoken languages, such as Luganda in U g a n d a , there is deep-seated resentment of the imposed language. A n u m b e r of countries have arbitrarily selected a few widely spoken languages for intra-national communication and teaching at school, such as Shona and Ndebele in Z i m b a b w e . Nigeria has probably c o m e out with the clearest language policy in sub-Saharan Africa with its Federal Republic of Nigeria National Policy o n Education of 1977. 'Appreciating the importance of language in the educational process and as a m e a n s of preserving the people's cul- ture', the Government of Nigeria decided that it was in the interest of national unity that each child should be encouraged to learn one of the three major languages other than his or her mother tongue. T h e three major languages are Hausa , Ibo and Yoruba. Other countries, such as the United R e - public of Tanzania and K e n y a , have had no problem in developing a local language for the school system. Kiswahili has g r o w n over the past 100 years to b e c o m e the lingua franca of K e n y a and the United Republic of Tanzania and is also widely spoken in U g a n d a , R w a n d a , Burundi, the C o n g o , Zaire and Malawi. Kiswahili is a language that developed along the coast of K e n y a and the United Republic of Tanzania, borrowing words from the Bantu languages, Arabic, Portuguese and English. It w a s not as- sociated with one ethnic or political group, and therefore has aroused n o resentment wherever it is spoken. While English, French and Portuguese have united clusters of tribal groups into nations with links to the anglophone, francophone and lusophone worlds, these languages have at other levels inhibited interaction between Africans, especially along borders which in m a n y cases cut across groups that speak the same local lan- guages. It seems that the Portuguese have m a d e an effort to encourage knowledge of English and French in their area, and to a lesser extent166 Thomas Mulusa the French allowed some English and Portu- guese to infiltrate their regions. T h e English colonizers seem to have m a d e the least effort to encourage the teaching of other international languages in their former colonies, making English speakers least flexible in international circles. Sex inequalities Sex inequality is an international tradition, jus- tified in some countries on a religious and cul- tural basis and practised openly, and in other countries condoned although not practised openly. Both m e n and w o m e n in sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere in the world, are respon- sible for the various forms of discriminatory practices perpetrated against w o m e n . Practically all the religions which invaded Africa from Europe, the Middle East and Asia - and more specifically Christianity, Islam and Hinduism - are k n o w n to accord inferior status to w o m e n . Surprisingly, there were remarkable similarities between the foreign religions and some African traditions. Like the Christians, the Baganda of Uganda, for example, saw a m a n as head or king of the family. T h e w o m a n was not a queen in the same family but a mere servant. T h e Kalenjin of Kenya had similar attitudes to w o m e n as the Muslims. A w o m a n , particularly a breast-feeding mother, was seen by both as unclean and unfit to appear before m e n . T h e image of w o m e n was further eroded by the tendency for land and other property to be owned or held by m e n ; the practice of w o m e n moving from their homes to the homes of their husbands after marriage; and the difficulty of w o m e n maintaining wage employment actively during the child-bearing years. Without exception, w o m e n have been given fewer educational opportunities, in spite of pressure from international educational conferences and h u m a n rights organizations. Table 1, on the en- rolment of boys and girls in selected sub-Saha- ran schools, shows h o w , in countries with lim- ited educational opportunities, those limited opportunities are shared between m e n and w o m e n . In all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa there are invariably fewer girls enrolled than boys. In the Sahel region in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger the enrolment of girls is about half that of boys, possibly because of the Musl im religion, which to some degree marginalizes w o m e n more than Christianity. But what is re- markable, both in the semi-arid and the high rainfall areas, is the higher drop-out rate of w o m e n further up the academic ladder. At primary level the boy/girl ratio is 3:2, at secondary level it is 2:1; and at university it varies from 3:1 to 6:1. Studies all over Africa have shown that despite official support for girls' education and frequent supportive public rhetoric, most par- ents, communities and governments still give higher priority to boys' education. Girls are also victims of other social forces such as early m a r - riage to bring dowry m o n e y for their families, the need to use them in the h o m e as domestic servants and interruption of their educational careers by pregnancies. At school w o m e n are still discouraged from learning intellectually rigorous subjects such as mathematics and physical sciences in favour of 'feminine courses' associated with domestic work like sewing, knitting and cookery. It is only re- cently that w o m e n have ventured into the study of agriculture, veterinary medicine, medicine, law and engineering. But they have yet to be integrated fully in these professions. T A B L E 1. Enrolment of boys and girls in the formal edu- cation system in 1983 as a percentage of the age-group Country Primary Secondary Higher Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Mali 30 18 10 4 1.8 0.2 Burkina Faso 34 20 5 3 0.9 0.3 Niger 34 19 9 3 0.8 0.2 Gambia 85 51 27 12 - Malawi 68 48 6 2 - - Zambia 105 95 22 12 2.5 0.7 Cameroon 117 98 27 16 2.9 0.4 Source: World Bank, Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies for Ad- justment, Revitalizatixm and Expansion, p. 131, Washington, D . C . , World Bank, 1988.Pluralistic education in sub-Saharan Africa: an overview 167 Age prejudice W h e n educators write books for or about learn- ers they refer to them as children, implying education is for children. Accordiagly, certain educationists have taken the bold step of pre- scribing the schoolgoing age for sub-Saharan Africa. A number of Third World scholars like Julius Nyerere have, with justification, questioned the wisdom of taking a child to primary school at the tender age of 6 and forcing him out at the age of 12 to 14 years to start adulthood. It is even more questionable w h y there should be age restrictions on admission to higher education. A s observed above, children in the Sahel and other hardship areas are not likely to start school at the 'right age' of 6 due to circum- stances over which they and their parents have no control. Even in areas which have adequate educational opportunities, individuals m a y miss entry to school at the 'official age' owing to illness and other problems in their lives. Late admission to primary automatically leads to late entry to higher levels of the formal education system. Individuals w h o are considered over-age are either excluded from the system or diverted to alternative education given to out-of-school youth, which includes practical training in agri- culture, building, metalwork, basket-weaving and carpentry for m e n and h o m e science courses for w o m e n . A g e limits were used by governments in developed countries to force parents to keep their children at school for a specified period. In some sub-Saharan countries age limits are often used negatively to keep out people w h o are too old for the system. At the age of 15 or 16 an individual is considered to be too old to start primary education, and since primary schools feed secondary schools, which in turn feed higher institutions, failure to join primary school at the right age means missing the boat for life. Adult education is by and large considered a waste of time and resources. Handicapped learners There are two categories of handicapped learn- ers - physically and mentally handicapped. Both are associated with a variety of negative beliefs and prejudice in sub-Saharan Africa. A n y form of handicap is seen as a punishment to the fam- ily for bad conduct, administered by higher forces, or a sign of inherent weakness and deficiencies within the family which could be transmitted to other people through marriage or other close interaction. In traditional societies certain forms of physical handicap were kept secret for long periods and die traditional society did not de- velop methods of coping with them. T h e school system throughout sub-Saharan Africa is still preoccupied with providing sufficient educational opportunities to 'normal learners'. If there are government officers responsible for handicapped children, their role is confined to taking statis- tics of the learners w h o need special attention and occasionally persuading teachers to cope with handicapped learners as best they can. A few governments in sub-Saharan Africa have started incorporating special education in teacher education, or providing special training to teachers to take care of handicapped learn- ers, but as yet there is no firm policy on h o w to integrate young people with various disabilities into the school system, and thereafter in life. Policy implications Throughout the struggle for political liberation, the people of sub-Saharan Africa had devel- oped tremendous confidence in education as the panacea for development. Three decades of independence seem to show that education has not only failed to perform the development miracle expected of it, but has not even ad- justed itself to die needs of the people. Racial segregation in schools was one of the main ills which the people of sub-Saharan168 Thomas Mulusa Africa fought against in their struggle for politi- cal liberation. O n attainment of independence most African governments enacted laws abol- ishing segregation in schools. It was, however, not easy to dismantle the privileged schools, to root out racism and to equalize educational opportunities in countries which formally had legalized school segregation. Feelings of emerging ethnic superiority are widespread, especially among tribal groups which enjoy a dominating political influence in their countries. Such feelings can be minimized by legislation and regulations that encourage the mixing of different ethnic groups in schools and other national institutions and the teaching of the cultures and history of different ethnic groups in the country. T h e main ethnic problem is knowing what to do with groups that are able to establish and maintain exclusive schools and social clubs for their ethnic communities. Is the m a - jority justified in imposing educational plural- ism on unwilling minorities? During the colonial era, racism was most pronounced where an alien minority imposed itself on the indigenous population, for exam- ple, in the Sahel region or the Sudan, which had a large Arab population living alongside a black African population. T h e problems of al- ien minorities were solved by the act of political liberation, which paved the way for educational pluralism. Countries with internal problems of confrontation need to deal with these political problems before addressing the issue of educa- tional pluralism. Tribalism, like racism, is based on the fear of losing existing privileges, or the hunger for domination and exploitation of other ethnic groups. Since education is seen as a tool for development and domination of the less devel- oped, parents, teachers and community leaders in the grip of tribalism have tended to encour- age children from their tribe to perform well educationally, using both conventional and un- conventional methods and preventing children from other tribal groups from taking advantage of educational opportunities in their districts or states. T h e main problem which African coun- tries should address is h o w to minimize compe- tition in schools and make public examinations less of a tribal war and more of a process for identifying talent and competence. Using the final examination as a means of measuring abil- ity and achievement seems to intensify the tribal competition. Emerging income classes pose a threat to educational pluralism in sub-Saharan Africa. T h e recent collapse of socialism in the former So - viet Union and Eastern Europe seems to give m o m e n t u m and a sense of Tightness to the emergence of social stratification in sub-Saha- ran Africa. T h e wealthy and powerful have used existing socio-economic institutions to propel themselves into their present positions and can- not introduce laws and regulations that might destroy such institutions. T h e poorest of the poor, w h o should be clamouring for change, have helplessly accepted the status quo as in- evitable, or hoped that their chance to escape from poverty is yet to come, but that it is surely on its way. It is not possible to give equal educational opportunities to individuals from different in- come groups. Sub-Saharan Africa must con- sider again whether there are practical middle roads between rigid social stratification and so- cialism. In order to rescue the people of the semi- arid lands of sub-Saharan Africa from their present state of development inertia, it must be recognized that education is not their highest priority. They do not need paper and pencils to develop. Their basic need is water for domestic use and their animals. After this basic need has been fulfilled, or a different economic system put in place, there is no doubt that the motiva- tion for education and other needs will increase. Parts of Australia and the United States - such as Texas - which have a rainfall of less than 10 inches per year have fairly high stand- ards of living for their people. T h e experience of the Republic of South Africa, Namibia and Botswana also suggests that the people of the semi-arid areas can develop and have a strong educational system if development is approached from the standpoint of the most basic needs. During the colonial period education wasPluralistic education in sub-l •Saharan Africa: an overview 169 characterized by fierce competition and con- flict between religious organizations. Nationali- zation of education in most of sub-Saharan Africa curtailed what had been a long and endless re- ligious war. Bu t the role played by religious organizations in education has yet to be clearly defined, without inhibiting the teaching of moral and religious education in schools for those w h o need it. T h e main question governments need to address at the m o m e n t is whether there is a need, and sufficient justification, to control the growth of n e w religious schools and universi- ties, thus limiting religion to informal education and religious instruction in schools. O n the language problem, Nigeria has taken a decision that all African countries which are puzzled by the debate on official language should consider seriously. While the international lan- guage inherited from the colonial period should be maintained for communication with the out- side world, there is merit in teaching selected local languages as compulsory subjects. A t the same time, anglophone countries should take French, Portuguese and other international lan- guages like G e r m a n and Russian m o r e seriously. Instead of concentrating o n the history, geogra- phy and political science of practically the whole world, s o m e of this time would be invested m o r e profitably in learning one other international language. W o m e n ' s education is probably the most important issue that educationists should be reviewing, not only in sub-Saharan Africa but throughout the world. W o m e n will, however, not be given equal educational opportunities unless the legal framework, working conditions and all the economic and social institutions ac- cept them as complete h u m a n beings. T h e starting point for reform is to review the laws, govern- m e n t regulations and terms of employment in all national institutions. Secondly, educational content should be reviewed to highlight the study of social institu- tions and the role of w o m e n in such institu- tions. M o s t national constitutions provide for the rights and freedoms of individuals, which seem to be interpreted in most countries to m e a n the rights and privileges of m e n . It is surprising h o w m a n y people, m e n and w o m e n , do not know their rights and freedoms. S o m e m e n might benefit from changes in educational content to enable individuals to rediscover their rights vis- à-vis the powers of governments and the rights of public authorities, social institutions and other individuals. In the struggle to reclaim their rights and freedoms, w o m e n must be careful not to be manipulated by male politicians w h o appoint their wives, girlfriends and other relatives, or the relatives of heads of state, cabinet ministers, senior civil servants and other public servants, to positions they do not deserve. Such window- dressing benefits politicians and undermines the struggle for w o m e n ' s liberation. A g e limits which have been used in devel- oped countries to keep young people at school have, surprisingly, been used in sub-Saharan Africa to exclude learners from the school sys- tem. At university level the age limit makes no sense, although m a n y universities in sub-Saha- ran Africa give admission preference to second- ary-school leavers, thus becoming like senior secondary schools. There is a need for flexible educational structures in sub-Saharan countries which al- low individuals to begin at any age, to drop out w h e n they lose interest, and to rejoin w h e n their motivation rises again. For a long time, China has m a d e no distinction between school edu- cation and adult education. W h e n Chinese adults feel motivated to seek further education, they select their courses from the formal school syl- labus. There seems to be a need for firmer bridges between school education and out-of-school education in sub-Saharan Africa. T h e first priority of sub-Saharan countries upon attainment of political liberation was to develop manpower for all the administrative, technical and support roles that a n e w nation requires. After twenty to thirty years of inde- pendence the manpower needs of most sub- Saharan countries have been met. It is therefore understandable, although not excusable, that most such countries have not shifted the focus of education from manpower needs to social wel- fare goals. It is not excusable because it gives170 Thomas Mulusa low priority to handicapped persons. If w e fol- lowed reason and logic, the handicapped and all weaker persons in the community should be given high priority by the school system. Those w h o can see, hear, walk, speak and live 'normal lives' without support should not continue to receive attention from education authorities at the expense of the handicapped. Such a policy lacks moral justification. Unanimous support for pluralism in sub-Saha- ran Africa during die struggle for political lib- eration was not a dishonest tactical trick by African nationalists to seize political power, but a genu- ine reaction, by a majority of African people, to colonial oppression. O n attainment of political independence the social environment changed considerably, and required n e w approaches to social problems. T h e nationalist m o v e m e n t was evidently split into a small group of rulers and a large mass of subjects w h o had a different per- ception of development problems in general and pluralism in education in particular. T h e ruling élite was preoccupied with governance and play- ing n e w roles in both national and international affairs, and saw educational pluralism as a highly contentious issue which, by that very fact, did not deserve high priority in the post-independ- ence political agenda. Educational pluralism was a source of embarrassment to governments in sub-Saharan Africa. Over the past three decades international conferences have m a d e numerous basic and urgent recommendations on the expansion of educational opportunities, but these have not been implemented in the region because of lack of resources. Provision of wide access to and benefits from education in sub-Saharan Africa does not depend entirely on tinkering with the school curriculum and school management. Educational reform and improvement must address the whole education system, including out-of-school edu- cation and the social environment which directly or indirectly influences education. While the purpose of reform is to benefit the m a n y , it is debatable whether the few w h o do not accept pluralism should be forced to do so. • References and bibliography A F R I C A N D E V E L O P M E N T B A N K . 1986. Education Sector Policy Paper. Abidjan. B R U H N , T . C . 1984. African Lingua Francas. Washing- ton, D . C . , Center for Applied Linguistics, Washing- ton Center for Linguistics. I N T E R N A T I O N A L L A B O U R O R G A N I S A T I O N (ILO). 1972. Employment Incomes and Equality. Geneva, ILO. (Coun- try studies: Kenya.) K E N Y A , G O V E R N M E N T O F . 1964. Kenya Education Report 1964. Nairobi. (Ominde Commission.) NIGERIA, G O V E R N M E N T O F . 1977. Federal Republic of Nigeria National Policy on Education 1977. Lagos. N Y E R E R E , J . K . 1977. Education for Self-reliance. Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism. Oxford, Oxford University Press. ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION A N D D E - V E L O P M E N T ( O E C D ) . 1991. Development Cooperation. Report by the Chairman of the Development Assist- ance Committee, Paris. R O D N E Y , W . 1972. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Publishing House. S I M M O N D S , J . (ed.). 1980. The Education Dilemma: Policy Issues for Developing Countries. N e w York, Pergamon Press. S K I N N E R , N . 1985. Sub-Saharan Africa less the Republic of South Africa and Islands: Degrees of Multilingualism. Madison, Wis., University of Wisconsin. U G A N D A , G O V E R N M E N T OF. 1963. Uganda Education Review Commission. Kampala. U N E S C O . 1982. Education and Endogenous Develop- ment in Africa: Trends - Problems - Prospects. Paris, UNESCO. . 1985. Female Participation in Higher Education. Paris, U N E S C O . UNITED NATIONS. DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC A N D S O - CIAL AFFAIRS. Demographic Yearbook (various years). W O R L D B A N K . 1988. Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies for Adjustment, Revitalization and Expansion. Washington, D . C . , World Bank. . 1991. World Development Report: The Challenge of Development. N e w York, Oxford University Press.Cultural pluralism and education in the Maghreb Ahmed Moatassime Although these are still hard times for political pluralism in the Maghreb, in spite of recent progress, educational and cultural pluralism seem to be established features in this part of the world. They are not necessarily the product of the education system as such, but, paradoxi- cally, are due to a myriad of educational influ- ences derived from a shared historical heritage and to regional, social and ethnic disparities. Pluralism thus holds up distorting prisms to the gaze of the uninformed observer, generating optical errors which hasty analysis will not cor- rect. W e therefore felt it might be useful to take a cross-section of the subject, using some of the techniques of the social sciences. W e shall be- gin by attempting to outline the meaning of pluralism in the context of the Maghreb. W e shall then try to look at the state of cultural and educational pluralism as it is, or could be, both in internal and external relations, given the ever-present intercultural basis. A h m e d Moatassime (Morocco). Doctor of Edu- cation and Political Science. Has held teaching and research posts in Morocco, and has also been a consultant to UNICEF and UNESCO. He is cur- rently a researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris) and teaches at IEDES, University of Paris I. He has published many articles and studies on education and intercultural relations. Pluralism in the Maghreb Pluralism in the Maghreb is characterized alter- nately or simultaneously by Berber, Arab, Is- lamic and Western cultural influences, whose survival seems to be independent of educational disparities. These four components, which m a y complement or contradict one another, are al- ways associated, without it being possible to superimpose one upon another or regard any as an exclusive marker of identity. Examination of these components, both separately and in relation to each other, m a y m a k e it possible to grasp the essence of the region's pluralism from a historical viewpoint, and withî i a Mediterra- nean perspective. Berber identity is primarily cijdtural, and not to be confused with the political ¡'Berberism' of unhappy m e m o r y which nationalists in the Maghreb saw as an element of ttye colonial sys- tem's 'divide and rule' approach. It still has a Mediterranean dimension as wejl as being part of the identity of the Maghreb, qjs it always has been. Even in R o m a n times Berber culture was never passive, in spite of what some have sug- gested. It was expressed in formn of family and social, spatial and architectural organization which have always been involved in tljie interplay of Mediterranean cultures. A n d if certain scholars Prospects, Vol. XXII, N o . 2, 1992 (82)172 Ahmed Moatassime wrote in Latin, as Saint Augustine did in the fifth century, their purpose was no doubt to convey more effectively a specific cultural m e s - sage, often one which challenged authority, in the only language spoken throughout the M e d i - terranean at that time, just as some Maghrebis today use French to transmit the cultural prod- ucts of the Maghreb. But the Berber spirit pro- jected itself most successfully in the Mediterra- nean area from the seventh century onwards, with the coming of Islam. T h e first occasion was w h e n Tariq ibn Ziyad, w h o gave his n a m e to Gibraltar (Jebel Tariq), crossed the straits in 711 in his 'fantastic cavalcade'. T h e second was the welcome extended in about the year 789 to a descendant of the Prophet w h o had escaped the disorders in the East, and, as Idris I, founded the first Moroccan dynasty in a prestigious set- ting and former symbol of R o m a n power: Volubilis, from the Berber 'Outili'. Lastly, it found expression in the three great Berber dynasties - the Almoravids, the Almohads and the Merinids - which, from the eleventh to the fifteenth cen- turies, stamped on the Maghreb its Arab, Is- lamic and Mediterranean identity. Three dis- tinctive minarets built in an area stretching from Spain to southern Morocco in the twelfth cen- tury by the Almohad Y a q u b al-Mansur - the Giralda in Seville, the Koutoubia in Marrakesh and the Hassan T o w e r in Rabat - bear witness to this. Today the Berber spirit is expressed, as it always was , in an ancestral spoken language, Tamazight, which is still used by a good half of the population of Morocco and practically one- third of the population of Algeria, in spite of the absence of any educational support. A n - other manifestation of Berber culture is the iziane, a form of chanted poetry which long accompa- nied Berber resistance to colonial penetration, particularly in the Aurès in Algeria and the Rif and the Atlas in Morocco. T h e iziane, which sings of love, of conviviality and of all the im- portant things in life, can still be heard in the most elegant city residences in the Maghreb, thanks to cassettes, and emigration has given it a genuinely Mediterranean dimension once again. A s the result of reciprocal influences, Berber, as a popular culture, has something in c o m m o n with the spoken dialect of Arabic, which often provides it with a psychological link to classical Arabic and Arab cultural identity. Arab identity, as distinct from the essen- tially political concept of Arabism, is primarily an approach to life. It is the second feature of Maghreb culture and it expresses the original specificity and Mediterranean universality of that culture. It is based principally on a strictly codi- fied form of written expression, classical Ara- bic; a traditional education system; and cultural and scientific content of universal validity. Classi- cal Arabic emerged from the deserts of Arabia with Islam in the seventh century and gradually spread throughout the Arab East and then the Maghreb. B y the tenth century it had devel- oped from a nomadic dialect into a major lan- guage of culture and civilization. T h e basic m e d i u m of Arab identity, it accompanied the culture of the Maghreb as it spread across the sea to become a major language of communica- tion in the Mediterranean area, employed in commerce, science and diplomacy. Evidence of its influence at this time is provided by the m a n y traces of the language found in Latin-based lan- guages. This great linguistic success story is due not just to the Koran but, above all, to a dy- namic education system, certainly the most ad- vanced of its day, which had a place for con- tinuing and recurrent training even before these terms were coined. Young students, artisans and traders of all ages met regularly 'to study sci- ence from the cradle to the grave'. T h e Maghreb inherited this system, as contributor and par- ticipant, developed it brilliantly but then exploited it to the point of depletion: there were Koranic schools throughout the country, even in tents, accompanying the n o m a d s o n their travels; madrasas in the towns; zawiyas in the country- side; great 'mosque-universities' in nearly all the large cities. T h e Qarawiyin of Fez is the most well-known example. Built in 859 by two sis- ters from Qayrawan, M y r i a m and Fatima, it is considered the oldest university in the world, even older than Bologna (1119), Oxford (1229) or the Sorbonne (1257). T h e Qarawiyin admit- ted not only Arab and Maghrebi students butCultural pluralism and education in the Maghreb 173 scholars from all over the Mediterranean. Sylvester II is said to have studied diere w h e n he was a mere priest; it was he w h o later intro- duced into Europe the Arabic numerals which he is thought to have discovered in Fez and Cordoba. This Mediterranean dimension of Arab identity in the Maghreb was later confirmed with the establishment of the first European medical schools in Salerno and Montpellier, a direct offshoot of the Andalusian civilization which was an integral part of Maghrebi culture. U p to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries great scholars from the Maghreb travelled back and forth across the Mediterranean: the geographer Idrissi, the sociologist Ibn Khaldun, the phil- osophers Ibn Rushd and Ibn Tufayl, die doctor Ibn Zuhr, the mathematician Ibn al-Banna and the explorers Ibn Batuta, Leo Africanus and Hassan al-Wazzan were illustrious examples of the Mediterranean form of Islam. Islamic identity, which differs from the Is- lamic political movemen t k n o w n as 'fundamen- talism', m a y be considered as an individual or group socio-cultural attitude based on a con- tinuous compromise between the two dimen- sions, spiritual and temporal, of Islamic thought. This component of Maghrebi culture combines the other two, Berber and Arab. However, it retains its links with the entire ethnic, geographic and historical context of the Mediterranean. In ethnic terms, the Islamic dimension in the Maghreb seems to have operated in the same w a y as Islam in the Mediterranean in general, which from its earliest days came up against different cultures. A s w e k n o w , Islam's relations with other cultures, never passive, have in some cases been conflictual and in others symbiotic. Islam has thus not always been the sole deter- minant of individual identities. But far from impoverishing it, Islam's acceptance of cultural diversity seems to have given it a strength which has enabled it to overcome obstacles on more than one occasion. This is no doubt w h y die Maghrebi form of Islamic identity, which is pre-eminently multicultural, apparently managed to turn the golden age of Islam to good account and weathered its changes of fortune success- fully. T h e first reversal encountered was die collapse of that Mediterranean unity from which the Islamic world drew sustenance until die fi- nal stages of the reconquista in the fifteenth cen- tury. T h e n the discovery of America meant that the centre of interest m o v e d far away from the Mediterranean. Colonization m a d e matters worse, cutting off die lines of communication which had linked Marrakesh via Fez, Ceuta and the islands of the Mediterranean to Barcelona in Spain and to Genoa and Pisa in Italy. Whether as cause or effect of this reversal of the balance of forces, cultural dogmatism became the order of the day. For all these reasons, the Maghrebi Islamic identity, despite, or perhaps because of, its Arab/Berber elements, has remained histori- cally linked to Mediterranean Islam, following its pace and accepting its vicissitudes. First adding lustre to its golden age, from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries, it then suffered the same stagnation and decadence from the fhirteenth to the eighteenm centuries, punctuated by die same surges of activity as occurred in other areas of the Mediterranean. It has also m a d e its contribution to the current renaissance of M e d i - terranean Islam and is fully involved in the cri- sis of conscience which the whole of Mediterra- nean Islam is n o w undergoing. Occidentalism, which was the first and last of the components of Maghrebi identity, also reflects the Mediterranean influence, however great a variety of shapes and forms it has taken tiirough the years, and still continues to take. Historically, it was the first on the scene: 'Maghreb ' means die Wes t (of die Arab world) in relation to its eastern half or 'Mashriq'. T h e Maghreb stretches from the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, the 'Near-West ' or 'Maghreb al-Adna', through the Central M a g h r e b or 'Maghreb al-Awsat', covering Tunisia and above all Algeria, to Morocco , the 'Far-West ' or 'Maghreb al-Aqsa', stretching into Mauritania and the Sahara. But Maghrebi Occidentalism, as it is n o w understood, is also the last c o m p o - nent. It brings to mind otiier referents, which were first endured before being accepted, re- jected or (re) appropriated. Occidentalism was imposed in the violence of colonization which, as w e know, lasted from 1830 to 1962 in Alge-174 Ahmed Moatassime ria, from 1881 to 1955 in Tunisia and from 1912 to 1956 in Morocco, at least as far as French rule was concerned. It took different forms, depending on the nature of the regime established in each of the conquered countries, and was accepted more or less willingly, de- pending on the severity of the regime, an indi- cator of which was the divisiveness of the edu- cation systems installed. Tunisia is perhaps the country which found it easiest to c o m e to terms with the n e w situation, perhaps because of the splendid Collège Sadiki, which was built as early as 1875, and had an impeccably bilingual ap- proach. Mention could also be m a d e of such notable bilingual schools in Morocco as Sidi M o h a m m e d in Marrakesh, Moulay Youssef in Rabat and Moulay Idriss in Fez. But education in Morocco was essentially fragmented, rang- ing from the large, so-called 'Franco-Muslim' schools to the famous 'Franco-Berber' school at Azrou, with a multitude of other categories - 'Franco-European', 'Franco-Jewish', 'Franco- Arab', which were then subdivided into schools for 'sons of notables', 'urban schools', 'rural schools' and 'Berber schools'. This curious col- lection of institutions drew its legitimacy from a colonial circular of 30 August 1920, which had established the limits for 'Indigenous Education' in the following terms: '. . . on leaving school the small farmer should return to the land, the son of the urban labourer should become a la- bourer, the shopkeeper's son a shopkeeper and the official's son an official' (quoted in Ibaaquil, 1990, p . 17). But these divisive measures lasted longer and went deeper in Algeria than else- where. T h e type of education that was intro- duced there was a carbon copy of the French system and thus ruled out any attempt at even a partial renaissance of Arab-Islamic education: Indeed, this cultural heritage was to become one of the colonizers' principal targets. . . . This de- personalization campaign led to the closure of mosques and schools which dispensed education in Arabic. T h e zawiyas were destroyed as centres of culture and of resistance; any that remained were turned into centres of collaboration in which education was restricted to reading the Koran (Taleb-Ibrahimi, 1973, p. 12). In this situation, rejection was organized through- out the Maghreb. At grass-roots level it took the form of 'illiteracy as resistance', the rejec- tion of the colonial school system. At the level of the political leaders, it was reinforced, in spite of administrative harassment, by the opening of arabized schools, such as those established by the Moroccan nationalists (madariss hurra or independent schools) and the older schools be- longing to the Ibn Badis Association of Alge- rian ulama, or else survived as the stagnating, original form of Arabo-Islamic education in Koranic schools throughout the Maghreb: 'there is not a talib (Koranic teacher) in Algeria w h o is not a m e m b e r of a religious order and w h o does not have, by that token, correspondents in a whole group of zawiyat (fraternities) in con- tact with Morocco, Tunis and Tripoli,' writes Turin in a study on 'Cultural Clashes' in Alge- ria (quoted by Colonna, 1975, p . 29). But this indigenous cultural resistance also absorbed the intellectual benefits of the colonial schools, whose merit, according to one Tunisian researcher, was 'to have educated a political ruling class which, after some trial and error, successfully led the country to independence' (Sra'ieb, 1974, p. 72). ' W e should learn from them [the West - erners] h o w to win without having right on our side,' says the hero of a Senegalese story (Kane, 1961, p . 47). In the end the French language and the Western cultural values associated with it were thus, ironically, used to dig the grave of colonialism by local cultural resistance m o v e - ments. But this (re) appropriation of Occidentalism as a component of Maghrebi identity, so to speak, has not removed the risk of a dominating form of Westernization, just as receptivity to univer- sal modernity has not eliminated the danger of a reductionist form of modernism. This is cer- tainly the reason for present ambiguities and the resulting tensions. If w e add to this the con- fusion which ensues w h e n local Berber, Arab and Islamic cultural components are also over- simplified and seen as narrow political concepts, w e will have some idea h o w difficult it is for any analyst to clarify their scope and significance or the contradictions between them. W e shall re-Cultural pluralism and education in the Maghreb 175- turn to this question after attempting to see h o w national education systems m a y or m a y not act as internal regulators for this kind of pluralism. Maghrebi education and internal pluralism Future studies in this connection could well take shape within the Arab Maghreb Union ( U M A ) . T h e U M A came into being on 17 February 1989 in Marrakesh with the signing of a treaty at the summit meeting of the five Maghreb coun- tries, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Mauritania, which have a total population of 70 million inhabitants. With re- gard to education, the treaty proposes 'to initi- ate co-operation for the purpose of developing all levels of education, safeguarding the spiri- tual and moral values derived from the general teachings of Islam, preserving Arab national identity and taking the measures which are nec- essary in order to achieve these objectives' (Ar- ticle 3). It might be useful to review the na- tional education systems in order to see to what extent they contribute to the achievement of these objectives, to what extent they diverge or converge and h o w their inner pluralism is re- flected. But two problems might have to be dealt with: the uneven quality of the documentation and the question of educational comparability, which m a y exist between Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, but is less dependable with regard to the Maghreb as a whole and the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Mauritania in particular. T h e first three countries, which represent 90 per cent of the population of the Maghreb, share the same colonial heritage in education, whereas the identity of one of the latter two countries is more Arab than specifically Maghrebi and the other is m u c h more open to sub-Saharan influ- ences. S o m e c o m m o n objectives m a y still be identified, however, although the diversity of the situations must be borne in mind and the crucial question of arabization, which largely determines the degree of internal pluralism and its external cultural implications, must not be glossed over. A community of educational objectives emerged in the Maghreb at the time of inde- pendence more than a quarter of a century ago: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, without even consulting each other on a regular basis, re- sponded in a similar w a y to a post-colonial his- torical situation which was in m a n y ways al- most identical. M o s t important, the education budget increased three- to fivefold. Although it is difficult to quantify the costs from one coun- try to the next, it seems that 5 to 6 per cent of G N P and 25-30 per cent of the operating budget were earmarked for education, depending on the period and the country concerned. This m a d e it possible to attain, at least in part, four funda- mental objectives, whether implicit or explicit, of education planning. These objectives were: arabization, standardization, employment of nationals, and universal school enrolment. T h e arabization of school curricula meant that the Arabic language was to be used at all levels and in all subjects, replacing French. As the arabization of education is far too complex a subject to be treated as just one item in a list w e shall discuss it in greater detail later. T h e purpose of stand- ardization was to do away with the hotch-potch of Arabo-Islamic and colonial education sys- tems. Its success m a y be judged from the fact that n o w roughly 95 per cent of enrolments are into a form of public education which describes itself as 'unified, free and open to all'. T h e other 5 to 10 per cent are divided between private schools and French schools, except in Algeria, which withdrew its young people from such establishments in October 1988. T h e employ- ment of Maghrebi nationals in the teaching pro- fession has n o w reached between 80 and 90 per cent as against roughly 10 per cent at the time of independence. There has also been unprec- edented progress towards the fourth c o m m o n educational objective in the Maghreb, universal school enrolment. For the 6-11 age-group, the average rate is between 70 and 90 per cent, depending on the country, as against 10 to 12 per cent on the eve of independence. T h e rate176 Ahmed Moatassime for 12-17 year-olds could be put at 50 to 60 per cent. However , these spectacular quantita- tive results are marred by disparities. Adult illit- eracy, which stood at around 90 per cent just before independence, appears to have 'stabi- lized' at about 50 per cent for m e n and 75 per cent for w o m e n . However , the enrolment of girls in education is constantly increasing. It stands at 72 per cent for the 6-11 age-group as against 87 per cent for boys, a remarkable achievement and one which is confirmed at the secondary and higher levels. This should not m a k e us for- get that in the colonial period Musl im girls were practically excluded from the school system: the progress achieved since independence gives the lie to clichés about the 'problem of w o m e n ' in Islam, although it is still a problem in society, outside schools and universities. Regional dif- ferences, especially in rural areas, can place girls at a special disadvantage. T h e problem of wast- age affects children from poor backgrounds re- gardless of sex: over two-thirds of a cohort drop out after primary education and nine-tenths of the remainder after the secondary level. While these sensitive problems exist in all the countries of the Maghreb, the situation of each is different. T h e content, methods and struc- tures of education all reflect this diversity. Cur- riculum content varies in some respects while coinciding in others. T h e similarities are par- ticularly marked in the exact sciences and Arab- Islamic history, including the basic literature and civilization, and ethics. T h e differences are more apparent in the ideological content, reflecting the political leanings of each state: this is par- ticularly evident in 'civics'. For example, Alge- ria has long stressed the intrinsic virtues of so- cialism, at least until the advent of perestroïka, whereas Tunisia, Morocco and even Maurita- nia seem to stress a form of social justice linked to personal effort and the quality of the indi- vidual's work. T h e Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, which stands rather aloof in this area, uses President Gaddafi's Green Book as practically its sole ref- erence. O n e might have thought that teaching methods would be 'balanced' between 'progres- sive' countries with a dynamic approach calling established practice into question and 'conserva- tive' countries, satisfied with a static method for the transmission of knowledge in near-dogmatic fashion, promoting a spirit of discipline and obedience. This is far from being the case, h o w - ever. Both active and didactic methods are used, sometimes together, whether or not deliberately, and to varying degrees, throughout the Maghreb, apparently independently of the political sys- tem in place. T h e y seem not to be affected by 'official instructions', being determined instead by a mechanism within the education system, in which the personality of the teacher seems to play a decisive part. If the remoteness of rural schools is not conducive to educational change, the cities do not seem to encourage it either, in spite of what one might think. O u r o w n obser- vations have largely been drawn from m e d i u m - sized towns which have retained a certain rural atmosphere and where changes, whether im- posed or accepted, might encourage at least some teachers to think about the future of education. In terms of educational structures, the country which has opted for a complete break with the previous system because of its particular colo- nial history is Algeria. Immediately after achieving its independence in 1962 it established the école poly technique fondamentale (polytechnic elemen- tary school), providing nine years of compul- sory education for 6-15-year-olds. This leads on to a three-year course of general secondary education or a course of vocational education, which must be completed before entering a university or Institute of Technology. Morocco , on the other hand, like Tunisia and Mauritania, initially opted for the structures of the old colo- nial system: compulsory primary schooling from 7 to 13 years and a seven-year secondary course leading to higher education and the grandes écoles. But it has gradually altered the structure of the system, using what are perhaps the most effec- tive planning services in tine Maghreb . Since 1985 Morocco has gradually introduced a nine-year elementary school providing, as in Algeria, compulsory education up to the age of 15. It also has two years of pre-school edu- cation, provided by modern private schools and Koranic schools, not to mention a nucleus of traditional education, and, since 1987, a reformCultural pluralism and education in the Maghreb 177 of the baccalauréat based on continuing edu- cation. Like Morocco, Tunisia has been both cautious and progressive in implementing its reforms, which have nevertheless set an exam- ple for the entire Maghreb. It has advanced one step at a time, establishing in 1989 an école fondamentale (elementary school) which provides nine years of compulsory schooling. In the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya the situation is completely dif- ferent, although there compulsory schooling also lasts for nine years. Unlike the systems in the other countries of the region, the Libyan sys- tem comes under a General People's C o m m i t - tee for Education, which answers to the G e n - eral People's Congress. In general, basic education in the Maghreb has m a d e spectacular quantitative progress as regards both sexes and there has been a con- tinual flow of more or less appropriate reforms. But there are still serious disparities with regard to ease of access to higher levels for town- as against country-dwellers and for students from comfortable or more modest backgrounds: these differences often reflect regional disparities in- volving, to a considerable extent, deprivation in terms of material and staffing requirements. Thus, the problem of social pluralism has been grafted onto the original cultural pluralism, with its Berber, Arab, Islamic and Western strands: it is obviously connected with the division of labour between different social strata, and national education systems have not been able to pre- vent it emerging. It is in this context that the fundamental problem of arabization must be posed, with the problem of the language tools which provide access to knowledge. T h e problem can be dis- cussed in terms of shared principles as well as of their varying degrees of implementation at the various levels of national education systems. With regard to principles, 'the objective pur- sued since independence has been to provide as m a n y children as possible with tuition in Ara- bic, dispensed by nationals on the basis of stand- ardized curricula and timetables', in the words of a Maghrebi minister of education speaking several years after independence. This original objective of arabization in the Maghreb still re- mains valid. It does not appear to be challenged by any state, political party or association, al- though the ways in which it should be imple- mented have been the subject of keen contro- versy. T h e experience of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Mauritania, which account for barely 10 per cent of the population of the Maghreb, is not always indicative. T h e two countries' differences reflect their geographical position and ideological orientation. T h e Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, which is closer to the Middle East and wholeheartedly Arab, has abandoned Italian, the language of the former colonial power. It opted for complete arabization in 1969 w h e n M o a m m a r Gaddafi took power. Mauritania, on the other hand, an Islamic republic rather than an Arab one, belonging as m u c h to Africa as to the Maghreb, has decided in favour of an offi- cial policy of Arabic/French bilingualism, no doubt partly to preserve the balance between its Arab/Moorish population in the north and its Black African population in the south, whose links with so-called French-speaking Africa are well known. T h e situation is completely different in the central Maghreb, which comprises Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. These countries were subjected in varying degrees to colonization by the French. A s w e have said, they represent more than 90 per cent of the population of the Maghreb. Their policy of arabization and its cultural implications therefore constitute a de- cisive element in the question of Maghrebi plu- ralism. T h e three states have opted for a policy of gradual arabization, giving French a privi- leged position, while proclaiming Arabic in their constitutions as the official language at all levels of education and administration, public and private alike. Thus arabization has reached all levels of education as well as the system of jus- tice and certain state sectors. It is well estab- lished at elementary and even secondary level, being used alongside French as a compulsory second language from the third year on in Morocco and Tunisia and the fourth year in Algeria. Quite apart from the associated educa- tional problems, social ambiguities and political disputes are constantly being fuelled by this de178 Ahmed Moatassime jure monolingualism, which is gradually being transformed into a de facto bilingual situation or even a localized multilingual one, if spoken Arabic and Berber are taken into account. T h e educational difficulties are particularly appar- ent at the elementary level. They are closely linked with the phenomenon of wastage, which is considerable in spite of 'automatic' p r o m o - tion from one class to the next, which was in- troduced with the école fondamentale. Such pro- motions are often premature for some children, w h o find they can no longer keep up in either Arabic or French and lapse into a form of func- tional illiteracy which borders on illiteracy pure and simple. This no doubt explains the popular expression mat 'the schools are n o w turning out bilingual illiterates'. Linguistic and cultural problems seem to be most dysfunctional in so- cial terms at the secondary level. Only some 30 per cent of a cohort enters secondary education and less than 10 per cent of those that do reach higher education. Thus , most children, espe- cially those from modest backgrounds, gradu- ally leave the school system. Official surveys do not always show in sufficient detail what be- comes of them. But it m a y be estimated, on the basis of statistics for youth employment, that, on average, one-third of them in the three coun- tries find regular employment while another third find only temporary work. A third category seems to be waiting more or less patiently for some- thing to turn up , often toying with the idea of emigrating and providing the tinder for internal political and religious tensions. In political terms, higher education, where arabization has scarcely started and where material and educational fa- cilities are poor, m a y well be the scene for par- tisan clashes if conditions do not improve. But universities in the Maghreb have long hesitated between arabization and Arabic-French bilin- gualism and continue to do so. In spite of gradual arabization of the lower-elementary and secondary levels, higher education has to date applied an internal socio-linguistic mechanism for gradu- ally reconverting the Maghrebi élite to de facto bilingualism with French dominant or, in the case of the ruling élite, to French monolingualism. This appears to have caused considerable an- ger a m o n g the 'Arabists', which has frequently degenerated into political opposition, with Is- lamic overtones. It is not surprising, therefore, that in Algeria, for example, a drastic law on complete arabization was adopted on 26 D e c - ember 1990 and promulgated four weeks later on 16 January 1991. However , the law's main provisions appear to impose constraints seen as intolerable by certain Berber-speaking leaders w h o have no knowledge of literary Arabic. For them French is still the only developed form of expression for technical, political and social administration. That is w h y , recently, there were massive demonstrations in Algeria in favour of linguistic and cultural 'pluralism' which pro- voked an even more impressive, and no doubt more significant, response from the supporters of complete arabization. T h e Algerian example is only the tip of the iceberg. T h e same applies, in varying degrees, throughout the Maghreb. T h e region is thus embroiled in a complex debate in which what is at stake is not only the unity of its educational goals and the diversity of its educational meth- ods but also, and above all, its internal cultural pluralism as it relates to external pluralism. Education and interculturality in the Maghreb A s w e have seen, the Maghreb has always ab- sorbed the advantages and disadvantages of its internal and external interculturality. This legacy of its history is still relevant. W e felt it would be useful to see h o w it deals with this past and h o w it adapts to the present, identifying elements that must be continued and also the changes which must be m a d e in order to be prepared to face the future. Coping with the past involves more than a quick glance into the rear mirror of history. It means rooting the collective identity in the depths of the culture, drawing strength - even at the price of some inconsistency - from its dynamicCultural pluralism and education in the Maghreb 179 features and avoiding the paralysis which its more static elements might engender. T h e need to do this is not always recognized. But socio- logical processes which often escape the atten- tion of the individual confirm that the collective identity is constantly evolving, even if the pace slows w h e n exceptional circumstances delay progress. These processes involve tensions and controversies which can be clearly seen in the Maghreb, particularly in connection with the choice of languages of instruction and the cul- tural and political influences which such educa- tional choices imply. A daily newspaper sup- porting the Istiqlal Party in Morocco (L'Opinion), vigorously condemning the use of the French language at all levels of education and public life, declared on 4 January 1973: 'There is no difference between military occupation and lin- guistic colonization.' This nationalist party has continued to present itself as the intransigent defender of the Arabic language and Islamic culture, outdoing in its daily newspapers in both languages the Moroccan fundamentalists. In Tunisia, on the other hand, it is the fundamen- talists of the Ennahda Party w h o see themselves as the true defenders of Arabism and Islam against French-style Westernization, which, in their view, 'has made our rulers (bom in this country) uphold that culture, its standards and ideas, and at the same time uphold the interests of colonialists w h o exploit our wealth and our property' (quoted byBurgat, 1988, p. 231). But criticism of Western culture in school and social life, and criticism of the French language which is considered to be its principal vector, is most caustic in Algeria, thanks mainly to the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS). T h e stated aims of the FIS include 'putting an end to neo-colonialism in all fields, getting back to our roots and solving the crisis on the basis of Koranic precepts' (quoted in Arabies, July-August 1990). Ironically, it is in Algeria that state efforts to achieve arabization have been most spectacular: not in their results, admit- tedly, but in their range and scope, bearing in mind the initial handicaps. In spite of its oppo- sition to the Islamic Front, the party in power since independence, the National Liberation Front ( F L N ) , adopted the radical law on arabization mentioned above by an overwhelming major- ity. T h e law states that 'public services, institu- tions, firms and associations . . . shall use only the Arabic language' (Article 4) ; and that 'edu- cation, instruction and training in all sectors, all subjects and at all levels shall be provided in Arabic, subject to arrangements for the teach- ing of foreign languages' (Article 15). T h e leader of the Berber-speaking Algerians of Kabylie has condemned the 'obscurantist' and 'anti-demo- cratic' character of the law, arguing in favour of a form of arabization which is not done 'on the cheap' and also making a case for the Berber and French languages: pleading, in other words, for 'pluralism in all aspects: political, cultural and linguistic' (as quoted in Le Figaro, 28 D e c - ember 1990). This position, for which he was denounced as being a supporter of the Hizb Franca (party of France), is close to that adopted in Morocco by another Berber-speaking leader, w h o also demands in connection with Tamazight, or Moroccan Berber, 'the right to be different in accordance with the rule that an olive tree is not a cedar'. Official positions in Morocco are quite restrained in fact, particularly with regard to French, in spite of several challenges dic- tated by exceptional circumstances. ' O f course,' the King of Morocco has said, 'Arabic is both our religious and our national language: w e cannot give it up. ' But French is also 'a window opened wide, not only onto the Western world but also onto the world of logic, reason and moderation' (Hassan II, 1976). In Tunisia, before he lost power, President Bourguiba also pleaded for 'a French-speaking community based on the ties of the heart', describing it as 'a bond which has encouraged progress, apart from its emotional and intellectual content' {Le Monde, 16 Octo- ber 1973). T h e same position has been adopted by his successor, President Ben Ali, for w h o m 'our Arab and Muslim society can only develop fully if w e remain convinced of the need for an open-minded attitude towards universal cultures' {La Presse de Tunisie, 28 October and 8 N o v - ember 1989). Nevertheless, there is unanimous agreement throughout the Maghreb on the need for complete (re) arabization sooner or later. A careful analysis of the opposing arguments shows180 Ahmed Moatassime that the main areas of disagreement are the prac- tical arrangements for arabization and the place of the written form of Arabic in the presence of spoken Arabic and Berber. Consequently, there is also disagreement on French and foreign lan- guages, which are assigned a bigger or smaller role by the different parties. W e m a y also say that educational plural- ism in the Maghreb and its intercultural aspect are also a part of the present. But other factors also come into play. Unlike the historical fac- tors mentioned above, they relate to geography and foster a form of national or social plural- ism. In addition to the values and culture which it shares with the other countries of the U M A , each country of the Maghreb has its o w n cul- ture, generated by its o w n environment. T h e Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Mauritania have in m a n y areas a desert culture, which is not surprising inasmuch as the former has barely 5 million inhabitants in a total area of 1,759,540 square kilometres, equal to a popu- lation density of 2.8 inhabitants per square kilo- metre. But, while acknowledging the values of a Bedouin civilization, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is also using its oil revenues to settle part of its population on its narrow Mediterranean coastal strip, whereas Mauritania, which is extremely poor, seems to suffer its ancestral nomadism passively, unable either to contain it or to ben- efit from it. T h e difference in per capita G D P ($5,440 as against $480) partly explains the gap between the two countries. In this context, Tunisia, with its 8 million inhabitants in a small area of 163,000 square kilometres, seems a ha- ven of urban life in spite of its modest resources. It has always had a Mediterranean-Andalusian urban culture and of all the countries of the Maghreb seems to have the most successful blend of cultures. Algeria, on the other hand, stands out as a country of cultural contrasts, stretching over an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres, which, with a population of 26 million inhabit- ants, makes it the largest country in the Maghreb. A s most of the population is located in the north along the Mediterranean coast, including the large Berber-speaking minorities of the Aurès and Kabylie w h o account for 20-25 per cent of the population, the figure of 10.5 for mean density is not very significant. Morocco, with an area of 710,850 square kilometres and a population of roughly 27 million, equivalent to a density of 55.8, seems somehow to combine all of the forms of cultural expression observed in the other countries of the Maghreb. In the interior, the Atlas and Rif mountains and the neighbouring plains are h o m e to the largest Berber-speaking population in the Maghreb, accounting for 4 5 - 55 per cent of the Moroccan population. M o - rocco also preserves an old Andalusian culture at Fez and Salé; it has extensive Mediterranean contacts, a Sanaran dimension and an Atlantic coast. T h e Maghreb region thus forms a cultural mosaic whose effects are more marked than those of its education systems. But these national sys- tems cater for more than 2 million students in Tunisia, 5 million in Morocco and 7 million in Algeria, amounting to 14 million in 1991, which implies a considerable educational effort. H o w - ever, as w e have seen, wastage is enormous, at a time w h e n young people under the age of 20 represent 56 per cent of the entire population, or more than 35 million in the three central Maghreb countries. This demographic factor is perhaps an asset for the region but it is also a problem in that prospects for finding employ- ment and a place in society are not always very good. It is no coincidence that the number of young people at the head of demonstrations grows ever more impressive. These young people have in some cases formed a group culture based on their exclusion and marginality in response to a minority culture offering social integration on an individual basis of material wealth, which is sometimes displayed with indecent ostentation. It should not come as a surprise that the politi- cal culture as such is more profoundly affected by this situation than by the educational impact of the schools or universities. In this context, both breaks with the past and the permanent features which play a regu- latory function can give rise to tension and con- troversy. Both are solidly entwined in the fabric of society. Thinking about the countries of the South is often based on a dichotomy which seesCultural pluralism and education in the Maghreb 181 all initiatives put forward under Western influ- ence in terms of 'modernity' or 'change for the better' while reserving the terms 'tradition' and 'conservatism' for those put forward in autochthonous forms of expression. This s u m - m a r y allocation of roles threatens to distort the analysis, as that particular dividing line runs somewhere through the middle of each group- ing and not between the two: in other words, both Western and indigenous complexes con- tain both centrifugal and centripetal forces which operate to varying degrees, in turn or simulta- neously, depending o n the time and circum- stances. T h e y can thus either strengthen or dis- solve continuity or even combine both actions. M a n y examples could be cited, in different places and at different times, but that of Algeria alone is most eloquent. W h e n the National Libera- tion Front ( F L N ) c a m e to power 30 years ago it effected perhaps the most painful break with the past which the post-colonial M a g h r e b had thus far experienced. It also put forward an apparently coherent blueprint for society, at- tempting to combine the need for social renewal with the requirements of Islamic continuity. But although Algerian society has undergone spec- tacular changes as a result of education, in par- ticular, the political system does not appear to have followed suit. This dislocation appears to have been one of the causes of the riots which swept Algeria in 1988. It was also to lead to another about-turn in which political Islam seems to have played a decisive part in spite of the limitations of its social blueprint, and evidence of which is provided by the results of the first free elections held in Algeria, o n 12 June 1990. These gave the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) an important position o n the political scene in spite of its subsequent reverses and opened the w a y to a fragmented form of political pluralism in which the Kabyle minorities are also playing an active part. This trend will have to be m o n i - tored over a reasonable period of time, h o w - ever, before drawing conclusions with regard to Algeria or the M a g h r e b as a whole. But, leaving aside the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Maurita- nia which are special cases, it m a y be stated as of n o w that the same dislocation is apparent in M o r o c c o and Tunisia with, o n the one hand, the major social changes due to education and, on the other, political systems whose conserva- tism is often cited. Whereas Tunisia has re- cently witnessed the first faltering attempts at democracy, m o r e particularly since the removal of President Bourguiba in 1987, a pluralist ex- periment has been officially in progress in M o - rocco ever since independence in 1956 and the Moroccan Constitution proclaims that 'there can be no one-party system'. It is also worth noting that an unprecedented degree of social mobility has been registered in the three main countries of the M a g h r e b - Tunisia, M o r o c c o and Alge- ria - since independence, which has enabled a significant n u m b e r of children from modest backgrounds to attain high national office. But the political system's capacity for absorption has become gradually saturated as the first contenders consolidate their positions, and it is tending to experience the p h e n o m e n o n of social reproduc- tion which has been observed in industrialized countries such as France. T h e important dif- ference is that the rich countries have long pos- sessed a material and cultural capital which enables them to control this p h e n o m e n o n , at least to some extent. Since it is difficult to eliminate completely, it is checked by m e a n s of changes in educational approach, social transfers and, m o r e importantly, the democratic handover of power. Occidentalism, in the sense of the genu- ine democratization of the societies of the South, is then seen as essential. M o s t intellectuals in the M a g h r e b , irrespective of their education, political leanings or philosophical convictions, have c o m e to subscribe to this view without reservations, encouraged by the demanding enthusiasm of the young. But in this period of great geopolitical upheavals, and particularly since the Gulf W a r , a clear distinction has emerged between 'democracy' in its universal sense and 'Occidentalism', which is increasingly associ- ated with a domineering form of Westerniza- tion. Such reservations regarding this concept, whose content admittedly changes depending on w h o is using it, are n o w being m a d e in the M a g h r e b by those w h o once extolled its virtues.182 Ahmed Moatassime Facing the future Education, let us not forget, is more than just the school or university system. It encompasses and incorporates all the impressions m a d e on individuals or accumulated by them in the course of their lives. It is this process that shapes be- haviour and attitudes according to the circum- stances of the individual or group and the fac- tors of time and space. It can play a static role, limited to the passive transmission of knowl- edge, or else a dynamic role, placing a question mark over the knowledge handed on, or even both roles at one and the same time. In this context the development of education m a y be either accelerated or retarded by what are k n o w n as educational systems. These systems m a y encourage creative change and, at the same time, maintain factors of continuity which have a regu- latory function. T h e Maghreb cannot elude these processes as they affect its Maghrebi, African and Mediterranean facets. T h e Maghrebi facet, with its three Berber, Arab and Islamic c o m p o - nents, has its origins in the distant past. Despite m a n y controversies, it seems capable of work- ing out m o r e or less stable compromises be- tween two apparently contradictory but in fact complementary aspirations: the demands for uniformity and for diversity. T h e Berber cul- tural dimension has up to the present found expression in the family and society, especially in M o r o c c o and Algeria, which have sizeable Berber-speaking minorities. T h e Arab and Is- lamic dimensions, which also cover all spheres of individual and group life, have found a writ- ten m e d i u m in education and university stud- ies. But they share the political domain with the Berber identity. T h e African facet of the Maghreb also demands recognition as a decisive factor inasmuch as the M a g h r e b shares with sub- Saharan Africa most of the vicissitudes of the Third World . In addition the Maghreb seems to have generated other forms of diversity, the result of geographical differences or social dis- parities. A s an agent of change the education system helps to mitigate these differences to some extent, but as an agent of continuity it does not always manage to deaden their impact. T h e M e d i - terranean aspect of the Maghreb is certainly the dimension which has brought together both fac- tors of change and factors of continuity in the Maghreb . Without going back over the history of the region, having already outlined some of its basic elements, w e can none the less say that the Maghreb's present outward-looking attitude towards the Mediterranean area is reviving the 'Occidental' component of its civilization. But it also makes it afraid of slipping into a reductionist form of Westernization. In this connection the linguistic, or communication, aspect and the cultural dimension appear to play a decisive role. O n a general level, the Maghreb is certainly one of the regions where linguistic pluralism is most extensively practised. It operates in everyday life, even taking the form of pidgen, and not just in school curricula, as is the case - a theo- retical case for the most part - in certain Euro- pean countries. Apart from spoken Arabic and Berber, which are used in society at large, schools in the Maghreb teach (classical) Arabic and French. Spanish and Italian are also taught, as the languages of neighbouring countries, and English and G e r m a n , n o w challenging the pos- ition of French albeit from a distance, for the purpose of establishing international contacts. T h e educational, social and political cost of this regional 'laboratory' remains very high, h o w - ever, as w e have tried to show in other studies, all the more so since the M a g h r e b thus pro- vides direct financing for the language aspect of international communication, like other coun- tries of the Third World, in spite of their m o d - est resources. Communication between France and the Maghreb provides a perfect illustration of the uneven distribution of costs between the rich North and the South with its limited re- sources. Whereas French is still compulsory in the Maghreb from the third or fourth years of elementary school, in spite of all the contro- versy over it, Arabic is taught to less than 0.1 per cent of young people in France, where 90 per cent learn English. But it is the cultural dimension which seems to pose most problems: problems related to frag-Cultural pluralism and education in the Maghreb 183 merited language use within the region and, of m o r e recent vintage, problems produced by audio-visual media bombardment from the North. T h e latter is certainly welcomed or even solic- ited by a minority, whose culture enables it to be selective. But the majority of the population that is on the receiving end of this onslaught only seems to absorb the corrosive ingredients. Education in the broadest sense, then, demands recognition as a political and social issue, not only in domestic terms but also in terms of the international balance of power. W h a t strengths and resources would enable education systems in the South to swim with the international tide without going under? H o w can they get from the North the basis they need for technological, scientific and social development without the (sub) cultural packaging that goes with it? A n d , lastly, for what purpose and by what means can w e establish cultural reciprocity, developing the sense of the universal and imposing mutual re- spect while at the same time trying to eliminate structural imbalances at h o m e and abroad? These are some of the very m a n y questions that are being posed, not only in the Maghreb but in other Third World countries and even in some industrialized countries. Education has always been a complex area because of its political, social and cultural implications, whatever the social system. But another more recent compli- cation is its ability - or inability - to adapt to the n e w geocultural and geopolitical situation fol- lowing the momen tous changes that have oc- curred in the recent past. Education in the Maghreb , like education in other regions, can- not afford to ignore these questions. It is essen- tial to promote future-oriented studies that will enable a pluralist democracy at national level, within a broader context of universal d e m o c - racy, to face up to the uncertain future lying beyond the year 2000. • References and bibliography A R K O U N , M . Islam et développement dans le Maghreb indépendant. Arabica, Vol. X X I X , N o . 2, pp. 114— 42. (Translation of a text published in English in Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 4 , Nos . 1-2, 1982, pp. 3 2 - 53.) B A I N A , A . 1981. Le système de l'enseignement au Maroc. Rabat, Éd. Maghrébines. 3 vols. B E R Q U E , J. 1981. Andalousies. Paris, Sindbad. (Closing lecture at the Collège de France.) B O U S T A N I , R . ; F A R G U E S , P . 1990. Atlas du monde arabe. Paris, Bordas. B U R G A T , F . 1988. L'Islamisme au Maghreb. Paris, Karthala. C H E R I F , M . 1990. Culture et politique au Maghreb. Al- giers, Éd. Maghreb Relations. C H I K H , S.; E L M A N D J R A , H . 1988. Maghreb et francophonie. Paris, Económica. C O L O N N A , F . 1975. Instituteurs algériens 1883-1939. Paris, F N S P . FITOURI , C 1983. Biculturalisme, bilinguisme et éducation. Paris, Delachaux & Niestlé. H A S S A N IL 1976. Le défi. Paris, Albin Michel. IBAAQUIL, L . 1990. École du Protectorat et reproduction sociale. Attadriss (Rabat), Vol. 16, pp. 11-32. IBE (INTERNATIONAL B U R E A U O F E D U C A T I O N ) . 1992. Le mouvement éducatif, Algérie, Maroc, Tunisie, Libye, Mauritanie, de 1980 à 1990. Geneva, IBE. ISMAIL, A . 1990. L'école de base, projet de société (en Tunisie). Tunis, Éd. Papyrus. K A N E , C . H . 1961. L'aventure ambiguë. Paris, Julliard. (New éd. 1990.) L A C O S T E , C ; L A C O S T E , Y . (eds.). 1991. L'état du Maghreb. Paris, Éditions La Découverte. .1992. L'état du monde. Paris, Éditions La Découverte. M A N S O U R I , M . 1991. Coût et financement de l'enseignement au Maroc. Rabat, Université M o h a m m e d V . (Thesis, 2 vols.) M I N I S T È R E S D E L ' É D U C A T I O N . 1980-90. Statistiques de l'enseignement, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia. M I N I S T È R E S D U P L A N . 1980-90. Plans de développement et projets d'orientation de l'enseignement, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia. M O A T A S S I M E , A . 1977a. L'enseignement au Maghreb. Special issues of Maghreb-Machrek (Paris), Vols. 78, 79 and 80. Joint work.) . 19776. Les finalités et les théories de l'éducation. Paideia (Warsaw), Vol. VI, pp. 71-7. . 1984. Langue française et pluralité au Maghreb. Special issue of Französisch heute (Frankfurt). . 1985. Pédagogie et interculturalité au Maghreb. Dialogues et cultures (Montreal), N o . 27, pp. 55-65. . 1990. L'éducation, facteur d'intégration en Méditerranée? Langue française et pluralité au Maghreb, pp. 79-101. Paris/Rome, Publisud/ISPROM.184 Ahmed Moatassime . 1991. L a dimension culturelle du développement: une nouvelle illusion? La dimension culturelle du développement, pp. 59-75. CERES/University of T u - nis. . 1992. La sociologie de l'éducation au Maghreb entre permanences et renouvellements. Paris, C N R S . . In press. Arabisation et langue française au Maghreb. Paris, P U F . M O R R I S S O N , C . et al. 1991. Ajustement et dépenses sociales au Maroc. Revue tiers-monde, N o . 126, pp. 2 5 4 - 69. (United Nations Development Programme, H u - m a n Development Report, Washington, D . C . ) R A C H I D I , El-R. 1991. Pour une stratégie fondée sur l'emploi et les besoins essentiels au Maroc. Rabat, Éd . Guessous. S A L M I , J. 1990. Vocational Education in Algeria, Egypt and Morocco. T h e Crisis and its Lessons. Prospects, N o . 73, pp. 95-106. (See also, by the same author, Crise de l'enseignement et reproduction sociale au Maroc, É d . Maghrébines, 1985.) S R A I E B , N . 1974. Colonisation, décolonisation et enseignement: l'exemple tunisien. Tunis, Institut des Sciences de l'Éducation. T A L R B - I B R A H I M I , A . 1973. De la décolonisation à la révolution culturelle (1962-1972). Algiers, S N E D . U N E S C O . 1970-90. Statistical Yearbooks.The new educational pluralism in Latin America José Joaquín Brunner Analytical framework Instead of proceeding in this analysis along nar- rowly conventional lines - studying the religious, ideological, social and ethnic pluralism that ac- companies (and whose absence sometimes hin- ders) the development of modern education systems in secularized societies - w e propose a different approach in that w e seek to identify the mechanisms and procedures whereby socio-cultural systems institutionalize pluralism and diversity. It is interesting to examine, for example, h o w they organize the transmission of culture in different ways through the educa- tional process, h o w they select participants and share out educational opportunities a m o n g them, and h o w they regulate the social distribution of educational qualifications. José Joaquín Brunner (Chile). Specialist in the sociology of education. Professor-researcher at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), vice-president of the Chilean Higher Council of Education, where he chaired the Presidential Study Commission on Higher Education. Member of the Executive Committee of the Latin American Social Sciences Council. His most recent books are: Educación superior en América latina: cambios y desafíos (1990), Chile: transformaciones culturales y modernidad (1989), and Recursos humanos para la investigación en América latina (1989). Pluralism in social systems appears as an expression of the various patterns resulting from a combination of the two main axes of the so- cial condition: (a) the axis of communicative ac- tion, running between the poles at which legiti- mate conduct is determined by the individual or by the group; and (b) the axis of symbolic control, running between the poles of hierarchy and autonomy, depending on whether control is exercised externally, by means of instructions, or internally by the inherently normative struc- ture of the role performed. T h e basic patterns resulting from the c o m - bination of these two axes apply to four funda- mental types of cultural experience. In diagram- matic terms they m a y be represented as shown in Figure 1. T h e vertical axis shows the ways in which legitimate action is organized. At one end, individual production of communicative action is recognized and promoted. Legitimacy resides in the speaker. At the other end, group produc- tion of communicative action is recognized and promoted. Legitimacy resides in the message. T h e horizontal axis shows the ways in which symbolic interaction is controlled. A t one end, control is vested in established hierarchies and instructions flow from the outside in. A t the other end, control is exercised by the actors performing the roles and is transmitted from the inside out. T h e resulting m o d e s are to be perceived as ideal types or pure forms of action and con- trol. In all of them, therefore, w e find meaning Prospects, Vol. XXII, I, N o . 2, 1992 (82)186 José Joaquín Brunner Individual (I) Selective mode *j Hierarchy (H) < Ritual mode Competitive mode Autonomy (A) Community mode Group (G) Control FIG. 1. Action and control: basic cultural modes. and structure, initiative and power. It follows that for each of the quadrants there is, so to speak,, one hermeneutic and one positional analy- sis. N o n e of them, on the other hand, can be reduced to its dimension of action or control alone. SELECTIVE CULTURAL MODE Characterized by the following set of prefer- ences: • Heteronomous controls exercised hierarchi- cally over individuals w h o decide for them- selves. • Basic tendency of m o d e : motivation - achieve- ment and upward mobility. • Predominant value system: meritocracy. • Axial conflict: between incumbents and aspir- ants. Struggle for position. • T y p e of sanction: selective failure. Inner: guilt. Outward: resentment. • F o r m of expression of m o d e : basic culture of meritocracy. • Behaviour: strategic; highly organized at the individual level. Discipline. COMPETITIVE CULTURAL MODE Characterized by the following set of prefer- ences: • Autonomous controls internalized by indi- viduals w h o decide for themselves. • Basic tendency of the m o d e : motivation - individual satisfaction (profit maxi- mization) . • Predominant value system: competitive. • Axial conflict: over opportunities for satisfac- tion. Struggle to be first. • Type of sanction: loser stigma. Inner: shame. Outward: frustration. • F o r m of expression of m o d e : market culture. • Behaviour: self-referential; highly individual- ized. COMMUNITY CULTURAL MODE Characterized by the following set of prefer- ences: • Autonomous controls internalized by indi- viduals belonging to groups that direct action. • Basic tendency of the m o d e : motivation - achieving (and granting) recognition in the reference group. • Predominant value system: solidarity/mutual support. • Axial conflict: for inclusion and recognition without loss of autonomy. • T y p e of sanction: exclusion from the group. Inner: distress. Outward: 'leper syndrome'. • F o r m of expression of the m o d e : circle of friends. • Behaviour: identification with peers; loyalty. RITUAL CULTURAL MODE Characterized by the following set of prefer- ences: • Heteronomous controls over individuals be- longing to groups that direct action.The new educational pluralism in Latin America 187 / / s s s • • 5 S / / 4* s s C • o * s M A < - 4 \ \ " A \ \ 6 \ V \ \ N N \ • l \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ 8 S \ \ \ \ J • / *> S / * S • 7 S • • • • • Control FIG. 2. Action and control: processes of change in basic cultural modes. • Basic tendency of the m o d e : motivation by deference to group rules and external hier- archies of order. • Predominant value system: respect for hierar- chy. • Axial conflict: concerning submission to the rules. • T y p e of sanction: demotion and isolation. Inner: rebellion. Outward: 'face-saving'. • F o r m of expression of the m o d e : hierarchical culture. • Behaviour: highly stylized; ritualism. Empirically, cultural institutions and processes depart from the theoretical model in that they are always a combination of selective, competi- tive, community and ritual elements. For ex- ample, in a given market situation the simulta- neous existence of community situations cannot be ruled out, and vice versa. Similarly, the pre- dominance of hierarchical structures never c o m - pletely eliminates the individual and his or her sphere of autonomous action, however limited. Phenomena of cultural change m a y , in turn, be analysed as shifts taking place around the vertical and horizontal axes of the diagram or as movements between the 'individual', 'au- tonomy', 'group' and 'hierarchy' poles, as shown in Figure 2 . T h e phenomena identified in that diagram by lines 1 to 8 represent crucial pro- cesses of cultural transformation in contempor- ary societies. These m a y be processes of: (1) individualization; (2) community formation; (3) autonomization; (4) establishment of hierarchies; (5) constitution of citizenship; (6) structuring of daily life; (7) neo-communication initiatives; and (8) rationalization. Later, they will serve as the basis for analysis of processes of educational change in connection with the phenomena of the n e w pluralism. Socio-institutional pluralism in education T h e first thing to be borne in mind is that about 73 million children in Latin America, represent- ing approximately 88 per cent of the 6-11 age-group, are enrolled in basic education (1990), compared with 27 million (about 58 per cent of the same age-group) in 1960. Almost 56 per cent of adolescents in the 12-17 age-group were enrolled in school in 1988, compared with an enrolment ratio of only about 15 per cent in 1960. Lastly, the number of students enrolled in higher education has increased over the past thirty years from 550,000 to more than 7 mil- lion, which represents a jump in the gross enrol- ment ratio from 3.2 per cent to almost 19 per cent of young people aged between 20 and 24. T h e institutional structure that has devel- oped over the past three decades and has laid the foundations for this marked educational growth consists of tens of thousands of estab- lishments spread over the length and breadth of the region. Rather than attempting to draw up a typology of institutions, w e consider it more useful to examine the different cultural modes of which they form part and the processes of institutionalized pluralism to which they give rise in the field of education. For the sake of brevity, w e shall simply apply the description of basic cultural modes (see Fig. 1) to education. Figure 3 shows thejuin Brunner 188 José Je I Élitist Promotional Meeting of demand Experimental G Control FIG. 3. Basic educational modes. resulting educational modes, which, as w e shall see below, represent the institutional structure of the n e w educational pluralism in the Latin American region. ÉLITIST EDUCATIONAL MODE Characterized by the following preferences: • Heteronomous control to promote character formation. • Basic tendency of the m o d e : training of lead- ers. • Predominant value system: meritocracy. • Axial conflict: between the requirement of adaptation to the education system and individual rebelliousness. • Education system: based on a code of respon- sibility with inherited élitist values. • Typical forms of expression of the m o d e : private schools with high-pressure selec- tion processes, strong academic leanings and a sharply defined set of (religious or other) values. • Preferred forms of behaviour: very highly organized at the personal level. Individu- ation and discipline. MEETING OF DEMAND EDUCATIONAL MODE Characterized by the following preferences: • Autonomous control by individuals w h o pay for themselves and are treated as consum- ers. • Basic tendency of the m o d e : delivery of quali- fications to educational consumers. • Predominant value system: ethics of exchange. • Typical forms of expression of the m o d e : private schools situated in a market of supply and demand that tends to influence academic quality and pressure in the di- rection of the average and/or downwards. • Preferred forms of behaviour: fulfilment of the educational contract. EXPERIMENTAL EDUCATIONAL MODE Characterized by the following preferences: • Autonomous control internalized by individu- als w h o form part of an action-determining group. • Basic tendency of the m o d e : participation in a community-approved form of socialization. • Predominant value system: solidarity and mutual support. • Axial conflict: integration into the community system without loss of autonomy. • Education system: based on some kind of (usually pedagogic-ideological) group project. • Typical forms of expression of the m o d e : idiosyncratic community schools with some form of experimental proclivity. • Preferred forms of behaviour: personalized reciprocity in an integrating community. PROMOTIONAL EDUCATIONAL MODE Characterized by the following preferences: • Heteronomous control over individuals w h o are incorporated in a hierarchical cultural group. • Basic tendency of the m o d e : training in c o m - pliance with group rules and in dealing with external social hierarchies.The new educational pluralism in Latin America 189 • Predominant value system: respect for hierar- chy and ambition to rise within it. • Axial conflict: regarding rules and their fulfil- ment. • Education system: based on a sense of public service. • Typical forms of expression of the m o d e : middle-class state-run schools. • Preferred forms of behaviour: ritualization of duty. It is interesting to observe h o w the trend to- wards mass education over the past three dec- ades has in practice led to a readjustment - not just in terms of numbers enrolled - between the different educational modes . While the trend in elitist education has been towards privatization and ideological differen- tiation, so that former state-run secondary schools of high repute have been almost entirely dis- placed, a vigorous branch of education geared to the satisfaction of d e m a n d has simultane- ously emerged at the intermediate and higher levels of education. This n e w branch offers a range of educational and qualification-oriented services that attract growing numbers from the n e w middle classes and also from the higher levels of the working class, especially at the ter- tiary level. It has rung the death knell, at the higher levels of the system, of the ideal of state-run education as a civilizing force, whose premise since the last century had been the indissoluble bond between free education, people and na- tion. Experimental initiatives in education have also begun to show an upward trend. T h e y re- flect the greater cultural and educational diver- sity n o w existing and recognized. In most cases, such initiatives are institutionalized through the private sector inasmuch as they are implemented through paid establishments which are, h o w - ever, community-based and not preferentially market-oriented. State-run education, on the other hand, has been virtually excluded from this educational m o d e because of its rigid centralist and bureaucratic style of organization, which stifles any aspiration to independence on the part of individual establishments and reduces the incentive to innovate and experiment. Yet it was education organized as a free public service that m a d e possible mass primary education which, as w e have seen, has advanced to the threshold of universalization. T h e changes that it underwent during that process do not, however, fit the picture of the bottom left-hand quadrant of Figure 3. T h e schools located in that quadrant had to admit children from working-class urban and rural areas to the na- tional education system, including the poorest of these and the m e m b e r s of traditionally marginalized ethnic groups. T h e extension to those sectors of a public service that had been designed to educate chil- dren from the emerging middle classes, and that was too rigid to change and innovate, engen- dered an educational submode , which existed alongside traditional state education for middle- class groups, and is described in the following section: MASS COVERAGE EDUCATIONAL SUBMODE Characterized by the following preferences: • Heteronomous control over individuals enter- ing an institutional environment alien to their previous family experience. • Basic tendency of the m o d e : integration of a large proportion of the population into the basic structures of an 'educational cul- ture'. • Predominant value system: respect for knowl- edge and for the basic disciplines codified by the education system. • Axial conflict: between daily culture in the world outside school and the codes of education-oriented culture. • Education system: based on a sense of official administrative responsibility. • Typical forms of expression of the m o d e : poor state (or subsidized private) school for children from sectors traditionally ex- cluded from education. • Preferred forms of behaviour: reverence for school rules and regulations. It is in this educational submode that w e have190 José Joaquín Brunner the most striking evidence of the perverse im- pact of the drive to achieve mass education, within a short period and with scarce resources, under the sponsorship of rigidly bureaucratized states and private institutions, such as churches and small-scale educational entrepreneurs w h o receive public subsidies in their capacity as 'sup- porters' of free schooling for the poor. It is here that Latin America's high drop-out and repeti- tion rates and the system's lowest rates of achieve- ment are concentrated. A n d here w e also have the source of the deep socio-cultural cleavage between the education received by the 'upper crust' - a percentage ranging from 5 to perhaps 30 per cent of young people, depending on the country concerned - and that received in de- plorable conditions by the 'underdogs'. In short, there is a strong element of socio-cultural pluralism in Latin American edu- cation that has been intensified by the m o v e - ment towards mass education in recent dec- ades. It has reached the point where specific and sharply differentiated institutional terms are used for the educational services offered to the upper crust and to the underdogs. This deep split is, in practice, the underside of educational pluralism in the region. T h e diversity of educa- tional modes reflects the unequal distribution of educational opportunities. T h e n e w plural- ism is not so m u c h an ideological, ethnic or religious phenomenon as a reflection of the po- litical economy that underlies the education sys- tem. It is in this context that it is accurate to describe educational modes as elitist, demand- fulfilling, experimental, promotional or geared to mass coverage. O n the other hand, the de- velopment of an educational service, compris- ing a number of different modes , that contrib- utes in a variety of ways to the formation of a c o m m o n democratic culture and prepares young people to perform appropriate productive tasks, continues to be the supreme educational chal- lenge confronting Latin American societies. Pluralism of processes and ideologies M u c h of the contemporary debate on education in Latin America has to do with the upsurge in n e w forms of pluralism and the ways in which they are institutionalized. Education stands at the crossroads of Latin American modernity, whose contradictory cultural composition is only beginning to be understood. T h e processes and ideologies whereby that modernity is expressed in cultural terms are shown in the diagram in Figure 2. INDIVIDUALIZATION As one moves up the vertical axis ( G —> I), group-centred action gives way to action cen- tred on the individual, a path followed in the modernization process, with traditional c o m m u - nities disintegrating and being supplanted by a society of individuals. However, these processes of individualization of action are not exhausted in the first wave of modernization (rural/urban for example), but continue to occur whenever n e w segments of social activity join the market. In education, this trend assumes a variety of forms which usually tend to be called 'privati- zation' movements in Latin America. In effect, a growing proportion of intermediate and higher education is at present being conducted in the private sector in the form of a service contract obtained in the educational market. Individuals pay for their education and establishments sup- port themselves by charging fees for enrolment. This is quite a turnaround from the ideo- logical point of view. Until a couple of decades ago, education was viewed in Latin America as a service that the state had a duty to provide free of charge to students. 'Free Education for All' was this century's slogan for educational development in the region. With the advent of mass education, it was an aspiration that could no longer be sustained at the intermediate and higher levels of education. T h e state soon reachedThe new educational pluralism in Latin America 191 the limits of its capacity, as demonstrated by the fact that it did not even manage to provide quality basic education for all. At the same time, it became clear that the principle of free higher education was fundamentally inequitable, be- cause very few young people from low-income families have access to that level. By contrast, young people from middle- and upper-class backgrounds, w h o were until recently almost alone in gaining university entrance, thereby ensuring that the education they obtained would prove highly profitable in the future, were sub- sidized by all those adults whose children scarcely managed to complete primary education. In short, the pressures for greater individu- alization of the cost of education are giving a boost to privatization and are at the same time making it possible for the state to become more actively involved in improving the quality of primary education for all. COMMUNITY FORMATION A similar movement in the opposite direction (I —> G ) is taking place through new processes of association typical of advanced moderniza- tion. T h e most innovative trend in the group- ing of individuals in the context of modernity has been the formation of 'networks', which are loosely defined communities of independent individuals operating within or outside the market, in the existing community environment, in non-governmental organizations and elsewhere. Networks are, by their nature, specialized or even professional associations engendering a cultural pattern in which autonomous individu- ality and a relatively more 'abstract' community base are combined, an extreme example being the electronic networks that 'converse' through 'bulletin boards'. Partly as a reaction to the educational market and the privatization processes under way in that field, educational experiments typical of this community formation phenomenon are n o w beginning: for example, n e w community-based schools and non-formal educational experiments, especially in working-class areas, which seek to compensate for or replace the low-quality and low-achievement educational submode of mass coverage. Communi ty penetration of pre-school education has been particularly noteworthy, with non-governmental organizations offering an in- creasing number of programmes. AUTONOMIZATION M o v e m e n t from hierarchies towards autonomy (H —¥ A ) presupposes a change in the modes of interaction and forms of administration typical of the field of education. Traditional forms of educational organization give rise initially to n e w bureaucratic patterns which, being impersonal and highly regulated, are both more effective and, in general, consistent with the selective/ competitive approach adopted by mass education under state-/public-sector organization. However, such bureaucratized forms of organization of the educational process and of administration of educational establishments and systems are at present going through a crisis, causing characteristic movements along the H —> A axis. T h e initial impulse in this direc- tion usually comes from n e w educational ap- proaches that seek to focus on the individual, enhancing his or her autonomy and ability to learn h o w to learn. It is interesting to note, h o w - ever, that some elitist schools, instead of follow- ing this trend, tend to stress the need for more rigid educational structures, advocating a 'back to basics' approach and an educational process that is more structured in moral and intellectual terms. T h e second movement in the direction of greater autonomy is more recent and has systemic implications. It seeks to secure greater autonomy for establishments, especially in the public sector, through déconcentration and ad- ministrative decentralization. A number of Latin American countries have begun to m o v e in that direction, which amounts to nothing short of a revolution in education, involving the enhance- ment of local management capacities and as- signment of greater responsibility for results to individual schools and their teachers and m a n - agers.192 José Joaquín Brunner ESTABLISHMENT OF HIERARCHIES In the opposite direction ( H < - A ) there are movements towards the restoration of hierar- chies, which occur either through the extension of bureaucratic procedures into areas that were previously exempt or through the introduction of n e w principles and procedures of hierarchy- building, usually associated with the need to preserve the legitimacy of selection processes. T h e most characteristic of these movements seeks to reclassify individuals in terms of their educational credentials. N o w that hierarchies have been partially freed from family connections, traditional communities, social capital, political connections and the wealth and privilege asso- ciated with the market, moves are under way to base these hierarchies on educational principles reflected in the certified accumulation of knowl- edge. Corresponding to this process of rebuild- ing of social hierarchies on the basis of attested educational merit, w e have education for all, mass enrolment opportunities and the continual extension of the period allocated to education in a lifetime, culminating in the notion of life- long education. This trend of the times is not so m u c h a functional need of the market or a tech- nical necessity imposed by differentiation of work and specialization of knowledge; rather, it is a specifically modern expedient to hold together the poles of individual autonomy (which the school proclaims and seeks to develop) and social hierarchies, to which selective access is hence- forward regulated by the possession of educa- tional/academic capital. CITIZENSHIP T h e relationship between the poles of hierarchy and individuals (line H «-» I) is the principal sphere in which processes of individualization vis-à-vis the state and of integration of the state into the personal world of the individual take place. T h e basic processes that mould the citi- zen, with his or her code of rights raised as a bulwark against the wielders of power but at the same time granted, recognized and protected (or violated) by them, are combined on this axis. Here, the role of education in the forma- tion of modern citizenship is starting to be re- viewed. W h e n w e speak of n e w forms of citizen- ship, w e are referring not only to the status of individuals within and vis-à-vis the state but rather, in more radical terms, to a legitimization of citizenship at community level; in other words, in the n e w forms of social participation in pub- lic life and in the market, in n e w forms of au- tonomous control of community life based on the locality and the region, and in the n e w de- mands m a d e by citizen-based social movements (feminism, green and environmental movements, consumers' associations, neighbourhood and local groupings, etc.). In education, the requirements for education in a n e w type of citizenship are inseparably linked to education for work, for the reception of m e s - sages channelled by the mass media and for participation in local life. O n these three fronts, traditional education does not offer an adequate response. It focuses on a type of culture that is academic but divorced from life and work; it is a form of education that has turned its back on the communication revolution and that does not qualify people for responsible action in local affairs. For that reason, it is to be hoped that in the years ahead the debate on education will focus increasingly on these topics, and will help to reinforce trends towards greater educational diversification and pluralism. STRUCTURING OF DAILY LIFE In seeking to scale d o w n the major functional hierarchies that control the individual, modern societies are actually contributing to the more forceful re-emergence of micro-hierarchies in daily life. Phenomena of the type vaguely la- belled microphysics of power, the introduction of discipline into daily life, or the establishment of a ritual framework for interaction are interlinked around the line connecting the poles ( H <-> G ) .The new educational pluralism in Latin America 193 W e thus find ourselves in a world in which in- dividuals and groups interact on the basis of complex but routine stylizations of c o m m u n i - cation, seeking to build and project their iden- tity, assuming roles, saving face, fulfilling the prescriptions for interaction, engaging in m o v e - ments of avoidance and invitation, and perform- ing tribal rites. F r o m the outset, school has been a socialization experience in this sphere and in these structures of communication and interac- tion. At present, however, the whole authoritar- ian character of educational processes and in- stitutions has been challenged, partly on account of the change in values and convictions brought by modernity and partly also on account of the greater instability and uncertainty of knowledge within the framework of the scientific model that has c o m e to predominate in contemporary culture. T h e fact is that schools, across the spec- trum of educational modes , have difficulty in establishing a system that links classroom expe- rience with school-leavers' potential experience in their everyday lives. Beyond the deep-seated crisis stemming from the generation gap and the collapse of the moral standards that gov- erned membership of a shared moral order, the problem is a larger-scale structural one related to: the spread of informal work in Latin Ameri- can economies; the fact that employment re- quirements in the informal sector and highly modernized companies are difficult to catego- rize; the internationalization of consumption patterns and prevailing social images; and the lack of generally accepted standards capable of controlling the n e w phenomena of deviant be- haviour and violence in society. At the macro level of social organization, the structures that until recently controlled the forces operating around this line (H o G ) are tending to disappear. These structures m a y be grouped under the generic term of 'state inter- ventionism', based on the idea of a benevolent form of administration by the authorities exer- cised through bureaucratic measures. T o the extent that the state is n o w increas- ingly obliged to interact with individuals them- selves, it will tend to do so - also increasingly - through the respective markets, ignoring the regulations pertaining to specific groups. Rather than exercising direct control over individuals, an aspiration that the modern mind finds unac- ceptable, the state is obliged to control the au- thorities that co-ordinate individuals (chiefly the markets). T h e state, whether as administrator of so- ciety as a whole or as benefactor of particular groups, is going through a crisis in terms of specific cultural circumstances, since n e w pub- lic structures have not yet been created to re- place the old ones. T h e resulting vacuum tends at the m o m e n t to be occupied by individual integration into the markets and into symbolic consumption. In education, the response to the vacuum is privatization, taking the form of es- tablishments that charge a fee for educational services. T h e state, with its outdated structures of educational supply and administration, is not in a position to control this n e w private edu- cation sector, so that an acute problem of 'pub- lic quality control' of education has arisen, par- ticularly in the vocational training markets and in tertiary education in general. NEO-COMMUNITARIAN INITIATIVES Vigorous development is also taking place in the area around the line ( G <-> A ) , in precisely the same area that has been vacated by the state with the consequent deployment of private so- cial forces. T h e defensive trenches, so to speak, of community sociability are also being built around this line to guard against the advance and intrusion of the expanding market. While, on the one hand, in an upward movement , groups are becoming more autono- m o u s and secularizing the sense of community, on the other, in a movemen t in the opposite direction, secular forms of autonomy are regrouping in a n e w process of community- building. This does not m e a n that 'neo- communitarism' is dissolving religious ties; it is tending, rather, to alter them, by placing them in a context of greater autonomy, of flatter and194 José Joaquín Brunner reduced hierarchies, and of broader pluralism in terms of personal experience and forms of expression. Secularism as a specifically mode rn cultural pattern consists precisely in this loss of 'singlemindedness', in the dissolution of the hi- erarchical structures that previously held groups together, in the transformation of the world of beliefs and values through contact with the in- strumental rationalism of daily life, in the dis- mantling of inherited interpretations and in the decentralization of communities whose lives are beginning to reflect a certain pluralism of out- look and which are generating a multiplicity of groups. M o d e r n 'neo-communitarism' has begun to reorganize the most widely varying struc- tures of action at all levels of social organiza- tion. W e have already shown h o w such phe- n o m e n a also exert an influence on education, impelling it towards greater déconcentration and decentralization. RATIONALIZATION T h e line connecting the poles of autonomy and the individual (A o I) m a y be termed the van- ishing horizon of modernity, or the line along which strategic rationalism spurs societies to en- gage in a process of ceaseless change, sweeping their m e m b e r s along on a tide of experiments. Education is perceived by the intellectual élites of Latin America as the cornerstone of this culture of modernity. T h e y hope that edu- cation will be the gateway and the path leading to modernity, providing societies with the shared basic learning of the n e w culture. O n the other hand, as shown throughout this article, the rationalizing power and power of access to modernity attributed to Latin Ameri - can education are for the time being little m o r e than an aspiration and a myth . This is due to the coexistence of a variety of educational modes , to the fluctuating patterns of change in the field of education and to the limited ability of the education system to cater for the poor and in- digenous masses, bringing them together in a c o m m o n culture. Furthermore, there is a possibility that edu- cation, once its institutional structures begin to be differentiated and evolve towards greater pluralism, will no longer be able to act as the vehicle of a single principle of rationality, progress and civilization - as was believed as long ago as the eighteenth century in Europe and until quite recently in Latin America. Its socio-cultural role is in fact more varied and its functions m o r e diverse, to such an extent that, in the as yet distant future, each individual school m a y c o m e to represent just one particular option in a world of opportunities that will tend to b e c o m e infi- nitely numerous. Conclusion Education is, however, already beginning to reflect the whole range of pluralisms that constitute the relatively complex, urbanized and semi-in- dustrialized societies of most of Latin America. Modernity in these societies assumes the form of cultural pluralism with a centrifugal and fragmented social basis, in which deep divisions of class and social strata still exist alongside emerg- ing tensions due to the spread of markets, pri- vatization in civil society, the disintegration of the traditional state, the rapid internationaliza- tion of communications and expectations, and the consolidation of liberal-democratic regimes that enable all this diversity to be expressed more freely. T h e n e w pluralism of Latin American edu- cation has therefore more to do with the m o d - ernization of societies and their cultures than with the more restrictive notion of complementarity a m o n g well-structured socio-cultural elements that fight to preserve their identity and that at- tain a form of expression recognized by the state in the field of education. T h e latter type of plu- ralism, found in more stable and better struc- tured societies, is replaced in Latin America by a more fluid and ambiguous educational plural- ism which, in the final analysis, reflects a process of construction of modernity that began only recently but is n o w in full swing. •Pluralism and education in India Problems and possibilities Sureshachandra Shukla It is a difficult time to write about pluralism and related matters, w h e n the perspective today is so fast-changing and it is unclear where both the issue itself and the w a y it is likely to be viewed by the m a n y parties involved will stand even five years from n o w . A n d , indeed, there are also important cross-cultural and cross- national differences of historical experience which affect the very presentation of the matter in different societies. Pluralism is for the most part a liberal re- sponse - although of course, not the only lib- eral response - to a condition of immigrants coming from poorer countries and former colo- nies or lesser developed minority groups living in a country with a reasonably developed economy and/or a confident forward-looking élite. Plu- ralism sometimes also emerges from a history of the need for a determined united struggle against colonial domination. Sometimes, h o w - ever, this could also give rise to an imperative Sureshachandra Shukla (India). Professor, Depart- ment of Education at the University of Delhi. Has been Dean of the Faculty of Education at Jamia Millia Islamia University and former Deputy Direc- tor, Asian Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, both in New Delhi. Author of: El- ementary Education in British India during Later Nineteenth Century and T h e Context of E d u - cation in Developing Societies and of numerous articles, mainly in the areas of the social interconnec- tions of education and comparative education. of uniformity or homogeneity, viewing expres- sions of distinctness or distinctive characteris- tics of minority groups as separatism, parochi- alism or, in current Indian terminology, communal i sm or linguism, which are inimical to the c o m m o n enterprise of national independ- ence, cultural identity and even development. T h e liberal prescription, then, is unity-in-diversity opposed by extremists at either end and favouring uniformity (and assimilation) or parochialism respectively. India has been battling with dilemmas of this kind for at least a century, and m a y well be poised today for a decisive and qualitative re- definition of these questions along m o r e than one dimension: religious, linguistic or, m o r e broadly, cultural. Education, clearly, is involved as both cause and effect. T h e problems in this domain are both general and specific to India's o w n cultural and historical circumstances. T h e question of education as a factor for change, as opposed to its tendency to perpetu- ate the status quo , has long been discussed in various ways by social scientists and others. It is also important to note here the tendency of education itself to remain basically unaltered in its essential structure and content (Shukla, 1968, 1992), a quality which has important bearings o n its capacity to promote either pluralism or cohesion. This static, constant quality of edu- cation m a y be stronger in countries and cul- tures with a long history of domination (under colonialism, for example) and conflict. Prospects, Vol. XXII, [, N o . 2, 1992 (82)196 Sureshachandra Shukla This has obvious implications for our dis- cussion, as education would tend to reinforce and even perpetuate existing distinctions, even though it has some tendency to the contrary, and even as economic modernization of recent times, political developments (in particular, democracy) and recent advances in c o m m u n i - cations, albeit with some limitations, push in the direction of homogenization or integration. India T h e question ' W h a t is India?' has been raised repeatedly and from m a n y perspectives over the years. S o m e British rulers called it a mere geo- graphical expression. Indian nationalists have contradicted this position for over a century in m a n y ways. T h e present Indian state, with its present geographical boundaries, was formed in 1947. T h e larger British Indian empire which pre- ceded it included today's M y a n m a r , Pakistan and Bangladesh as well, but at the same time allowed the existence of 562 states with varying degrees of suzerainty to paramount authority. There had not been such an extensive unified authority or domain before. O n the other hand, Greater India, extending from Cambodia to Kabul and of basically Hindu and Buddhist cultural influence, could be traced back to over a millennium earlier and consisted of m a n y sov- ereign states with changing boundaries. T h e arrival of the Christian and Zoroastrian faiths in the early period m a d e a m u c h smaller differ- ence to India than the later arrival of Islam - and its monarchs, w h o built n e w dynasties and brought the Persian and Arabic languages, with their wealth of culture and learning as well as n e w ways of family and economic life. T h e ex- istence over a long period of these influences, however, has not prevented the more extreme proponents of unity and integration, even uni- formity, to proclaim today a pan-Indian iden- tity, citing Hindu places of pilgrimage in the extreme north, south, east and west of the sub- continent and use of Sanskrit by the Brahmin upper caste and the literati in general. T h e Vedas have occasionally been cited as the sole source of Indian civilization Qain, 1991) and the carry- ing over of such Hindu characteristics as caste and social stratification a m o n g the convert- followers of Islam and Christianity is seen by m a n y as justification for an essentially Hindu hegemonic character of India. O n the other hand, the assertion of Islam as a basis for nationhood, which led to the formation of Pakistan - itself somewhat ambivalent about this, as exempli- fied by founder-President Jinnah's inaugural address to the Constituent Assembly, by an early official publication, 5000 Years of Pakistan (Wheeler, 1949) and by the later, language-based split by the originally secular nationalism of Bangladesh - continues to present the Indian identity with its most serious problem. T h e formation of the present Indian state came about at the conclusion of a long struggle against British rule, through a movement which was at once political and cultural. It contended with an effort - which was bitter and keenly contested - to identify religion as the basis of nationality. Even as the state of Pakistan, with its Muslim majority, was carved out in the wake of communal riots and the cross-border migra- tions of millions of people in both directions, with over a million people killed, the strong Hindu hegemonistic impulse in India, which still had over 50 million Muslims (mere are n o w 100 million), was overcome by the stronger of the two trends - that is, secular or multicultural motives as opposed to Hindu hegemonic forces - in the movement for independence. India thus framed a Constitution (in 1950) which essen- tially separated the state and religion (including the barring of religious instruction in state-spon- sored or financed institutions) and which con- stitutionally entrenched the right of minorities - religious or linguistic - to organize with public support educational institutions of their choice on a par with all others. Concessions to major- ity Hindu beliefs, for example the protection of cows and better management of cattle, or even such modern secular proposals as a uniform civil code for marriage, were only designated as Directive Principles of state policy. Thus , thePluralism and education in India: problems and possibilities 197 basis for religious and linguistic pluralism in education was laid and persists today. It was strengthened through later amendments to the Constitution in which secularism, socialism and scientific spirit (the former two defined in In- dia's o w n peculiar manner) were prescribed as fundamental duties of a citizen, with ample ref- erence to the ideals of the national struggle, ' c o m - m o n brotherhood transcending religious, linguis- tic, regional or sectional diversities' and the value of 'the rich heritage of our composite culture' (Constitution of India, Part I V A ) . India's diversity of language is evident from the list of fifteen languages in Part VIII of the Schedule of the Constitution, which describes the languages of the major regions as follows: English, the language of the élite all over the country; Sanskrit, rather like Latin in Europe, the classical language of the ancient period spo- ken by no one in everyday life but used in insti- tutions of classical learning and the source of a great number of words and literary riches in most other Indian languages; Urdu , spoken (like Hindi), the language of almost 40 per cent of the people of northern India, but also of m a n y Muslims elsewhere, with a vocabulary relying heavily on Persian and Arabic and using their script, and possessing an extremely rich litera- ture; and Sindhi, a later addition, whose region of origin is n o w in Pakistan but which is used by Hindu Sindhi immigrants to India. In fact, this list in the Constitution understates the case, for there are m a n y other languages, such as Maithili in Bihar, Konkani in G o a and Nepali in north-eastern India, pushing their claims to inclusion in the Part VIII Schedule, and dia- lects such as Bhojpuri, Avadhi and Brij - to give examples only from the Hindi region - which are widely spoken and have literature in the c o m m o n Hindi script. T h e Central Insti- tute of Indian Languages lists almost 200 lan- guages, an obvious overstatement by academic practitioners of the science of linguistics for any practical purposes, since twenty-two of those spoken by over 1.5 million people in fact cover 548 million people, or 93 per cent of the popu- lation (Vanaik, 1990). It nevertheless serves to highlight the reality of linguistic diversity. It is to be expected that ethnic diversity, in a country of over 850 million people, will be great. But what is important for our present purposes is not so m u c h the distinction between the Dravidian south and the rest of the country (although in other circumstances it could be so) but the persistence of tribalism, particularly in the north-east where other national frontiers - with China, M y a n m a r and Bangladesh - exist on every side. These people had not only expe- rienced little participation in any organized central national state but were under the sovereignty of the British Government of India and were also the object of organized Christian missionary work. This marked them out from the rest of the coun- try, not only by loose administrative association but also by religion and ethnicity. Educational problems arising from these have, however, been more or less successfully negotiated through restraint in the spread of Hindi, a greater use of English and, in some cases, the private m a n - agement of education. S o m e questions related to pluralism or multiculturalism or any other variant of the ba- sic notion of accepting diversity as important to harmonious living together are, on the other hand, rather more intractable. These relate mostly to religion and religion-based cultural-political matters in which language is also involved, par- ticularly in northern India. Here, U r d u is asso- ciated with Muslims - although not in fact cor- rectly - and Punjabi is equally inaccurately associated with Sikhs; these have become bones of contention with conservative sections of Hindu opinion. It is through elucidation of this (Hindu) syndrome that one can best clarify the question of pluralism. History: the Hindus and others M a n y overlapping strands, which do not c o m - pletely coincide, contribute towards the n o w strident assertion of a national unity with a spe- cifically Hindu complexion. T h e identification of India - particularly198 Sureshachandra Shukla its nationalism or national identity - with Hin- dus and Hinduism (a term which m a n y con- sider a misnomer as there is no single text which all Hindus accept as the source of their beliefs or practices) has a somewhat complicated his- tory. In opposing imperial rule, m a n y , although not all, nationalists w h o were born as Hindus used Hindu tradition and sometimes even Hindu religious symbolism, even though not all of them were either very religious or ' c o m m u n a l ' (just as m a n y Indian Muslims used the idea of dar-ul harb, anti-Islamic state, as a basis for rebelling against British rule in their capacity as true Muslims). In seeking to contest notions of infe- riority vis-à-vis the colonizing power, a long past was evoked. Also, m a n y tribal and originally non-Hindu groups were incorporated in Hindu society, along with their gods and goddesses, as one more caste. This was facilitated by the caste structure of Hindu society in which hundreds of castes coexisted and were grouped in a loose hierarchy of four vamas. S o m e recent concep- tual advances in the recording of India's history have also tended to offer bases for questioning the Indian state as a secular national identity and provided r o o m for support to the Hindu state. T h u s , notions of India as a civilizational state (Kumar , 1991) would supersede the na- tion from above, as it were, and that of c o m m u - nity as more fundamental than nation (Freitag, 1990), undermining it from below, are capable of use by proponents of India as basically a Hindu nation. T h e most militant and assertive proponents of a Hindu India have only recently begun to publicly exhort pride in being Hindu but they have long raised the slogan: 'Hindi- Hindu-Hindustan' . Contemporary reaction against positivism and scientific rationalism in the social sciences, not without its o w n justification and rationale in a basic theoretical sense, has been invoked by m a n y Indians to question secularism itself (Joshi, 1991; V e r m a , 1991). W e should also note the contribution to this question m a d e by Islam, followed by a m i - nority of Indians, m a n y of w h o m also retained memories of periods of Musl im rulers in m a n y parts of India - including the crucial northern capital of Delhi - and of Musl im ascendance in society and culture. A history of proselytization within the country, the maintenance of separate systems of learning and instruction in Arabic madrasas, Persian and mosque schools and a religious faith governing social and personal life to varying degrees, alongside a Musl im aristoc- racy or other higher social strata, had accompa- nied centuries of Musl im rule. There were also religious and educational links with other Is- lamic countries. This history had brought with it a legacy of a shared culture and life, a c o m - m o n struggle against the British and a similar history of competition, strife and separateness. All this has obvious implications for what history will be taught and what kind of civil society (in which the young are expected to live the rest of their lives) is visualized. T h u s a m o n g the Hindu majority, in a development process covering m a n y decades, the educational organi- zation of the Hindu ideological volunteer or- ganization, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or Vidya Bharati, at a recent conference set up a committee to draft a syllabus depicting the Musl im rulers in Indian history in an u n c o m - plimentary light, in fact the opposite of the hitherto accepted view of them as notable contributors to the culture, economy and general life of the country. This history would trace India's unity to the Vedas as the only source of Indian civili- zation and contest the hitherto dominant view that the Aryans migrated from the north a few thousand years ago, giving India as their origi- nal h o m e . This and similar notions, to use the description of an eminent (non-Hindu, non- Hindi-speaking) sociologist, are expected to promote the concept of a national 'mainstream' which is 'twice-born, i.e. upper-caste Hindi- speaking Hindu ' ( O m m e n , 1986). A s is to be expected, there is considerable ambiguity and casuistry alongside m u c h aggressive expression on these questions. O n e w a y of identifying non- Hindu minorities acceptable to m a n y strident Hindu 'nationalists' is to refer to all Indians as 'Hindu-and-Muslims' or ' M u h a m m a d i Hindus' - since Hindu was the term used, by Muslims as well as by the British w h e n they first c a m e to India, for all w h o lived in Hindustan (India).Pluralism and education in India: problems and possibilities 199 That this use of the term Hindu is not a plural- ist or liberal one is evident from the fact that those w h o use it have also been responsible for a call for 'Indianization' or even 'Hinduization' of Muslims, Christians, etc., and for insisting on R a m , the Hindu god, as a c o m m o n object of veneration, citing the example of Indonesia, a Musl im country, where the Ramayana , the epic story of Hindus, has been incorporated into national tradition and most names still bear Sanskrit origins. T o return to the more Hindu version of Indian history for school curricula, it is impor- tant to note that the Vidya Bharati and its asso- ciate Saraswati Shishu Mandir organization run almost 10,000 schools at various levels from kindergarten to senior secondary, a m o n g social groups varying from tribal, rural and poor to high fee-paying city dwellers. In view of the external examination-dominated character of the Indian school system, such efforts could so far only have had a partial effect through co- curricular activities, supplementary reading, etc. However , the 1991 elections have put in gov- ernments in four northern Hindi states, under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that is c o m - mitted to this programme. Liberal grants-in-aid to voluntary organizations running schools, c o m - bined with their influence on state boards of secondary education which set curricula and conduct examinations, could also promote these ideas to a very substantial degree. A s a Marxist commentator has noted: 'die progressive legitimization of Hindu cultural nationalism can only m a k e the minorities inse- cure and promote a m o n g them a sense of being culturally inferior . . . the birth of a self-con- scious Hindu identity marks the beginning of a Hindu community-in-the-making' (Vanaik, 1990, pp . 149-51). T h e reference here is to the fact that there is no codified Hindu faith but a myriad of sectors, all of w h o m share the c o m m o n so- cial stratification of caste, or vama. Further, he adds: 'In the West religious sects have finally learnt to live and let live. . . . This is obviously not the case in India' (Vanaik, 1990). Such a situation had been foreseen by for- ward-looking, secular and liberal leaders of In- | dian opinion and policy. T h e teaching of his- tory had been reformed for other reasons as well, namely, to erase the traces of domination and inferiority vis-à-vis the former Western rulers, to bring into relief the ideas of Indian enlight- enment and independence in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and to familiarize the young with the advances of all mankind in scientific and social domains. But a prime objective was what in Indian parlance is called national inte- gration and 'secularism'. T h e country discov- ered that, as schoolchildren, people in m a n y parts of India had not even learnt the main con- tours of the history of their country, but only those of their o w n regions, leading to a narrow- ness of outlook and prejudice against other re- gions or communities or the followers of other religions. Such people would tend to develop a false sense of superiority and be unable to ap- preciate the contributions of people from dif- ferent regions and communities to contempo- rary Indian life and culture or the similarity of the m a n y faiths and meir intermingling and mutual influence at m a n y levels. T o remedy this, a more scientific and comprehensive his- tory syllabus using the skills of contemporary scholarship was worked out in the 1970s by the National Council of Educational Research and Training. This was recommended to the states and enforced in the small proportion of (élite) schools affiliated with, first, the Central Board of Secondary Education, then the countrywide State Board of Secondary Education. This raised the level of instruction but also attracted con- siderable c o m m e n t , to the effect ma t the state was intervening in what, according to traditional liberal tenets, did not concern it (Rudolph and Rudolph, 1983; Shukla, 1991). In the wake of the attempted Hinduization of Indian history by Vidya Bharati and the four BJP-ruled states noted earlier, India's Union Education (now called H u m a n Resource Development) Ministry sought again, late in 1991, the assistance of recognized historians to write a syllabus which would also bring history up to date, well into m e post- independence period. This has c o m e under similar attack, with the added point that 'pseudo- | secularists' are seeking to glorify the post-inde-200 Sureshachandra Shukla pendence leadership of the largely secular C o n - gress Party which had been running the coun- try almost on its o w n . Educational administration and politics India's national movemen t had, notwithstand- ing notable Muslim and Parsi contributions, understandably started with a majority Hindu leadership, but held a broadly pluralist position on the shape of free India's polity even as, as noted earlier, m a n y strands in it would glorify India's (Hindu) past and show that m u c h Hindu philosophy and thought was equal to any in the West. B y the time of independence, there was considerable agreement on a policy of 'live and let live' between people of various denomina- tions and faiths; indeed, the most vocal elements, led by Nehru, expected science and industriali- zation to dissolve differences and lead to a ' m o d - ern rational' outlook that would push religion into the background if not m a k e it disappear altogether. However, as the leadership had been vehemently opposed to the partition of the coun- try along ostensibly religious lines, it took great care to ensure that minority groups were able to preserve their faith and way of life. Hence, not only was the state to be secular, not con- nected institutionally to any religion, but a con- cept of specifically Indian origin - 'secularism' - has tended to emerge. This has been vari- ously understood to m e a n the acceptance of long-term separateness and the distinct modes of life of different communities, or the accept- ance and even promotion of such distinctions with the expectation that industrialization, de- mocracy, science, etc., would help minimize and even eradicate them (Shukla, 1974). A third, very small minority opinion promoted a totally non- or anti-religious view of life. In this con- text, some minority educational institutions have received state recognition and financial support on equal terms, on condition that no religious instruction is provided during official school hours (with the exception of institutions like Aligarh Muslim and Benones Hindu Universities, whose pre-Constitution legislation permitted or even enjoined religious education). Specifically in- digenous educational institutions of Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian have also been supported. These cannot but have strong religious associa- tions. Religious denominations, particularly a m o n g Muslims, and later Sikhs, have also pro- moted fully religious schools, totally unaided by the state. T h e schools of the Christian minority (including Anglo-Indians) have tended to be élite because they were the first English-lan- guage schools. S o m e of them were connected with internationally established groups such as the Jesuits. Their right to establish and main- tain institutions of their choice, if they so de- sired, has been interpreted by the judiciary to include enrolling even a majority of those be- longing to other dominations, thus preserving the all-elite character of English-medium school- ing, and to admit up to 50 per cent children from their o w n denomination so as to maintain exclusiveness. Thus the 'secular' provisions of the Constitution have tended to be interpreted in favour of both elitism and parochialism. There are, however, large numbers of other denomi- national institutions of Muslims, Sikhs, etc., which c o m m a n d neither state political authority nor élite monopoly. Large numbers of these con- form to the broad official educational system, but there has also been m u c h growth in mosque- based or other traditional institutions. National integration has been an impor- tant concern, particularly since the disturbances, which began in the 1960s, along linguistic or communal lines. This concern is the natural successor to the concern for national unity dur- ing the struggle for independence. But, as noted earlier, there is considerable divergence on the interpretation of integration. Pluralist integra- tion corresponding to either interpretation of secularism noted above would allow for consid- erable variety in languages of instruction - a matter particularly relevant to northern India, where U r d u and Punjabi coexist with Hindi as the commonly used language. T o the extentPluralism and education in India: problems and possibilities 201 that this involves the segregation of children from different religious denominations into sepa- rate schools or classes, this encourages particularistic tendencies. This has been most vociferously opposed by those proponents of integration w h o are inclined to produce a some- what forced uniformity, which would lead in fact to the alienation of minority groups through neglect of their language and culture. This hap- pened to U r d u in m a n y northern states follow- ing independence. Later, however, renewed emphasis - through watchdog functions per- formed by the Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities or exhortation of the Union G o v - ernment and National Integration Council - has tended to ensure that any group of ten pupils using one language were provided with school- ing in that language. There have, indeed, still been problems with the registration of such lan- guages or the non-availability of proper teach- ers or textbooks in them. Mos t schools using Indian languages tend to develop a particularistic school culture, more in keeping with the broader social norms of the groups involved. O n the other hand, in the élite sections of the school system, a more modern Westernized climate prevails and children from all communities par- ticipate in it. Periodic and liberal trends It has to be remembered, of course, that this differentiation takes place within the framework of a c o m m o n syllabus prescribed by state edu- cation departments and evaluated through a uniform written examination. This explains the vehemence of the debate over the syllabus in, for example, history. There are, however, more pervasive problems, arising from the fact that courses in language and literature also draw upon the same culture and history. T o the extent that these rely on the writing from sources located in the hitherto established social groups - e.g. upper castes, particularly Brahmins, for the ancient period - and ignore lower groups and castes, school curricula could alienate pupils from social groups and classes just entering the edu- cational system. This has been the view of m a n y dalit (ex-untouchable castes) spokesmen. It is difficult, however, to imagine either the possi- bility of adequately changing syllabi in this di- rection or the desirability of establishing caste schools. W e m a y note here that, as a measure of tribal welfare, separate residential ashram schools have been established as a matter of policy to enable tribal children to acquire edu- cation in a homogenous atmosphere. This does not involve, however, the imposition of an edu- cational apartheid which prevents them from entering c o m m o n schools. Indeed, they follow the c o m m o n syllabus and prepare for entry to c o m m o n higher education. Little religious or formally sanctioned seg- regation is observable. However , segregation of the sexes is permissible wherever desired. This is fairly c o m m o n , especially a m o n g Muslims. There is also some tendency in all communities to lower the requirements in mathematics and emphasize domestic science for w o m e n . This is also perhaps more prevalent a m o n g Muslims. Thus , w e see that the formal structure of education as such offers relatively litde scope for any great particularistic tendencies or even m u c h pluralism. However , m e wide scope for private initiative in establishing and managing educational institutions has offered the possi- bility (widely utilized by denominational and caste groups) of creating resources, buildings, employment opportunities, organizational infra- structure and a school culture and climate that can be used in the service of such goals. This effort has been eligible for considerable state financial support as grants-in-aid for education. W h a t has developed is thus not exacdy plural- ism in education but the use of education for social pluralism or, if circumstances so dictate, divisions within the society. For the last forty or so years, the professedly 'secular' leadership of the governments has led to an educational struc- ture that formally lays great emphasis on na- tional integration of a tolerant - even pluralist - nature, as permitted and even financially as- sisted by the government grants-in-aid gener-202 Sureshachandra Shukla ally available to parochial institutions. With the rise of the BJP as a significant political party, controlling as it does m a n y state governments and in a position to influence national policy- making, combined with the decline of the tradi- tional ruling Congress Party (or, in some states, left-wing parties), this picture could change, and a more Hindu national integration, more assimilationist in character, could emerge. Whether it would permit minority groups to have their o w n more distinct systems, supported by state funds, appears problematic. This is still in the realm of speculation, as the long tradition of the national movemen t and the existence of a very large modern intelligentsia could in the prevailing politically democratic context offer strong resistance to such an educational pre- scription, even though the competitive politics of democracy could increasingly accentuate these divisions. It is useful to note at this stage that as long as the national government retains a broadly secular character, even a particularistic state government educational policy can be checked. For while all education, with the exception of co-ordination and determination of standards of higher education and research, is within the purview of states, in 1976 the Constitution was amended to bring it within the concurrent ju- risdiction of both state and central governments. Although this provision has not been used since its incorporation in 1976, a parliamentary de- cree - with, of course, its political costs in party terms, as well as in terms of encroaching on state autonomy - can enforce any educational measure nationwide. It is this kind of authority, which the C o n - stitution initially afforded to the Union govern- m e n t in respect of determination and co- ordination of standards of higher education and research, not to mention the substantial finances it c o m m a n d s and passes on to states for educa- tional schemes, that has enabled it to enforce more or less effectively broad uniformity at the school level. While individual universities in- corporated by national or state legislation pos- sess autonomy and can set their o w n syllabi, these are subject to Union-level co-ordination effected through a statutory autonomous Uni- versity Grants Commission, which works through both consultative expert committees and finan- cial assistance set up by Union legislation. A s these institutions are all based on public legisla- tion they cannot be denominational in charac- ter. S o m e leeway does exist, however, since the University Grants Commission also has authority to recommend the Government of India to con- sider certain institutions as universities. Recently, some such recognition has gone to foundations which are quasi-religious, even though they of- fer only secular courses. Other educational influences T h e largest scope for the propagation of particularistic tendencies of a different religious and cultural complexion thus lies in traditional family and religious institutions, the political system or the newly emerging mass media. W e must note here the emergence not only of the the Hindu BJP but also a variety of political parties of Musl im and Sikh denominations - although they do not necessarily claim the alle- giance of all or even a majority of the adherents of their respective faiths. T h e R S S of the Hin- dus, the tablighi m o v e m e n t and the Jamaati-i- Islami movement perform educational functions according to their beliefs, which counter the spirit of national and cultural integration. T h e point to note particularly about R S S and the Jamaat is their quasi-military character and their effort to homogenize and unify the community, cutting across some traditional di- visions - e.g. the R S S effort to erase caste and even language distinctions dividing Hindus - in order to produce a contemporary political-cul- tural entity legitimizing all its ideas in the n a m e of the reinstatement of the basic message of the hallowed traditions. This runs counter to the development of a modern nation in which indi- viduals and communities of minority groups can participate as cultural and political equals. It also tends, in practice, and more often than notPluralism and education in India: problems and possibilities 203 in theory as well, to buttress and strengthen some old inequalities, e.g. of w o m e n or lower castes, in the n a m e of cultural identity and soli- darity. T h u s , as a concession to the pluralist proclivity for recognizing and legitimizing cul- tural identities, these movements could, in the n a m e of the rights of communities to assert and develop their identity, end up by negating the individual h u m a n rights b o m of w o m e n as equals in work and politics and of the lower orders and rival communities or individuals. Freedom of conscience, including the acceptance of other beliefs and overt disavowal of faith, and indi- vidual freedoms - whether relatively trivial or minor ones such as particular hairstyles, forms of dress, greetings, etc., or major ones such as marriage outside the religious community - are similarly questioned. T h e face-to-face and person- to-person organizational links which these c o m - munities are developing exercise a supra-edu- cational influence in a separatist and illiberal direction, which it would seem naive or decep- tive to categorize as pluralist, a term w e began by defining as essentially liberal and permissive. Separate schools would serve to strengthen these tendencies and minimize the possibilities of understanding - the basis of real pluralism. This struggle between liberal and illiberal influences, effective as it is at individual and organizational levels, is also visible n o w at a mass level in the mass media, which are no minor influence. Newspapers (55 million copies pub- lished daily), even in a less than half-literate society like India, are read by hundreds of mil- lions of people (Government of India, 1990)). T h e growth of television extends n o w to over 30 million sets (29.2 million in 1990, expected to rise to 45 million in 1992 (Manorama Year- book, 1990), while the m u c h older radio net- work is m u c h more extensive but perhaps, to- day, less influential. Nationwide broadcasts of Ramayana created a more clearly articulated Hindu consciousness in a year and a half than had ever been the case before - images tran- scend the language barrier - and the current weekly p rogramme Chanakya, glorifying the leadership of that ancient Indian Machiavellian figure with his saffron robes (associated with Hindu priests and aspirants) and repeated hos- tile references to the invading forces of Alexan- der, contributes to the creation of a largely ag- gressive or oppressive Hindu identity for India. It might be convenient, at this point, to examine the differential place of English, Hindi and the other Indian languages in the context of pluralism, and the more widely prevalent Indian concepts of secularism and communalism. T h e visual media influence users of English and those of Indian languages other than Hindi as m u c h as those w h o use Hindi alone. Hindi has been a unifying and integrating influence through films for over a quarter of a century. But television has tended to concentrate messages a great deal and, presumably in response to wider socio- political tendencies, has taken on a more pro- nounced c o m m u n a l character, relying in part on the currently felt need to recall an ancient past or, worse, reinforce assertive homogeneity. This is a very recent phenomenon, for even popular T V serials had, until Ramayana, stuck to secular and even liberal integrationist themes. T h e important point is that n o w the English- speaking intelligentsia has also been very sub- stantially influenced by the serials glorifying a Hindu identity. This is in contrast to the former situation in which only a small minority (about 5 to 10 per cent of schools used English as a teaching m e d i u m ) risked being exposed to more modern and fewer religious messages of their o w n faith, the religious message in Christian schools understandably being ineffective or uninfluential. T h e language question is also related to pluralism and communalism as well as moder - nity in another manner. T h e m o v e m e n t to use Indian languages in education and other busi- ness of everyday life was essentially one of d e m o - cratic and popular inspiration which also corre- sponded to the urge to discover and develop the identity of a people. However , through the circumstance of dependency under British rule, administration, business, science and technol- ogy were increasingly monopolized by the E n g - lish language and an all-Indian English-using élite emerged. For reasons of convenience, and also because of the inability of groups of the204 Sureshachandra Shukla different linguistic origins within this élite to agree on one c o m m o n Indian language, the pre- independence stress on Hindi, the language of over 40 per cent of Indians, and on other In- dian languages has progressively decreased. Although formally pronounced as the main official language of the Union, with English as associate official language (a position which prevails even today, with only the political as- surance that English will continue to be used by the Union government as long as any state so desires), any m o v e to promote the use of Hindi (or other Indian languages) in administration or business science or technology comes up against understandable opposition, in addition to the expected technical problems it encoun- ters. T h u s the small English-using population has access to a great deal more n e w knowledge and modern thought. Through professional as- sociation it forms almost the only cohesive all- India intelligentsia, leaving those w h o do not use English relatively less informed and m o d - ern and more isolated from other language groups. T h e conundrum of all-India élite integration versus popular linguistic separateness is also reflected in terms of more traditional and per- haps therefore somewhat more parochial divi- sive culture and socialization offered by lan- guage education and a more Western-oriented one for education through English. Those in the latter category occupy élite managerial and technical positions in society, even if democratic politics does produce some non-English-using leaders. This brings about a situation of quasi- colonial domination in the spheres of culture and even of political economy. Conclusion T h e implications for pluralism in both its lib- eral and conservative interpretations are some- what mixed. With a substantial proportion of the population living below the poverty line and the economy still affected only in some parts by the market, only about half the 11-year-olds have received schooling. T h u s the polity and the pre- vailing socio-cultural system are less affected by the educational system, which enrols over 150 million young people. In a late developing society with unequal relationships with the de- veloped world, and with a labour surplus economy with more than 20 million high-school gradu- ates looking for jobs, the urge for upward social mobility is pressing. Competition is severe - there is the pull of the West as well as of Wes t Asia - and the pull of culture and language is thus strong. In this country of so m a n y reli- gions and languages, therefore, the pressures for divisiveness are very m u c h in evidence, even though unification of the national labour m a r - ket, a participatory democratic political system and nationwide public communication and edu- cational systems are basically centripetal and integrating. T h e structure of the educational system, operating in conjunction with social and political processes, tends to produce a broad unifying tendency, allows for differences and encourages interaction, tolerance, and the co- existence of distinct ethnic and religious identi- ties, and still provides for interaction. Regional/ linguistic as well as religious/cultural distinctions are provided for through some differentiation of curricula and the possibility of instruction at the highest levels in the major Indian languages, while the pre-eminent position of English yields a somewhat Western-oriented, quite unified all- India élite. But this could by n o w be subject to strains based on religious identity. This could be related partly to a sharpening of contradic- tions and conflict in situations of scarcity and competition, and partly to the tendency of some Hindu ideologues to define Indian nationality and integration in terms of their o w n symbol- ism and idiom. They justify this by pointing to the scores of nation-states that are doing the same thing in the n a m e of other faiths, either explicitly or under the guise of a cultural situa- tion of modernity, rationality or even atheism, with symbols and structures of thought related to faith and ethnicity evident just under the surface. There is a serious dispute going on at present between the proponents of rationality, universalism or liberal pluralism as the basicPluralism and education in India: problems and possibilities 205 content and orientation of education and those of the opposite tendency, that is, divisive plu- ralism, segregation and particularism or even majoritarian integration alongside its minority counterpart, that is, separatism and parochial- ism. W e have not noticed the political and in- ternational situation or factors influencing the question in any great measure, particularly as regards the rise of ethnicity over the last decade or two and the decline, successively, of the more earthly ideologies of national liberation, devel- opmen t or equality (we include socialism here) before it. Education m a y have contributed to all these in the past, but certainly today it is feeling the impact of the latest phenomenon , the ethnic component. India is no exception to this trend. Similarly, it was tempting, and potentially extremely stimulating, to explore whether India has had its o w n variant of such phenomena of world outlook and identity as to distinguish it from the m o d e r n Wes t and examine its impli- cations for the plurality that constitutes this nation. T h e notion of négritude in Africa, the view that colonial scholarship has invented the Orient so as to be able to dominate it or, for that matter, the subject of Indian historical scholarship pio- neered by the Subaltern School (Guha, 1982) could perhaps have been explored in the con- text of pluralism in Indian education. W e have, however, had to keep our discussion close to the ground in the existing educational situation. Here w e do not notice any major reflections of such concepts. Perhaps because of a 200-year- long imperial domination, in which a numerous and sophisticated intelligentsia has cast itself in the mould of Western education - the more so because education was linked to the hierarchies and rewards (and demands) of the n e w system of power and occupation that emerged under British rule - w e only have relatively minor dis- tinctions and segregations within the context of a unified structure. Totally isolated systems which do not take cognizance of each other at all do not exist. T h e closest one comes to such a situ- ation is the recent dalit literature of ex-untouchable intellectuals, mainly in Maharashtra. But their implications for education are not apparent. W e also have in existence the continuing p r o m o - tion of indigenous learning and instruction in Sanskrit and Arabic Islamic institutions which retain little contact with the main organized formal educational system. Apart from these minor exceptions, the situation is one of a large, s o m e - what centralized network which, through cen- trally prescribed syllabi and examinations, en- sures broad uniformity and allows m u c h cultural specificity in institutions recognized, and even financially assisted and inspected, by the state agency, which is itself very largely composed of professionals and academics of all denomina- tions and persuasions. • References and bibliography A H M E D , R . 1981. 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S H U K L A , S.; K U M A R , K . (eds). 1985. Sociological Perspec- tives in Education: A Reader. N e w Delhi, Chanakya Publications. S I N G H , K . S. 1990. Ethnicity, Identity and Development. N e w Delhi, Manohar Publications. T ANEJA, N . 1991. India - More Than a Civilisation. TOI, 12 September. T H A P A R , R . 1969. Past and Prejudice. N e w Delhi, Indian Council of Cultural Relations. V A N A I K , A . 1990. The Painful Transition. London, Verso. V E R M A , N . 1991. The India of M y Dreams. TOI, 29 December. W H E E L E R , A . M . 1949. 5000 Years of Pakistan. Karachi, Government of Pakistan.T h e difficult road to educational pluralism in Central and Eastern Europe Mikolaj Kozakiewicz For the past two years, the entire region of Central and Eastern Europe has been in a continuous process of change. Therefore, to write today about the 'present' state of education in these countries is like writing on the surface of a river - w h e r e a steady current of changes means that, unavoidably, everything that has been written on this topic might have been altered, even radi- cally changed, within a few months. A more reliable exercise would be not to report on the present, existing situation, but to write about the visible trends of development; to describe the way the post-communist countries are think- ing about education; and to suggest the prob- able direction that further development of edu- cational pluralism will take. Although the major part of this article will discuss such general prob- lems of pluralism in education in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, w e must never- Mikolaj Kozakiewicz (Poland). Professor of educa- tional sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences (Institute for Rural and Agricultural Development). Chairman of the Polish Pedagogical Society. Author of a number of publications on youth and education. theless begin with a short overview of the present situation, at the threshold of 1991/92. It should be stressed that all our conclusions in this do- main depend on the answers to the following very important basic questions: H o w long has the process of change in the economy and social order of a given coun- try been going on? In other words, w h e n did a visible transformation, identified with the creation of a non-communist govern- ment, occur? H o w quickly are macro- and micro-economic reforms being implemented, especially those aiming at the transition from a cen- trally planned to a free market economy? H o w advanced are the symptoms of economic and social crisis which usually accompany such radical changes? It seems that people in m a n y Western Euro- pean countries do not realize h o w differenti- ated are the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. They tend to lump together all post- communist countries, m u c h as they did with the so-called 'socialist countries', in spite of the great differences - not only in the field of edu- cation, but in economics and politics as well - that existed between them. Prospects, Vol. XXII, I, N o . 2, 1992 (82)208 Mikolaj Bulgaria Only n o w (in autumn 1991) can w e speak of the beginning of a genuine transformation in Bulgaria, which appeared with the formation of the first non-communist government. Before now, the only educational change which occurred was the unification of two ministries (Education and Higher Education). T h e aim of this unification, according to Petranka Kawlakowa, is the crea- tion of a 'uniform educational system' in Bul- garia.1 Personally, I wonder whether this 'aim' does not contradict the principle of pluralism. N o changes are observable in the school system or in the content of education. Only two sub- jects of ideological character were discontinued after the fall of Todor Zivkov: 'The History of the Bulgarian Communis t Party' and 'Scientific C o m m u n i s m ' . T h e rest of the curricula and textbooks have remained unchanged. T h e n e w history curriculum is only n o w in preparation. N o major changes in teaching personnel have taken place. In fact, the only difference today consists in the fact that schoolteachers are n o w elected by the teaching staff of a given school rather than nominated by school authorities. T h e only private school which exists is the American Institute for Humanities in Blagojewgrad. A small number of private kin- dergartens has been set up, where foreign lan- guages are being taught. In Bulgaria, since no major economic reforms have been initiated, the education budget, modest as it is, has not been altered. T h e schools are functioning nor- mally within the framework of a stabilized budget. T h e only trace of a free market economy, h o w - ever slight, in the schools can be seen in the practice of admitting students w h o have not scored sufficiently high on entrance exams to the higher education system, on condition that they bear all the costs of their studies. Czechoslovakia In Czechoslovakia, school reforms are also oc- curring slowly. T h e Education Act remains unchanged; only the L a w on Higher Education has been changed.2 T h e main changes that can be noted in this n e w Higher Education L a w are that the rectors of the universities are n o w elected by collégial bodies within the university and not nominated by the state authorities, thus guaran- teeing the autonomy of institutions of higher education. T h e system of admission to the uni- versities has also been changed, abolishing all limitations on the admission of children whose parents were involved in events of the Prague Spring in 1968. T h e role of student self- government has increased since the mass d e m - onstrations of students on the streets of Prague in 1989. However, at the lower levels (primary and secondary schools), no changes are noticeable for the time being. S o m e important modifica- tions have been m a d e in the history curriculum, which was largely distorted in the past by c o m - munist ideology, but a n e w history textbook has still not been produced. A s in Bulgaria, two subjects - 'History of the Czechoslovak C o m - munist Party' and 'Scientific C o m m u n i s m ' - have been dropped. Major changes in secondary and higher- level schools have been m a d e only in the field of economics, where teaching materials have been adapted to the needs of a market economy. A s for the teaching of foreign languages, the domination of Russian has been stopped - since 1989, Russian is no longer an obligatory sub- ject - which has left more time for Western European languages, and allowed for free choice on the part of the students. T h e financial situ- ation of schools has stabilized: even if it is not always very healthy, it is showing no sign of crisis. According to Ladislav Stindl,3 slow and careful reforms of the economic system in Czechoslovakia have not led to budgetary defi- cit (as was the case in Poland and Hungary) and the school system is receiving everything that was planned for it in the annual state budget.The difficult road to educational Changes in the staff of school administra- tions have taken place, but most of this staff still comes from the 'old nomenklatura'. M o r e definite changes have occurred at the level of schoolteachers, almost all of w h o m have been changed for political reasons. Difficulties have arisen in trade and professional schools, espe- cially those organized and financed by facto- ries. T h e closing d o w n of such schools by fac- tories, which are not interested in training n e w workers, has become more and more frequent. Even since 1989, there have been few private and confessional schools - the Church is devel- oping its educational activities, but not in the schools. Hungary T h e situation in Hungary is quite different. Like Poland, Hungary is a m o n g those countries that began their reforms early; these reforms are progressing at a fast pace, and in different di- rections. T h e Educational Act of 1985 was re- vised in 1990. T h e aim of these changes, ac- cording to Elemér Keleman,4 was as follows: T h e changes taking place in Hungarian society and politics are aimed at developing a social market economy with mixed proprietorship, a constitutional state and democratic relations in the society, a political pluralism and a functional system based upon the principles of municipali- ties. This transformation requires a break with the state monopoly of education . . . T h e principle of academic freedom and free- d o m of teaching prevails: the Act guarantees parents and students the right to choose freely the educational institution that most answers their respective needs and possibilities, and it also assures the assertion of the entrepreneurial right. Consequently, educational institutions can be run not only by the state and local munici- palities but - subject to prescribed conditions and to regulated supervision by public authori- ties - also by other legal entities. T h e formerly in Central and Eastern Europe 209 inflexible system of education has loosened - for example, it has b e c o m e possible to organize eight-graded or six-graded academic secondary schools. In this n e w situation, the fundamental prin- ciple of the professional sovereignty of teachers and professional autonomy of schools, already declared in 1985, can be given a genuine con- tent. T h e professional draft of the n e w E d u - cation Act has recently been elaborated. T h e text of this Act does not envisage any radical changes in the Hungarian system of public edu- cation: it merely aims to facilitate the transfor- mation of the existing monolithic school struc- ture into one that offers alternative solutions. Eliminating the former inflexible input regula- tion and the related bureaucratic organization of public education administration, as well as creating the organizational conditions and the content elements (central systems of require- ments, evaluation and examinations) of an out- put regulation, are a m o n g its major aims. However , it is so far an open question whether it will be possible to rescue public edu- cation from its present unhappy situation - a situation that developed as a result of the former erroneous principles of distribution - and to increase its meagre share of the national income (GDP). Keleman adds: In addition to the serious economic situation in our country, also the inherited considerations relate to ideology and the policy of the strong hand react against the change. T h e past is haunt- ing: the traditional practice of financing m a y strengthen the paternalistic influence of the state as against the desired autonomy of citizens and their collectives, as well as their sense of responsi- bility and duty established by conditions. All these changes, which without doubt aim at a more pluralistic education and school system, are facing immense financial and economic dif- ficulties. A s Eva S. Gyarmati wrote: Peaceful as the transition from single-party C o m - munist rule to multi-party democracy has been in210 Mikolaj Kozakiewicz Hungary, it has exacerbated latent conflicts of interest within the educational establishment. Cracks in the system of government-financed education, ranging from kindergartens to universities, are so wide that oaks can shoot up in between. T h e 1990-91 school year is alternately referred to as transitionary, uncertain and problem-ridden. Pros- pects therefore of the coming school year give little cause for cloudless optimism. . . . Rivalry was also responsible for subsequent waves of teachers' strikes and demonstrations. Anger over abominable pay scales and deplorable underfunding for schools is getting hard to keep in check. T h e guilty scenario is as follows: the Local Govern- ment and Budget Acts recently enacted by Parlia- ment make the municipalities responsible for run- ning elementary schools. T h e Democratic Forum-run central government, however, is pre- pared to allot schools only leftovers from the central budget proportionally with the number of students in the districts concerned. Were munici- palities thriving communities, this mechanism would work. But they are broke. A n d with the Act on government spending still pending, there is no calling the state to account over education. M u - nicipalities, with their backs to the wall, are pass- ing stopgap measures but can rarely make ends meet. Numerous classes have been pooled and teachers thus 'relieved' of children dismissed. M o n e y saved that way is often diverted to the day-to-day running of kindergartens and schools.5 I shall end here m y short reports on the present situation of education in the countries of C e n - tral and Eastern Europe. Romania is in the very early stages of socio-economic change. T h e former Soviet Union is m u c h too complex and large to report on in a single article; also, funda- mental social, political and economic issues in the further development of this giant country are not yet sufficiently clear. T h e general situation in Poland is very simi- lar to what w e have reported for Hungary, with all the financial difficulties linked to deepening economic crisis in the country. In the following part I shall attempt a short analysis of the meaning of educational pluralism in the former socialist countries, using the experience of Poland. What should be changed on the road to pluralism? A UNIFORM - AND IMPRACTICAL - SYSTEM It is fairly easy to present a simplified picture of the situation in the socialist educational system, which is n o w undergoing major changes, be- fore the period of the great transformations. T h e fundamental feature of the school sys- tem was its uniformity: uniform types of schools throughout the country; uniform curricula for all schools of a given type; everything in the curriculum being equally obligatory for all stu- dents; uniform (die only) textbooks for every subject and for every school grade; and a uni- form system of teacher training for particular types of schools. T h e philosophy of education was uniform as well. It maintained that in all types of schools all students would master the same area of knowl- edge. This was the principle of equivalence and egalitarianism in education. T h e foundation for education was equally uniform: theoretically, at least, it was Marxism-Leninism. T h e goal of education was also uniform: to create a good, socially minded citizen of a socialist society, w h o would also realize in his private life the values of a classless, egalitarian and collective society. Every curriculum contained a meticulously described set of goals which, in a given subject and class, the teacher should strive to help all his students achieve. I must stress that, despite this very clear and comprehensive structure, in practice the realization of socialist education repeatedly proved impossible. In addition, these uniform provisions in the teaching curricula were, in theory, to be harmoniously supported by the so-called 'sys- tem of parallel education' (cinema, theatre, tele- vision) and by the supplementation of schools with the educational influence of the family, youth organizations, etc. It was only the combination of all these elements that would create die uni- form system of education in society. In prac- tice, such a system never really existed.The difficult road to educational LACK OF TEXTBOOKS FOR THE TEACHING OF HISTORY A s in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, in Poland also it was m u c h easier to m a k e modi - fications in the history curriculum than to pre- pare a n e w textbook for the subject. In their pursuit of pluralism, all schools are trying to eliminate unnecessary information as well as the overload of pupils. Sometimes the freedom in teaching given to teachers can even be too great. In the case of history, this excessive free- d o m has a practical justification, as the change of curriculum which took place in the course of one year could not, for technical reasons, be accompanied by n e w history textbooks (these, as a rule, take a few years to produce). T h e discrepancy between the intentions of the n e w Ministry of Education and the contents of old textbooks is, indeed, greatest in the case of his- tory, which has been for years one of the main so-called 'ideological' subjects. T h e curriculum itself contains just one dry sentence on the issue, which reads: 'It is a duty of the teacher to real- ize the curriculum and not the contents of text- books, which considerably enlarge and often stray from the intentions of the curriculum.'6 I shall give more attention to this problem later in this article. ABOLISH THE STATE MONOPOLY ON EDUCATION? O n e of the most important factors facilitating the passage from monistic to pluralistic edu- cation is the abolition of the state monopoly in education - or, in other words, the creation of a network of private schools independent from the state. A s w e saw earlier, the situation is dif- ferent in different countries. But even in P o - land and Hungary, where the greatest progress has been achieved, the very considerable domi- nation of state schools is still visible. In prac- tice, it is not enough just to enable different societies and social entities legally to found a school; it is also necessary to give them the real in Central and Eastern Europe 211 possibility to do so. T h e major problem is find- ing school premises; the second most impor- tant problem is the contribution of the state to financing these schools. Before the anti-com- munist transformation, only Poland had a pri- vate Catholic university (in Lublin) as well as a dozen Catholic high schools. In the majority of the socialist countries such schools have been closed since 1948, with the exception of a few seminaries for future priests, which as a rule persisted, despite the not very benevolent atti- tude of the state authorities. A s far as financing is concerned, in H u n - gary the elementary and high schools maintained by municipalities, like the public schools, re- ceive 30 per cent from the municipality's o w n funds and 70 per cent from the central state budget.7 In Poland, for private schools the state budget covers up to 50 per cent of the costs of a public school, calculated according to the number of pupils. But in both Hungary and Poland, the general critical economic situation is making these legal provisions questionable. First of all w e have to answer the question of why there is such strong pressure on the part of at least some parents in favour of private schools. A n d h o w m u c h can they improve the educa- tional situation in the country? T h e initiative for the so-called 'social' - that is, private - schools started with the dissat- isfaction of parents and children with the exist- ing schools, where both the teaching methods and the relationship between teachers, students and parents were affected by the school's anach- ronistic and authoritarian nature. T h e quality of education has fallen dramatically. T h e or- ganizers of the n e w private schools try to limit the number of children in the class, to individu- alize teaching and to intensify foreign language training, beginning in the first grade of primary school. M u c h emphasis is put on physical edu- cation. S o m e of these schools are 'integration' schools, that is, they also admit children with certain physical handicaps. T h e number of these schools is growing rapidly in Poland - from 32 in 1989 (not counting Catholic schools) to 200 in 1990 and 500 in 1991. T h e 1990 figure in- cludes nearly 100 private high schools, while212 Mikolaj Kozakiewicz there are approximately 900 state-run high schools. In Poland, some people believe that this is proof of the great success of the demonopolization of the state's influence on education, as some of these schools work on the basis of alternative teaching curricula - for example, not teaching separate subjects but arranging broad topic blocks which combine various subjects. However, I a m afraid that such opinions are unjustified. All the so-called 'social schools' are small, and teach about 20,000 students - a tiny proportion of the 7 million schoolgoers in Poland. T h e majority of social schools are non- profit institutions. T h e teachers usually earn as m u c h as they would in a state school. T h e tui- tion costs between 25 and 50 per cent of an average monthly salary and the m o n e y paid by the students is generally used for equipping the school. T h e authorities, while they are aware of the hitherto marginal character of social schools, nevertheless have hopes for them: These schools, it is hoped, can create proper development conditions for those children w h o , owing to psychological particularities or extraordinary abilities, do not function well in popular state schools. They m a y improve the scope and intensity of foreign-language training (long neglected in Poland). T h e organizers of non-state schools, at least in the high schools, have shown remarkable activity and initiative in acquiring build- ings or rooms for educational purposes (there is a lack of about 50,000 classrooms for primary schools and about 40,000 for high schools in Poland). T h e non-state schools can play the role of 'social laboratory', finding n e w didactic, financial and curriculum solutions to prob- lems before they are introduced into the state education system. Finally, they introduce an element of competi- tion, necessary for the efficient functioning of the whole system.8 Whether these hopes will be realized remains to be seen. At the m o m e n t , there is already occa- sional criticism that these schools 'steal' the best teachers from the state schools, that they do not serve the poorer groups of the population, that they are anti-democratic, etc. This is not the only sphere of life where conflicts are apparent between the old socialist vision of an egalitarian society and the conditions in a society based on free competition. THE CHURCH AS A FACTOR OF PLURALISM IN EDUCATION T h e change in the political system in Central Europe has radically changed the role played by the Church and religion in the educational system. In Czechoslovakia, while religion was for- mally and legally accepted in schools and never forbidden as it was in other former socialist countries, religious lessons were organized sepa- rately from schools in special 'catechism cen- tres' set up and maintained by the Church. This formal liberalism in Czechoslovak schools was, however, misleading because, in practical terms, all pupils w h o attended catechism were 'pun- ished' by being denied the chance to enter bet- ter schools - that is, high schools - which paved the way to institutions of higher education, such as universities. But, even after the major changes that took place, the denominational schools, as mentioned earlier, did not develop in Czecho- slovakia - obviously because of lack of demand. T h e situation was not quite the same in H u n - gary, which is also pluralistic as regards reli- gion. Catholic, Jewish, Lutheran and other Prot- estant denominational schools sprang up, often in the old premises of schools that existed be- fore 1948, w h e n all denominational schools were closed. Several Church-owned high schools and kindergartens, in addition to the schools run by different secular - but Church-linked - organi- zations, are developing slowly but steadily. In Hungary and Poland, the biggest obstacles to the faster development of denominational schools are the organizational and financial difficulties. But die reappearance of denominationalThe difficult road to educational pluralism in Central and Eastern Europe 213 schools has in some countries generated social and political conflicts. First of all, there is de- bate about the controversy contained in the con- stitutional principle of the separation of Church and state and die creation and financing of pri- vate denominational schools from the public purse. T h e Church is proposing to replace the notion of 'separation' with the n e w wording 'co- operation and autonomy of State and the Church'. In Poland, the N e w Educational Act (1991) was rejected on the first vote by the Diet only because of the amendment to the first Article m a d e by the Senate, which introduced a state- ment about 'Christian values' as the basis for school education in public schools. Only on the second vote, w h e n the phrase about 'Christian values, and the general values of h u m a n ethics' was m o v e d from Article 1 to the Preamble, was the law finally voted. A similar scandal occurred earlier w h e n the Minister of Education intro- duced religious lessons in schools without the permission of Parliament. T h e introduction of about 20,000 priests and catechists into the schools means that, in time, the state budget will be faced with the significant expense of their salaries. At present, these religious teachers receive only part of their earnings from the state budget. Yet another problem which causes m u c h anxiety in educational circles (although mainly at the town and district levels) is the use of reprivatization laws by churches and convents to demand the return of church and parish build- ings nationalized by the previous regime. T o - day, these buildings often house schools, kin- dergartens, nurseries, nursing homes , outpatient clinics and other social services. T h e Church usually demands the return of these buildings. Sometimes, although not very often, it only demands the restoration of legal ownership. In the latter case, however, it subse- quently raises the rent so m u c h that the previ- ous occupants are unable to pay and must give up the use of the buildings. Needless to say, conflicts are inevitable, particularly if reprivati- zation ends in the eradication of education, health and social care institutions. However, the pro- cess has scarcely begun and is - equally impor- tantly for the Church and the school system - unpredictable. It is obvious that conflicts between religion and education reflect differences in the under- standing not only of educational problems, but also of the model of newly born Polish d e m o c - racy. T h e risk that the monopoly of the c o m - munist state will be replaced by another m o - nopoly - that of the Church - is worrying m a n y Polish citizens. THE CHANGES IN EDUCATIONAL GOALS AND CURRICULA In addition to the changes mentioned earlier regarding the history curriculum, there have also been radical changes in the curriculum of the Polish language. T h e features of such changes are especially evident and striking in high-school curricula, affecting students between 15 and 19 years of age. T h e n e w objectives in teaching the Polish language course are somewhat novel - for ex- ample, in the sphere of shaping the student's outlooks and attitudes. For example, the cur- riculum contains such provisions as: interest in oneself and other h u m a n beings, working on one's spiritual development, strengthening one's persistence in spiritual enrichment and cultural needs; emotional bonds with one's homeland - with the land, the country, the culture, one's countrymen and history, and loyalty to the na- tional tradition; respect for the law and institu- tions of social life; solidarity with other inhabit- ants of the planet; sensitivity to the question of the meaning of h u m a n existence.9 These characteristics of the ideal student, to be achieved in the course of the Polish lan- guage curriculum, which is so imbued with personalism and patriotism, are entirely differ- ent from the features of the 'model student' of a typical Polish high school in, for example, 1984. At that time, the student was expected to acquire the scientific philosophy of life, the one which would correctly and justly reflect the struc- ture of the modern knowledge of the objective214 Mikolaj Kozakiewicz reality, . . . to boast a well-shaped system of val- ues as an integral element of one's philosophy of life, an important premise . . . of personal in- volvement in solving the significant problems of social life, . . . to be ready to co-operate in the realization of c o m m o n values, to be ideologically involved and internally organized, to be patriotic and internationalist, . . . to be involved in the development of one's country, region, environ- ment and institution of employment.10 This short comparison of differently formulated goals of education and 'models of students' shows an essential ideological change in the teaching of the Polish language, and it proves the depth of the changes that have taken place in this field. But the big problem still remains unsolved: h o w will the teachers act and react? There are 500,000 teachers in Poland, two-thirds of w h o m belong to the old Teachers' Un ion , which has always been slightly left-oriented, and one-third to Teach- ers' 'Solidarity', which is m o r e right-oriented. T h e political changes of 1989 in Poland and H u n g a r y and, to a lesser extent, the changes since 1990 in Czechoslovakia led to 'house-clean- ing' measures aimed at cleaning out the 'old nomenklatura' from the educational system. H o w e v e r , the methodology of this resembles that formerly used b y the communists . T h e teachers are complaining that the ' n e w nomenklatura' is just taking the place of the old one. In die past, a non-Party person had n o chance of a directorial position in education; n o w , the fact that one has been in the Party in the past is enough reason for rejection, regard- less of one's individual merits. Decisions are m a d e without verifying die candidate's quali- ties and qualifications. Teachers complain that, o n m o r e than one occasion, the person w h o actually w o n the competition did not get the job because of his political past. Instead, it went to s o m e o n e w h o fared m u c h worse in the c o m - petition. Despite m a n y efforts, it was impossi- ble to obtain detailed data o n the scale of this process. Judging by the n u m b e r of complaints, however, it m u s t be serious enough to be con- sidered a social problem. In such circumstances, it is not surprising tiiat teachers are not always happy about in- [ tended changes. Therefore, questions about their possible behaviour in the schools are fully justi- fied. In this article, I have m a d e a few c o m m e n t s o n the practical implementation of pluralistic changes in our school system. I w a s unable to go into great depth regarding the theoretical debates o n education, which are sometimes very ab- stract and theoretical. 'Alternative-pedagogies', 'anti-education' and 'anti-anti-education' are the m o s t fashionable terms n o w a d a y s . All these debates have little to d o with the practical func- tioning of the schools, which are suffering from underfunding, lack of m o n e y and lack of m e a n s of investment; financial constraints have already shortened teaching time b y four hours a w e e k , a m o n g other things. But this is not the first time in the history of our education that theory has been divorced from practice. • Notes 1. Petranka Kawlakova, Secretary of the Bulgarian E m - bassy in Warsaw, Verbal Report, November 1991. 2. Report 'Vyosoke Skolstvi v Ceske a Slovenske Federativni Republice' (Higher Education in Czech and Slovak Federal Republic), p. 151, Prague, July 1991. 3. Ladislav Stindl, Secretary of the Czech and Slovak Embassy in Warsaw, Verbal Report, November 1991. 4. Elemér Keleman, 'Public Education in Hungary in 1991 ', Special English Edition of the weekly Köznevet, N o . IX, 1991, p. 4. 5. Eva S. Gyarmati, 'Can W e Afford to Buy a Chalk?', Hungarian Observer, N o . 9, 1991, p. 2. 6. Program nauczania: historia día szkoly sredniej (School Curriculum: History for High Schools), Warsaw, 1990. 7. Gábor Novák, 'Change in the System of School Administration', Special English Edition of the weekly Köznevet, N o . IX, 1991, p. 8. 8. Ministerstwo Edukacji Narodowej, Raport o szkolach spleczynch w Polsce (Ministry of National Edu- cation, Report on Social Schools in Poland), Warsaw, 1990 (unpublished).T h e difficult road to educational pluralism in Central and Eastern Europe 215 9. Program nauczania: Pokki dla szkoly iredniej (School Curriculum: Polish for High Schools), p . 59, W a r - saw, 1990. 10. Stanislaw Frycie (ed.), Zalozenia programóme: organizacyjne dla wychowania w róznych typach szkól (Programmatic and Organizational Principles for Education in Different Types of Schools), p. 86, Warsaw, 1984.Pluralistic education in Western Europe on the threshold of 1993 Egle Becchi In addressing the issues of multicultural edu- cation in those countries of the Europe region due to be united in 1993, it is important to underline several different factors - sociologi- cal, demographic, ideological and ethnic - which define the Europe of the 1990s and distinguish it sharply from the Old Continent of a genera- tion ago. O n e of the main considerations, as the war in Yugoslavia between the various ethnic groups is showing, is the occasionally dramatic and apparently uncontrollable escalation of nation- alist conflicts which, in other parts of Europe, have led in recent years to continuing violence and bloodshed - E T A in Spain, for instance, and the I R A in the United K i n g d o m . These are examples of apparently irreconcilable hostility between different groups, which reject any c o m - promise that would affect their cultural, linguistic, religious and ideological characteristics and seem unwilling to contemplate any possibility of peace- Egle Becchi (Italy). Professor of Education at the University of Pavía. Her main fields of interest are experimental research and the history of preschool education. She was editor of Storia dell'educazione (1987) and co-author with B. Vertecchi of Manuale critico della sperimentazione e della ricerca educativa (1984). ful coexistence between minority and majority; where neither side seems capable of settling its differences by less destructive and repressive methods and where education, especially on an informal basis, aggravates the conflicts rather than the reverse. But there is n o w growing evidence of a marked emergence of'nationality' issues, although in a less violent form; the Alto Adige in Italy, Corsicans and Bretons in France, Flemish- speakers and Walloons in Belgium and the Catalans in Spain - all continue to d e m a n d their independence, to claim their right to self- government or to press for greater autonomy, to little avail. A s the framework for a united Europe nears completion (and considering that, for years, the deliberations of a European Par- liament have foreshadowed the institution of a community-wide policy-making body) , and with growing evidence of the unification, in the n a m e of cultural and historical harmonization, of coun- tries divided politically for m o r e than fifty years (as in the case of G e r m a n y ) , it seems ironic that fairly disorganized outbursts of national- ism are continuing to flare u p within the politi- cal and social arena of Western Europe, similar in m a n y ways to the reassertion of regional au- tonomy that is n o w characteristic of the ideo- logical and structural changes in the former Prospecls, Vol. XXII, I, N o . 2, 1992 (82)Pluralistic education in Western Europe on the threshold of 1993 217 U S S R . In this respect, however, the most sali- ent feature of m o d e r n Europe is the growing emergence of n e w forms of cultural diversity: by this I m e a n two separate ongoing processes, unrelated but occurring simultaneously, one of which is a recent development, the other a longer- established p h e n o m e n o n . T h e m o r e recent of the two is the steadily increasing flow of popu- lation from east to west in Europe, from coun- tries which, until recently, were under a c o m - munist regime (more particularly the U S S R , Poland and the former G e r m a n Democratic Republic) to countries such as the Federal R e - public of G e r m a n y , the Scandinavian states, France and Italy. T h e less recent p h e n o m e n o n is the influx, at first legally and relatively lim- ited, of groups of adults from Italy, Spain, Por- tugal, Greece, Yugoslavia and Turkey, and, more recently, in vast, uncontrolled numbers, from other countries of the Balkan peninsula, the M a g h r e b and other parts of Africa and Asia, towards m o r e industrialized countries such as G e r m a n y , the Scandinavian states, France, the United K i n g d o m and the Netherlands. T h e arrival of these groups, defined as 'non-European C o m m u n i t y ' in the countries of Western Europe, completely alters the ethnic composition of the population. Recent O E C D statistics ( O E C D , 1987, p . 40) indicate the steady growth of these non-resident groups in several European countries. Between 1970 and 1982, the total n u m b e r of foreign residents increased by 1.4 per cent in Austria, 1.5 per cent in France, 1.8 per cent in Belgium and the Netherlands, and 2.7 per cent in G e r m a n y . Such immigrants are usually clandestine or, at any rate, unmonitored, not only w h e n they leave their country of origin but m o r e particularly on their arrival in Europe. Legal status is granted only after a considerable lapse of time, and, in s o m e instances, should this not occur, they are de- ported in dramatic circumstances and often re- sort to clandestine immigration elsewhere. H o w - ever, in contrast to earlier patterns of migration, nearly all these cases involve the rapid m o v e - ment , within Europe, of individuals w h o less often arrive with their families, but seem to pre- fer - or are forced - to travel alone, except in cases w h e n , once settled permanently, they are able to send for other family m e m b e r s ; in most cases, these dependents are children and young people w h o arrive in countries where the eld- erly tend to form an increasingly large percent- age of the population (see Table 1). T A B L E 1. Percentage of foreigners under the age of 15 in the total population of selected European countries (1981) Austria 22.0 Germany 23.6 Belgium 32.0 Netherlands 32.2 France 25.8 Switzerland 21.0 Source: O E C D , 1987, p. 49. T h e y are totally n e w elements, 'different' from the local inhabitants, heterogeneous groups not only with regard to language, religion and custom, but also in terms of age, demographic characteristics (more families with children and larger families in general; see O E C D , 1991, p . 9) and, especially, social class - if not in relation to the social hierarchy of their country of origin, then certainly within the framework of the so- cial structure of the host country. In this re- spect, immigrants from non-European C o m - munity countries find themselves on the lowest rung of the social and occupational ladder es- tablished in the host country. This offers equal opportunities to national majority and minority groupings, leaving the lower levels vacant, to be occupied by immigrants. In other words, these immigrants differ from the local population in m a n y m o r e respects than was the case for pre- vious generations. N o t only are there differences of race, culture, language and religion, but also of age, family status in m a n y cases, and the position they occupy in the structure and hier- archy of the social system which prevails in the host country. It is, above all, their insecurity and social position of inferiority which accentu- ate the difference between this n e w wave of immigrants and the local population. T h e in- trusion of their alien world - although not far- removed geographically - stands out in marked contrast to a background which has itself u n - dergone recent changes, thereby highlighting the218 Egle Becchi internal contradictions and inflexibility of that society and often causing serious phenomena of marginalization (Becchi et al, 1977). These wholly n e w problems have been the constant concern of public and private organi- zations, already active in launching often inno- vative social programmes, in which education plays an important part. In the early 1970s ( C E R I - O E C D , 19876, pp . 260 et seq.), educa- tional institutions, in particular, were already grappling with the task of attempting to attenu- ate differences, encouraging communication at an early age between children of different cul- tures and introducing them to the process of cultural literacy at a national, supranational, European and, ultimately, world level - a goal to which all aspire but which seems to become increasingly difficult and remote with every day that passes. A n undertaking of this importance con- cerns all kinds and levels of schooling: not only primary schools, where the proportion of for- eign pupils is the highest and where the 'ar- rangements' for such children - including re- ception classes, special classes, and classes combining instruction in the language and cul- ture of the country of origin with those of the host country ( C E R I - O E C D , 19876, pp. 264 et seq.) - are the most comprehensive and sys- tematic, but also at other levels, in nursery and secondary schools, where there are fewest pu - pils from immigrant families ( C E R I - O E C D , 19876, p . 19, Table 9). However , the main difficulties facing the education authorities, which have hitherto striven to minimize the divergences between minority and majority groupings, particularly between immigrants and local residents, stem from the need to bring about a more comprehensive form of social integration than that of individuals, including the adaptation of those persons in the schoolchildren's entourage w h o do not them- selves attend school, and the reconciliation of the differing social patterns and attitudes u p - held by different groups outside the classroom, which nevertheless greatly influence school life. Government authorities are becoming aware of these important issues, and in m a n y instances, rather than going through the channels of the official school system, they have chosen to pro- mote a wide range of out-of-school programmes, aimed at people of different age-groups (Furter, 1984, pp. 47 et seq.), with special priority be- ing given to adult education. Nevertheless, the implementation to date of special ad hoc pro- grammes and courses for 'grown-ups', voca- tional training schemes and remedial classes and foundation courses, for which teachers must be specially trained, facilities organized, funding arranged, the co-operation of supporting bodies solicited, and contact established between the public and private sectors, seems not only daunt- ing enough in itself, but also not always capable of delivering the hoped-for results, namely, to reassure public opinion and promote an accept- able recipe for coexistence. Although this situation mostly concerns adults, there are also examples of children ar- riving in Europe, sometimes completely alone and in extremely trying circumstances - for example, the Albanian refugees in Italy. M o r e often they are children born in Europe to par- ents w h o have recently immigrated. In any event, even within indigenous minorities, the younger generations, particularly the very young, are the most responsive to the correction of unduly one-sided cultural attitudes and therefore more rewarding w h e n it comes to the allocation of resources and educational drives. Creches and nursery schools face a difficult and multifac- eted task: it is their responsibility to initiate the earliest phase in the process of socializing chil- dren from culturally different h o m e environ- ments (minority groups with a long tradition of coexistence alongside the majority, or groups of immigrants from m a n y different countries); these children are subjected to a two-track, of- ten inconsistent process of acculturation. It is also the schools' responsibility to establish con- tact with the adults w h o exert a cultural influ- ence on the children outside the classroom. These experiments in complex acculturation, initiated by schools, aimed at the very young and, indi- rectly, at the adult population, involve a char- acteristically heterogeneous approach to language tuition, social integration and learning skills. ItPluralistic education in Western Europe on the threshold of 1993 219 is mainly primary schools which have to shoul- der this onerous task, even though they already find it difficult to provide equal educational opportunities for local children, w h o often c o m e from widely differing backgrounds, with high levels of linguistic and religious diversity ( O E C D , 1987, pp . 177 et seq.), and children of recent immigrants from non-European C o m m u n i t y countries. In fact, the concept of cultural handi- cap, particularly with its educational implica- tions, has recently reappeared, although it is discussed in different terms from those current in the 1970s, w h e n the idea first came into cir- culation. There is closer scrutiny of the various factors - not only ethnic, but also demographic and stemming from subcultural variations - which contribute to the phenomenon of underachieve- ment (see the studies carried out in Geneva, France and the United K i n g d o m , reported in C E R I - O E C D , 1987è, pp . 178, 249 et seq.). Remedial classes for immigrant children are being organized, particularly in language tuition, based, to some extent, on earlier schemes which have proved successful with children from indigenous minority groups. Sweden, for instance, one of the most advanced countries in this field, has introduced, at the pre-school stage and also at the higher levels, a large number of schemes offering instruction in the language of origin, including classes with children from similar cultural and linguistic backgrounds, taught by bilingual teachers (see Opper, 1983). However , the fact remains that more immigrants than lo- cal children attend 'special classes' offering re- medial teaching for children with learning diffi- culties ( C E R I - O E C D , 1987è, pp. 23 et seq.). This is one of the n e w issues - and the most important, in m y view - to be addressed by European education policies in recent dec- ades. In the case of immigrants from non- European countries, the combination of a divi- sively structured social order, incorporating a spectrum of racial, religious and linguistic as well as cultural differences (in the broadest sense), and the juxtaposition of differing ethnic origins and blatant inequalities of class, as well as im- permanence of abode, have rendered difficult, not to say impossible, the task of any 'Euro- pean' education system. T h e aim of the latter is to communicate techniques of learning and of producing symbolic goods, stamped with a par- ticular cultural imprint, with the implicit inten- tion of reproducing the structures of a certain social hierarchy, but not of challenging them, even at the cost of causing the undesirable phe- n o m e n o n of marginalization. In this context, pluralist education for the Europe of the 1990s would seem to be c o m - posed of several different strands, one of the more institutional being the harmonization - within the school system, although not exclu- sively so - of the ethnic and cultural diversities which have always existed in the majority of European countries. Mention should be m a d e , here, of study groups set up at government level to examine the education of ethnic minorities (such as the Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups, in London) and within academic in- stitutions (the Institute of Education, also in London , runs a Centre for Multicultural E d u - cation). Other initiatives worthy of note include: the organization of exchange networks a m o n g experts in different fields, especially language teaching; networks of instructors in early child- hood and pre-school education (for example, Commission of the European Communit ies- European Commission Childcare Network, 1990); the identification of special subjects of c o m m o n interest, such as environmental and social studies, to be included in the school cur- ricula of all European countries, and resulting in regional and international co-operation projects (Aitken, 1991, especially pp. 28 et seq.); and the priority given to language learning in primary schools (Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, 1985). At university level, reference should also be m a d e to the various academic exchange programmes which are already well under way: for instance, C O M E T T , launched in 1986 (Community Education Training Tech- nology, whose purpose is to encourage co- operation between universities and the business world, with the aim of discovering n e w tech- nologies); E R A S M U S (European C o m m u n i t y Action Scheme for the Mobility of University220 Egle Becchi Students), introduced in 1987; L I N G U A , for the teaching of European languages, first set up in 1989; and T E M P U S , to encourage co- operation between universities and commercial enterprises in Eastern Europe with a view to creating a 'culture of international mobility' (Corradi, 1991, pp. 19, 63), in which exchanges of teaching staff and students form the basis of a Europe-wide academic co-operation scheme. All of these have encouraged an increasing number of students to enrol at foreign univer- sities; for the academic year 1989/90, under the auspices of E R A S M U S , 27,452 students were able to study at foreign universities where, in the twelve countries concerned, a total of 1,507 International Co-operation Projects (ICPs) were undertaken. In addition to mese programmes, but different in its approach to the 'culture of international mobility' mentioned earlier, the Jean M o n n e t project was launched in 1989, aimed at promoting the study of European integration at university level by the provision of degree courses in European studies. However, these organized and official forms of education for Europe should not cause us to overlook the problems - which are not solely institutional ones - posed by integration into a wider European culture, and not just into the national culture of the host country, for people whose history and culture are completely alien. Both questions have far-reaching interdepend- ent implications, since a m o v e to address the organizational and pedagogical issues raised by a school system designed for 'others' from far-distant countries is inevitably followed by closer scrutiny of the schooling available to those 'others' w h o have lived in Europe for genera- tions, leading finally to a review of problems of education in general. This process poses a series of basic ques- tions, namely: W h a t are the major challenges facing a European school system? Should such a system continue to be, if not the only, at least the main vehicle for the acculturation of all younger generations? H o w should the school systems of the various European countries re- act, not only to the current rekindling of micronationalistic tendencies at school level, but also, and most importantly, to m e children and young people of immigrant groups recently ar- rived in Europe? Is it enough to modify existing policy with regard to core subjects or to give greater priority to language tuition - already the most widespread approach - taking account also of the languages spoken by the children of families recently arrived in Europe from countries which are remote not only geographically but also his- torically and culturally? W h a t action is required to achieve true acculturation and socialization? These are all questions which must be urgently addressed, and to which speedy solutions must be sought, if the aim is to foster the creation of a European culture that will be more than a mere political slogan. This responsibility will devolve largely on a school system whose educational policies must be overhauled and its curricula reviewed. T h e social implications of the curricula must be emphasized and teaching practices must be in- troduced which encourage the process of con- viviality among people w h o are 'different', with particular emphasis on activities hitherto regarded as 'out-of-school'; mis must be done on a more creative and informal basis, in an unprecedented drive of educational inventiveness and institu- tional determination. At the same time, steps must be taken to develop educational 'settings' from scratch outside the school environment, where young people from different backgrounds can meet, compare notes and work together. Besides the very marked social and class distinctions and the ethnic and cultural difficul- ties already facing educational institutions, which sadly lack the appropriate resources and are strug- gling under the impact of rekindled nationalistic tendencies, of minority groups that are more actively involved in the defence of their cultural identity and of waves of mass immigration, an- other series of related facts has recently emerged concerning the field of education. For some time n o w , there has been a trend towards the re- examination, in philosophical, anthropological, sociological and pedagogical terms, of the pres- ence in our society of 'aliens', from near or far, w h o in turn see us as 'alien'; this creates a dia- lectical difference in approach, especially withPluralistic education in Western Europe on the threshold of 1993 221 regard to social attitudes and the learning pro- cess, which seems intractable but which must not be overlooked. This trend has been notice- able in the last few decades, initially in the United States, where the social and educational impli- cations of the p h e n o m e n o n first emerged (McCready, 1983), then in Europe, particularly in the United K i n g d o m (Musgrove, 1982) and France. It was in France that, twenty years ago, Michel de Certeau advocated a philosophical approach to questions of cultural 'otherness' (de Certeau, 1973, 1980, 1987, 1991), and there that, for m a n y years, groups of experts in cul- tural anthropology (French Anthropological Association, 1987), psychoanalysis and linguis- tics (Kristeva, 1988) and semiology (Todorov, 1989), to n a m e but a few, have published very interesting work on the stranger in our midst, broadening the cultural approach to include more than linguistic and educational considerations. These are not merely scholarly publications, of little practical application in the establishment of realistic educational strategies; on the con- trary, in conjunction with other research geared more closely to purely educational concerns (Camilleri, 1985), they highlight the issue of the plurality of cultures and its consequences in peda- gogical terms, particularly from a conceptual viewpoint, and not only as a pragmatic necessity ( O E C D , 1987). A n d yet, the 'frames' within which the educationists concerned with these issues are required to operate are very rarely of a didactic nature or aimed at encouraging organi- zational efficiency, but, instead, establish con- ceptual distinctions. (Consider, for example, the various publications on comparative education (Comparative Education, 1983), which propose drawing distinctions between countries where there has been a long tradition of ethnic minori- ties, where there are demands for regional au- tonomy, where immigration is a recent p h e n o m - enon, or where the question of 'otherness' is above all one of social class.) T h e importance of this shift of emphasis was stressed, particularly, in the Introduction to the 1985 C E R I - O E C D seminar, where priority was given to establish- ing 'a theoretical frame of reference for rethink- ing the problem of multicultural education' ( C E R I - O E C D , 1987a, p . 8) . In m y view, this statement is highly significant; an approach based on theoretical considerations, extended to in- clude questions of multicultural education, rep- resents a n e w departure in current educational thinking, particularly in those areas which lead to the over-hasty drawing up of school curricula, the implementation of institutional measures and the distribution of educational recommendations. In this respect, the 'revival' of nationalism and the complex issue of migration which affects Europe today seem to have contributed to a series of encouraging changes in the field of edu- cation, forcing it to c o m e to terms with other cultural factors - not only anthropology and lin- guistics, as mentioned above, but also history (Revel, 1987) and ethnology (Chombart de L a u w e , 1987) - in a genuine exercise in interdisciplinarity, requiring a conceptual effort long since forgotten, soliciting a review of links between theory and practice and discouraging the pragmatic approach. Whereas there is no doubt that, in the real world of school and class- room, curricula and teaching methods must be planned and implemented, particularly in the field of language teaching (see the whole of Sec- tion IV of C E R I - O E C D , 1987a, on language learning), questions n o w arise concerning diffi- culties of definition, terms, and the connection between problems posed by the relativization of exaggeratedly extreme views (de Certeau, 1987). T h e urgency of the current confrontation and cultural conflict therefore calls for a n e w conceptual approach to the situation, if any genuine form of multicultural education is to be achieved. Underlying these theories is the idea that culture means knowledge and that knowledge comes in m a n y different forms. A c - cordingly, beyond language, axiology, shared ways of life and cultural diversity, there are apparently other forms of knowledge and mark- edly different thought processes which are con- ditioned by very different historical experiences. Plurality of cultures, therefore, is not only, or not so m u c h , a question of plurality of language, which in itself merely constitutes its most obvi- ous manifestation - one which seems the most easily integrable in terms of mutual understanding222 Egle Becchi and which, it must be stressed, the school sys- tem is best placed to address - but rather a multitude of intellectual processes and a diver- sity of outlook on the world and ways of adapt- ing to it: in short, knowledge. Having acquired a more substantial theo- retical basis, thanks to contributions from other areas of the social sciences, the notion that the plurality of cultures means also - and, perhaps, most importantly - the plurality of the process by which knowledge is acquired, a n e w , non-traditional approach should be found to the very organization and initial functioning of ad hoc educational facilities - adult classes, in- formal reception classes for parents and pre- school children (already in place experimen- tally in m a n y European cities), programmes and schedules that form an integral part of official school timetables (cf. Churchill, 1987, pp. 77 et seq.) and the introduction of new syllabi which take account of the diversity of the students concerned. If these measures are to be adopted, a more elaborate approach, in epistemological terms, is required; it is not enough to reproduce forms of learning organized according to aca- demic criteria and culturally conditioned by development-oriented psychology and relatively traditional cultural influences, updated to suit contemporary tastes. It is essential that they give priority to the study of 'other' forms of learn- ing, ways of thinking, social patterns and codes of ethics, hitherto considered marginal or even alien to European cultural traditions and their scientific and moral standards. This kind of approach makes it possible not only to identify and define the disparities between the various forms of knowledge peculiar to that section of the population which, although living in 'our' world, is excluded from it, and which is keen to preserve and uphold its o w n special traditions quite independently, but also to take account of the cultural identity of immigrants, recently ar- rived in Europe, w h o find themselves in a situ- ation of social and technological inferiority, with such apparently low levels of cultural attain- m e n t that it has been difficult to prevent colonial-style episodes from occurring even in our o w n countries. A n educational 'review' of the various fields of study currently in existence throughout E u - rope, relating to h u m a n beings and their world, therefore seems an intriguing prospect from the theoretical angle, encouraged within our aca- demic culture by the presence of the 'other', and also represents the first step towards the creation of n e w disciplines, directions and school curricula in a united Europe. There must be an end, therefore, to the selection of a single cor- pus of knowledge, based on a European or Western tradition, which stifles and suppresses ethnic individuality and the Weltanschauung of minority groups, and to the structuring of the various disciplines in a traditional teaching/learn- ing situation. Instead, priority must be given to the study of different forms of learning (assisted by anthropologists, epistemologists, sociologists and psychologists, all of w h o m are in touch with cultural developments and study their evolu- tion and characteristics) and to finding a place for these in the organization of the whole range of knowledge that schools provide for their n e w pupils. In this way, a united Europe will dis- cover cultural resources - not merely linguistic or folkloric - that schools can use, and will ac- commodate , without recourse to imperialistic coercion, all its different component character- istics as well as the increasingly massive influx of immigrants whose historical background sets them apart from the traditions of the Old C o n - tinent. It is clear that this n e w kind of school, and likewise the associated institutions which c o m - plement its social and cultural role, requires a n e w breed of teacher, drawn from different kinds of background, both indigenous and immigrant, from majority and minority groupings, and very different from the purely pedagogical instruc- tors w h o tend to be found nowadays on the teaching staff of all kinds of school. T h e great- est attention must be paid to the training and recruitment not only of primary- and secondary- school teachers, but also of those w h o care for pre-school children, in the institutions where they learn to live together, to speak before learning to read and write and to develop useful, c o m - municable skills which will enhance and c o m -Pluralistic education in Western Europe on the threshold of 1993 223 plement the more private processes of learning and communicating acquired at h o m e . O n the other hand, it is important that the work of the teacher, which all agree is in need of updating (Aitken, 1991), should, at primary and second- ary levels where the transmission of cultural patterns is crucial, be concerned less with the diverse mental capacities of his or her pupils, individually or otherwise, and more with their cultural and historical background. There will be no place for teachers w h o see their role as orchestrators of intercultural social relations or as the exponents of their o w n ethnic origins, in cases where teachers are recruited from minor- ity groups or immigrant sections of the popula- tion. Their training should take place at a dif- ferent form of university, with courses based on a syllabus which places equal, if not greater, emphasis on cultural issues - history, literature, ethnology, geography, languages - than on the study of teaching methods and educational psy- chology; alternatively, it should involve teach- ing practice with children from minority groups. They must have acquired a comprehensive knowl- edge of m a n y different forms of learning, their o w n as well as that of 'others', offering alterna- tives to processes of imperialistic assimilation and negative acculturation. T o a varying ex- tent, this also applies to those w h o work at the crossroads of historically diverse cultural tradi- tions, with children from minority groups and from a wide range of different cultural back- grounds, and to teachers w h o will be called upon to deal with the problem of children from newly arrived immigrant families. All these factors will inevitably challenge the role of the teacher as the disseminator of one single cultural heritage and help to mould a n e w kind of teacher w h o is fully aware of the countless sources of learning to be found in m a n y different cultures. A s a result, the teaching profession will find itself ranked alongside the other culture-makers - politicians, educational planners, welfare offi- cers and industrialists - w h o all have their part to play in the elaboration of a n e w kind of edu- cation system which is not culturally one-sided, but can realistically adapt itself to provide n e w educational opportunities. • References A I T K E N , D . J. 1991. Le renouveau de l'éducation: h région Europe. Paris, U N E S C O . (Études et documents d'éducation, N o . 58.) B E C C H I , E . ; M A R A Z Z I , A . ; RIVA, G . ; SCAGLIOLA, A . 1977. Caduta nei tessuti connetivi ed emarginazione in una comunita délia Lombardia del Nord: Viggiu. In: L . Borghi (ed.), Educazione e emarginazione, pp. 155— 225. Florence, L a Nuova Italia. C A M I L L E R I , C . 1985. Cultural Anthropology and Edu- cation. Paris, U N E S C O . C E R I - O E C D . 1987a. Multicultural Education. Paris, OECD. . 19876. Immigrants' Children at School. Paris, O E C D . C H O M B A R T D E L A U W E , P. H . 1987. Technological D o m i - nation and Cultural Dynamism. In: C E R I - O E C D , 1987a, pp. 142-57. C H U R C H I L L , S. 1987. Policy Development for Education in Multicultural Societies: Trends and Processes in the O E C D Countries. In: C E R I - O E C D , 1987a, pp. 64- 99. C O M M I S S I O N O F T H E E U R O P E A N C O M M U N I T I E S - E U R O P E A N C O M M I S S I O N C H I L D C A R E N E T W O R K . 1990. Quality in Childcare Services. Brussels, Commission of the Euro- pean Communities. Comparative Education, Vol. 19, N o . 2, 1983. Special Issue on Education and the Diversity of Cultures. C O R R A D I , S. 1991. Erasmus, Comett, Lingua, Tempus. Educazione permanente e formazione universitaria intemazionale. Milan, Franco Angeli. D E C E R T E A U , M . 1973. L'absent de l'histoire. Tours, Mame. . 1980. La culture au pluriel. Paris, Bourgeois. . 1987. T h e Management of Ethnie Resources; Schooling for Diversity. In: C E R I - O E C D , 1987a, pp. 164-88. . 1991. L'étranger ou l'union dans la différence. 2nd ed. Paris, Desclée de Brouwer. F R E N C H A N T H R O P O L O G I C A L A S S O C I A T I O N . 1987. Interna- tional Colloquium: Towards Poly cultural Societies. Paris, ORSTOM. F U R T E R , P . 1984. L'articulation de l'éducation scolaire et de h, formation extrascolaire. Paris, U N E S C O . (Études et documents d'éducation, N o . 53.) K R I S T E V A , J . 1988. Étrangers ànous-mêmes. Paris,Fayard. M C C R E A D Y , W . C . (ed.). 1983. Culture, Ethnicity and Identity, Current Issues in Research. N e w York, Aca- demic Press. M I N I S T E R O D E L L A P U B B L I C A I S T R U Z I O N E (Italy). 1985. Primary School Curricula, D . P . R . 12 February. M U S G R O V E , F . 1982. Education and Anthropology. Chich- ester, Wiley. O E C D . 1987. The Future of Migration. Paris, O E C D . . 1991. Migration, the Demographic Aspects. Paris, OECD.224 Egle Becchi O P P E R , S. 1983. Multiculturalism in Sweden: A Case of Assimilation and Integration. Comparative Education, Vol. 19, N o . 2, pp. 193-211. Special Issue on Edu- cation and the Diversity of Cultures. R E V E L , J. 1987. The School and Diversity: Basic Edu- cation in France before the Revolution. In: C E R I - O E C D , 1987a, pp. 12-25. T O D O R O V , T . 1989. Nous et les autres. La réflexion française sur la diversité humaine. Paris, Seuil.TRENDS/CASESEducation and development African perspectives Apollo Rwomire If you give a man a fish, he will eat, once. If you teach a man to fish, he will eat for the rest of his life. If you are thinking a year ahead, sow seed. If you are thinking ten years ahead, plant a tree. If you are thinking a hundred years ahead, educate the people. By planting a tree, you will harvest tenfold. By educating the people, you will harvest one hundredfold. Kuan-tsu T h e above epigram underlines, at least poten- tially, the role of education in personal and na- tional development. Indeed, the widespread preoccupation with education is not difficult to demonstrate, given the rapidly growing c o m - mitment to individual and mass education throughout the world. But w h y has education become such big business? During the past three decades, a number of renowned scholars have spearheaded the c a m - paign for investment in h u m a n capital. T h e Nobel Laureate Theodore Schultz has perhaps done more than anybody else to fuel interest in the Apollo Rwomire (Swaziland). Senior lecturer in sociology and social work at the University of Swaziland. He previously taught sociology at the Universities of Nairobi (Kenya) and of Jos (Nigeria). He has authored several monographs and articles on family planning, urban development, education, de- velopment and underdevelopment. contribution of education to development. In his voluminous printed works, Schultz has ar- gued that population quality and knowledge con- stitute the principal determinants of the future welfare of mankind (Schultz, 1981). Harbison, another influential advocate of investment in h u m a n capital, has posited that the wealth of nations depends on the development of h u m a n resources - not so m u c h on physical capital or material resources. In this connection, he has been widely quoted as saying that: ' A country which is unable to develop the skills and knowl- edge of its people and to utilize them effectively in the national economy will be unable to de- velop anything else' (Harbison, 1973, p . 3). For his part, Drucker (1961) has contended that an abundance of highly educated people is a pre- condition of national survival, an indispensable instrument of economic and social development, and a source of military strength. According to Psacharopoulos (1988,p. 5), education is widely regarded as the route to economic prosperity, the key to scientific and technological advance- ment, the means to combat unemployment, the foundation of social equality, and the spearhead of political socialization and cultural vitality. In light of these claims on behalf of edu- cation, this study investigates the relationship between education and development. W e focus on formal education which is largely obtained through study or instruction in schools and col- leges. Prospects, Vol. XXII, 1, N o . 2, 1992 (82)228 Apollo Rwomire Education and development: a conceptual framework M a n y writers dealing with the topics of edu- cation and development tend to omit defini- tions of these concepts, seemingly taking it for granted that everyone understands their m e a n - ing. However, education and development come in various forms. There are different types of education taking place in different institutions. Thus the education provided in a university m a y be different from that given at a polytechnic or college of technology. Development is a multi- faceted concept which still generates m u c h de- bate about its true meaning, let alone its signifi- cance. In fact, there are different types and degrees of development. B y and large, education refers to any pro- cess by which individuals gain knowledge or develop attitudes or skills. T h e purpose of edu- cation is to convey to individuals the collective knowledge and experience of the past and present so as to enable them to become more produc- tive and effective members of society. Accord- ingly, Julius Nyerere (1974, p . 47) observes that the purpose of education is to transmit knowl- edge and wisdom from one generation to the next. Nyerere points out that education is sup- posed to liberate m a n , both physically and m e n - tally. H e distinguishes between a system of edu- cation which turns m e n and w o m e n into tools and one which makes them liberated and skilled users of tools. Likewise, Sicinski (1985) has identified three main objectives of education: education of the worker, education of the citizen, and education of the h u m a n being. T h e education of the worker puts e m p h a - sis on the inculcation of vocation-relevant skills, and treats the individual principally as an ob- ject of production. In the education of the citi- zen, the nature of a person's training tends to be determined by the needs of the community or society, but the individual's interests only receive limited attention. Finally, in the edu- cation of the h u m a n being, the individual is viewed as a unique and multifunctional m e m - ber of the society. In this type of education, the individual is exposed to a diversity of cultural values as well as to problem-solving and decision- making techniques. Development is 'one of the most depreci- ated terms in social science literature, having been used vastly more than it has been under- stood' (Uphoff and Ilchman, 1972, p . ix). W e are essentially dealing with a large, highly elas- tic and value-loaded concept with historical, philosophical, ideological and economic dimen- sions. It is extremely difficult to provide a precise and self-contained definition of development. This is largely because there are various con- ceptions of, means towards, and goals of devel- opment. Hence the perpetual controversy over the so-called universal determinants and corre- lates of development. T h e term development is influenced by ideology in that, for instance, a Marxist defini- tion will differ from a capitalist one. Since the 1950s, the United Nations and other interna- tional bodies such as the World Bank, which are largely dominated by capitalist countries, have tended to define development with refer- ence to certain economic indicators. Needless to say, G N P per capita, which is basically an economic index, has been the major criterion used for dividing the world into developed and underdeveloped countries. Thus , countries which have high G N P per capita are seen as more developed, while those with low per capita in- comes as less developed. Despite the emergence of the so-called newly industrializing countries, virtually all nations in Africa, Latin America and most of Asia are still classified as less devel- oped countries ( L D C s ) . According to some development economists, L D C s were poor because they lacked substan- tial savings and investment, the necessary in- gredients for economic 'take-off, in Rostowian terms. W h a t was required was an infusion of capital to lift these ailing economies, and heavy industrialization was the means. Although m a n y L D C s achieved the stipulated target of a 5 per cent G N P growth rate, there was still no take-Education and development: African perspectives 229 off. In other words, despite the fact that m a n y L D C s have attained impressive levels of econ- omic growth during the last three decades, evi- dence shows that the majority population have not benefited from the increase in G N P . T h e reality of the situation is that only a minority élite are enjoying the benefits, while nothing or very little is reaching the poor (Magagula, 1987, pp . 2-5) . With respect to Africa, reports indicate that creditable rates of economic growth in m a n y countries have not been accompanied by any significant reduction in the level of poverty, in- equality and unemployment. Messages concern- ing economic and political decay or disaster continue to pour in. For example, it has been ominously predicted that ' T h e continent is on the brink of an economic crisis so vast that m a n y countries . . . could eventually disappear' (Newsweek, 9 June 1986). T h e economic crisis is simply one of the problems confronting Af- rica that have prompted some scholars to write about what they call a process of decay in Af- rica (Mazrui, 1980). B e that as it m a y , controversy typifies dis- cussions about the presumed correlation between economic growth and development. T h e illogi- calities and limitations of G N P as an indicator of national well-being have been so well docu- mented that they hardly require reiteration. Al- though G N P per capita can be easily computed and conveniently used to provide an overall picture of economic differences between coun- tries, it overlooks numerous factors that con- tribute to h u m a n welfare. Owing to the limita- tions of purely economic measures such as G N P per capita, several attempts have been m a d e to construct more comprehensive and composite measures of h u m a n welfare, taking into account a number of quantitative and qualitative vari- ables ( R a m , 1982; United Nations Research Institute, 1972). In this connection, the Physi- cal Quality of Life Index (PQLI) constitutes one of the most ambitious endeavours (Morris, 1979). Another possible alternative measure to G N P per capita is a N e w Index of Develop- ment Status proposed by Tata and Schultz (1988). This N e w Index represents a robust and versatile measure, based on what these au- thors call variables of systems outputs: for ex- ample, physical = total value of primary indus- try output per capita, persons per square kilometre of arable land; economic = G N P per capita, and manufacturing value-added per capita; so- cial = infant deaths per 1,000 live births, per- centage of age-group in higher education, and percentage of rural population; political = gov- ernment expenditures per capita, political rights index, and number of radios per 1,000 inhabit- ants (Tata and Schultz, 1988, p . 580). Given the above, w e can say that develop- ment means the improvement of the economic and social conditions of the masses. It entails a substantial reduction of poverty, ignorance, dis- ease, hunger, unemployment, oppression, in- justice, corruption and the like. Education's role in development: ideals versus realities THE ERA OF GREAT EXPECTATIONS AND OPTIMISM M o r e than forty years have elapsed since the United Nations declared education to be a ba- sic h u m a n right. Since then, especially follow- ing the attainment of political independence by most former colonies, educational ambitions have assumed infectious and explosive dimensions (Coombs, 1985, p . 211; Watson, 1988, p . 137). There was a widespread belief that educational development would bring about, inter alia, ac- celerated economic growth, more wealth and income distribution, greater equality of oppor- tunity, availability of skilled/productive h u m a n power, a decline in population growth, replace- ment of expatriate staff by indigenous person- nel, national unity and political stability. In other words, education was seen as a short-cut to development, a panacea for virtually all the socio- economic ills confronting the newly independ- ent nations. Thus , during the period 1950-80 there were more students enrolled in formal230 Apollo Rwomire education than there were at any time in all previous history combined (Watson, 1988, pp. 137-9). QUANTITATIVE EXPANSION VERSUS QUALITATIVE OUTCOMES Owing to the burgeoning faith in education as a panacea for all sorts of social and economic problems, virtually every country has invested heavily in the educational enterprise. In most countries, apart from defence, education is the largest single item in the national budget, some- times the biggest single sector of the economy. T o a great extent, the above-mentioned aspirations of the post-independence leaders were largely responsible for the phenomenal growth of education systems as indicated below. Moreover, educational expansion can be attributed to the scrapping of racial discrimination and the incor- poration of groups that previously lacked access to formal education, as well as the increased public spending and community development efforts (Court and Kinyanjui, 1986, p . 362). According to U N E S C O (1985, p . 14), school enrolment on a world scale increased from 436.1 million in 1960 to 845.3 million in 1980. With reference to L D C s , there are indi- cations that investment in education has simply been unprecedented. In developing countries - between 1960 and 1985 - enrolments at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels rose from 163 million to 455 million (Todaro, 1985, p. 328). Between 1960 and 1980 these coun- tries recorded increases of 142, 358 and 528 per cent in primary, secondary and higher edu- cation respectively. In the same order, Africa itself recorded increases of 218, 636 and 709 per cent in the three levels of education (Watson, 1988, p . 141). If these statistics are anything to go by, w e are truly witnessing an 'educational explosion', which basically refers to the unprecedented demand for and supply of education. This is the phenomenon that has been described as a 'revolution of rising expectations' and an 'edu- cational revolution'. Notwithstanding the foregoing, L D C s had no time to examine critically the type of edu- cation most appropriate to their development needs; they simply carried on using an expanded version of the system left by the former colonial rulers. Thus, most L D C s started with an im- ported colonial education system which was so inappropriate that in the 1980s they resembled an international trade fair displaying assorted models and ideologies from Europe and North America. T o be sure, Africa has become what one scholar has called a graveyard of educa- tional experiments (Ki-Zerbo, 1974, p . 53). In an effort to compensate for decades of educa- tional malnutrition almost overnight, African countries 'have been devouring Western edu- cation with a speed and gusto that makes no allowance for its healthful digestion in relation to society's social and economic well-being' (Ayandele, 1982, p . 165). Despite the massive quantitative expansion in institutions of formal education worldwide, controversy and cautious optimism seem to characterize informed discussions about the educational enterprise - in all its intentional, process-related and consequential attributes. For instance, it would seem that in m a n y L D C s there has been a mismatch between edu- cational outputs and educational outcomes. In the opinion of one observer, headcount alone is not enough. W h a t is in the heads - the educa- tional outcomes - must be evaluated, especially with respect to individual competence and ef- fectiveness in the workplace and also in terms of equality of opportunity (Husén, 1979, p . xiii). T h e exponential expansion of the education industry has been accompanied by manifold challenges and dilemmas, especially in develop- ing countries. During the last two decades, the education enterprise has generated a number of severe predicaments, so that the initial euphoric confidence in education has to a considerable extent been replaced by a m o o d of disillusion- ment. T h e education system has been denounced for inculcating egocentric and materialistic values at the cost of collective effort and responsibil- ity; for adopting irrelevant and rigid curricula;Education and development: African perspectives 231 for embracing antiquated teaching and learning techniques; for spreading sexual and other forms of immorality; for dampening initiative and curiosity; for producing docile and dependent- minded graduates; and for widening the gap between the rich and poor. A s if these charges were not enough, the following problems and issues are commonly associated with educational institutions, especially in less developed coun- tries: wastage in the form of high drop-out and repetition rates; high rates of unemployment and the related issue of'overeducation', i.e. the sur- plus production of graduates; acute shortage of teaching staff; inadequate funding; allocation of funds to trivial and grandiose projects; explo- sive pupil/student enrolment leading to over- crowded and overstretched physical and social facilities; lack of accurate statistics and infor- mation needed for planning and evaluation; and overconcentration of educational facilities in urban centres at the expense of rural areas where the majority of children live. T h e above catalogue of problems is not exhaustive, but it is suffi- ciently indicative of the nature and magnitude of the difficulties confronting the educational system. MOVEMENT TOWARDS UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION T h e quest for universal primary education (UPE) derives from the belief that education will e m a n - cipate L D C s from such problems as ignorance, disease and hunger (Lee, 1988, p . 1481). A d - vocates of U P E contend that mass education will result in an increased supply of educated h u m a n power, accelerated economic growth, more social justice, reduced regional disparities, and improved social welfare. At any rate, all chil- dren will have an equal start in life regardless of sex, socio-economic background, or geographi- cal location (Coombs, 1985, p. 70). Accord- ingly, African, Asian and Latin American gov- ernments expressed their intentions in the early 1960s to achieve U P E within two decades. Despite impressive accomplishments in U P E , only a handful of these countries m a n - aged to beat the deadline, that is, 1980. In sub- sanaran Africa, efforts to promote U P E have only been partially successful. In fact, if U P E were defined as the education of all children w h o start primary education at the specified m i n i m u m age and complete the full cycle, then only the Congo, Madagascar and T o g o might be said to have achieved U P E by the year 1980 (Lee, 1988, p. 1482). Thus , for several reasons, the gap between ambition and achievement re- mains quite wide. Excessive population growth, fiscal austerity, disagreement a m o n g policy- makers over the methods and means of pro- moting mass education, persistent socio-economic inequalities and cultural factors have impeded the full realization of U P E in developing coun- tries. B y the 1970s a number of issues had arisen which forced theorists to question the direction of educational development. There was con- cern about irregular school attendance, wastage and increasing drop-out rates as well as regional and sexual inequalities, where there was access to better schools for urban children rather than rural children and more for boys than girls. There existed four fundamental dilemmas facing gov- ernments committed to educational development (Watson, 1988, p . 137). T h e first dilemma was the attempt to rec- oncile the apparently conflicting role of edu- cation in society - whether it should be the one emanating from the West, emphasizing indi- vidual fulfilment, or the Soviet bloc type of edu- cation, concerned with the wider social and political needs of the society. Secondly, there was the problem of, on the one hand, preserv- ing the cultural and religious traditions of the past while, on the other hand, preparing chil- dren for a n e w and changing society. Thirdly, while the government tried to use education to prepare for national concerns, it also wished to serve local community needs and interests. T h e fourth dilemma lay in the extent to which gov- ernment should expand secondary and higher education at the expense of basic, rural primary education. In trying to deal with these dilemmas, theo- rists, aid agencies and governments turned to232 Apollo Rwomire developing and improving education in the ru- ral areas. Education was seen as the key to rural transformation, which itself was the key to the whole process of development. Hence, the e m - phasis on non-formal education. THE ROLE OF THE UNIVERSITY IN DEVELOPMENT At the top of the educational pyramidal struc- ture is university education. T h e functions of a university are as multifaceted as those of uni- versal primary education (Jenkins, 1988; Por- ter, 1972; Watson, 1988; Yesufu, 1973). A useful summary of the functions of universities, espe- cially in developing countries, would include the following components: Pursuit, promotion and dissemination of useful knowledge, including provision of intellec- tual leadership. Conducting research, both pure and applied; but special attention must be given to research designed to meet certain voca- tional and utilitarian needs: the eradication of poverty, rural development, food pro- duction, health care, etc. Development and adaptation of technologies, especially appropriate technologies, e.g. developing new energy sources. Promotion of regional and international under- standing and co-operation in order to elimi- nate ignorance, ethnocentrism, xenopho- bia, linguistic and cultural barriers. Production of high-level h u m a n power, par- ticularly that which is critically required for development. Stimulation of economic and industrial growth. Participation in non-formal education and public service, including adult education, literacy campaigns, community health, extension services, etc. Development and preservation of the cultural heritage and tradition. M a n y nations aspired to have at least one na- tional university after independence. In Africa, by 1960 there were 185,000 students enrolled at the tertiary level. This grew to 1,366,000 by 1980, an increase of 709 per cent (Watson, 1988, p . 144). These are no doubt remarkable statis- tics. Interest in the role of the university has increased because of the great concern that they are supposed to resolve such socio-economic problems as poverty, low production, u n e m - ployment, hunger, disease and so forth (Mosha, 1986, p . 93). Universities have provided manpower for strategic positions in government and industry. Also, they have attempted to bring together m e n and w o m e n with differing social, economic, tribal and religious backgrounds under one roof and provided some education for them. They have attempted to create research and consultancy skills of international standard among local staff. Furthermore, they have devised examinations of a local nature and have started issuing de- grees and diplomas in their o w n names (Mosha, 1986, p. 105). Besides, in an attempt to reverse the academic bias of the system, the Zimba- bwean government, for example, has embarked upon a new programme of vocational and tech- nical training for both the formal and informal educational sectors. Students in both the tech- nical and academic stream will have to take at least one practical subject (Mclvor, 1987, p . 24). Notwithstanding these achievements there are several key problems that face most African universities today. B y and large, cost is the main problem, for the expense involved in producing a university graduate m a y range from 80 to 400 times as m u c h as producing a primary-school leaver (Watson, 1988, p . 145). Thus, if a country lends more weight to university education, this m a y lead to the devaluation of U P E or reduce funds for teacher training and improvement. Indeed, as one scholar has observed, the African uni- versity is a very expensive enterprise, with its demand for European-type physical facilities, subsidized European-type living quarters, and a salary structure that bears no relationship whatsoever to social justice in the country (Ayandele, 1982, p . 167). Owing to shortage of financial resources, African universities lack the required numbers of quality lecturers and researchers. Those re-Education and development: African perspectives 233 cruited make up a mixed bag w h o m it m a y be difficult to mesh together in meaningful work. T h e ones w h o are qualified seek posts in other universities or join international organizations, looking for greener pastures. Left behind them are the newly graduated w h o lack experience or old professors whose effectiveness has declined. T h e few good scholars are weighed d o w n by heavy teaching loads and rely on 'yellow notes' as they do not have time to upgrade their mate- rials (Mosha, 1986, p. 107). This problem is then m a d e worse by the shortage of foreign exchange, making it difficult to buy up-to-date texts, journals, materials and equipment. Secondly, there are fears that Western edu- cation serves as a major instrument of cultural domination and intellectual servitude. For in- stance, Carnoy (1974) contends that there is a strong link between Western formal education and imperialist domination, designed to main- tain inequality between and within countries. According to Mazrui (1980), the university is like a cultural multinational corporation, essen- tially because of the intellectual penetration and dependency with which it is usually associated. For his part, Nyerere (1974, p. 46) suspects that a major purpose of education in Africa is to transform Africans into black Europeans or black Americans. This view is corroborated by Ayandele (1982, p . 172), w h o points out that African universities remain centres for the dif- fusion of Western culture: 'Culturally, they are amorphous, a class of Africans with English, French or American veneer.' Given the foregoing, the third problem revolves around the controversial issue of edu- cational curricula. Most African universities use a structure and curricula based on European or North American models. They make up Euro- American enclaves within their countries yet they lack such necessary accompaniments as adequate buildings, facilities and maintenance and funds (Goldschmidt, 1987, p . 21). Furthermore, un- like their counterparts they do not enjoy a natu- ral reciprocal relationship with their social, cul- tural and economic environment. This makes for additional societal pressure on them to make a contribution to the problems in the w a y of development. F e w universities have tried to change their curricula radically in an attempt to develop programmes more relevant to local conditions. This is partly due to the fact that it is very expensive to restructure a syllabus from the past, since this needs the production of n e w books, classroom facilities, teacher training col- leges, etc. This is the kind of expense that few countries can afford. In addition to that, stu- dents and parents still believe in the present curricula, which emphasize academic subjects, as the key to prosperity and wealth. Pupils are reluctant to pursue subjects like metalwork and rural science as they are seen as reserved for the less intelligent and uneducated. Also, because postgraduate study is still largely done over- seas, dependence persists, coupled with the in- ternationalization of norms and attitudes at odds with what most African nations aspire to develop. Moreover, in Africa, most of the books and other materials used originate in Western Europe or North America. T h e fourth problem concerns the univer- sities' seeming lack of direction, in that priori- ties have not been clearly stated, or if they are, the necessary resources to implement them are directed elsewhere. Worse still is the tendency to talk about problems without doing anything about them. African academics and politicians 'claim that agriculture is the backbone of our economy without finding out whether effort has been or is being directed towards realization of this goal' (Mosha, 1986, p . 107). Although African leaders often blame the colonialists for having drawn a sharp distinc- tion between formal and non-formal education, between education and training, and between urban and rural development, they have not done enough to rectify this legacy of the colo- nial education system. Furthermore, in African and other L D C s , 'talent for original and crea- tive research is scarce and does not increase proportionately with the supply of academic institutions and faculty appointments' (Streeten, 1988, p . 639).234 Apollo EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT, INCOME AND INEQUALITIES T h e economics of education only emerged as a separate field of study in the late 1950s. This was as a result of the realization that not all increases in national output could be accounted for by increasing inputs like physical capital, land and labour. In other words, education is a form of investment. Education has two main effects, particu- larly on economic development. T h e first is that of resource utilization leading to higher income. There is widespread evidence that one's income increases with each extra year of schooling (Psacharopoulos, 1988, p . 100). T h e argument is that education makes the individual more productive in the market-place. T h e rates of return on education tend to be higher in primary education, followed by sec- ondary and then university levels. T h e reason for this is that the unit costs in primary edu- cation are small compared with the extra life- time income of productivity derived from lit- eracy. For university education the opposite is true. Owing to public subsidization of education in most countries, private returns are higher than social returns. T h e social return for Africa as a whole towards the late 1970s in the primary, secondary and higher levels was 26, 17 and 13 per cent respectively. T h e same figures for pri- vate return were 45, 26 and 32 per cent (Psacharopoulos, 1988, p . 101). T h e field of study and the sex of the indi- vidual m a y also influence the rate of return. Technical education and agronomy tend to be associated with lower returns than the more general academic subjects like law, social sci- ences and so on. Even though the absolute earn- ings of m e n are higher than w o m e n ' s , the op- portunity cost of study for w o m e n is often lower (Psacharopoulos, 1988, pp. 101-2). In light of the above, if expenditure on education produces a higher rate of social return, then there is a positive link between the expansion of education and economic growth. Furthermore, education has been seen as having a positive impact on Rwomire productivity and growth. Easterlin's study (cited by Psacharopoulos) of twenty-five of the world's largest countries led him to conclude that the spread of technology was dependent on the learn- ing potential and motivation linked to the de- velopment of formal schooling (Psacharopoulos, 1988, p . 103). U p o n closer observation, however, backed by more recent data, it would seem that the h u m a n capital theory suffers some weakness. T h e labour force in an increasing number of developing countries is characterized by u n e m - ployment among the educated. In Sudan, Peru and Pakistan, for example, unemployment in- creases until reaching its highest point at the secondary completed level. Similar patterns have been reported in Argentina, India, Malaysia, etc. (Simmons, 1980, p . 32). Unemployment among those w h o have graduated from secondary school is higher than that among illiterates. Kenya has an opposite experience in that unemployment is highest among people w h o have graduated from higher-level institutions. T h e high unemployment in this latter group m a y be due to rising expectations in job-seek- ing as well as financial security provided by middle- to high-income parents. In traditional societies like those found in Africa and other developing areas, private networks allocate jobs, and therefore a college graduate m a y simply bide his time until his entry into a 'suitable' position is secured by friends or relatives. U n - derdevelopment is also exacerbated where sec- ondary-school leavers take jobs once only done by primary-school graduates. Moreover, there are students seeking entry into fields that are experiencing great unemployment. Thus peo- ple still want to pursue engineering or business studies, even though there m a y be high u n e m - ployment among them. T h e explanation for this is that even though getting a job as a teacher m a y be easier, the lifetime earnings of an engi- neer are higher, and so people opt for the g a m - ble of waiting longer for a better job. This evidence suggests that education m a y not make a major contribution to the creation of employment, except where nationals replaced expatriates and jobs were created in the edu-Education and development: African perspectives 235 cation sector. It is large wage differentials be- tween occupations, according to incrementalists, that cause high unemployment among the edu- cated. This is m a d e even more acute in devel- oping countries, where a doctor m a y earn 100 times as m u c h as a mechanic. In Uganda a secondary-school graduate's average income m a y be twenty times the per capita income (Simmons, 1980, p . 35). In developed countries the ratios of average annual earnings for those with higher education to those with primary range from 2.13 to 2.63, whereas in developing countries they range from 2.24 to 12.07 (Simmons, 1980). Thus the incentive of getting a certificate here is more. This results in an oversupply of higher- level graduates, w h o end up unemployed. T h e obvious thing to do would be to try to reduce wage differentials. T h e problem in de- veloping societies is the market mechanism, for labour allocation is subordinated to a social net- work that often considers political and familial credentials as criteria for job allocation. T h e second effect of education on econ- omic development is mat of income distribu- tion. Since education has such a great impact on individual earnings, it follows that it also affects the way income is distributed. T h e net effect of the expansion of schooling has been a reduction in the dispersion of earnings and hence a more equal income distribution (Psacharo- poulos, 1988, p . 103). T h e equity of income depends on which level of education is expanded. T h e equity im- pact is greatest at the basic level of education, as the low earnings of illiterates are raised closer to the overall m e a n . T h e expansion of univer- sity education, however, has the opposite effect in that the income of workers w h o earn above the m e a n m a y be pushed even further above. A s most university students c o m e from middle- to upper-income families, state subsidies for their education will increase their income at the ex- pense of the general taxpayers, w h o are less likely to be able to afford to send their children for higher education (Psacharopoulos, 1988, pp. 103-4). Despite the fact that for some people edu- cation enhances social mobility and redistrib- utes income, the hard reality is that it also serves to widen the gap between rich and poor. Evi- dence suggests that children of upper-income groups are more likely to receive more years of education than children of the poor. Research conducted in Brazil, India and Colombia all points to the fact that the educational process acts as a disequalizer of income. Not only have govern- ments failed to adjust these disequalizing forces but they have reinforced them. Furthermore, the poor pay a higher percentage of their in- come in taxes than the rich. It is mis tax that pays the cost of expensive education (Simmons, 1980, p . 40). While it is not the only factor, education is an essential part of the increasing social inequality, for it serves to legitimize the achievement of high-status occupations and also increases m e h u m a n capital of the rich. Children from upper- income families have an advantage over their peers right from the beginning. T h e y are better fed and cared for and are more exposed to those things conducive to the development and ad- vancement of cognitive skills useful in schools and in white-collar work. In m a n y developing countries, a second language is used in primary school, and those children coming from homes where this language is understood, usually middle- to upper-class families, are at an obvious ad- vantage for educational advancement. In all, the educational system does not reduce inequality from one generation to the next because 'the richer students have more opportunities to get a good elementary and high-school education, to get into college, to remain in college, and therefore to get a high-income job after college - and then to send their children to college' (Hunt and Sherman, 1975, p . 317). F r o m a social viewpoint one can appreci- ate the social frustration and political dangers of unemployment of the educated. A more highly educated society is supposed to be a more p o - litically democratic society (Carnoy, 1974, p . 7). Such a notion is derived from the suggestion that countries with more education per capita are m o r e likely to have Western-style democra- cies characterized by regular, free and fair elec- tions and representative governments. This level236 Apollo Rwomire of political maturity is a necessary feature for any government or country to claim to be de- veloped. T h e situation, however, has been that more education has simply resulted in the re- placement of less educated labour by the more highly educated. T h e number of jobs has not been growing as rapidly as the number of gradu- ates being put out so that the increase in aver- age schooling has not been used by the economy. There is still a high d e m a n d for high-level edu- cation and this takes a large part of government budgets. These resources could instead be used to create jobs for the impoverished, but, as the political clout of this group is less than that of the middle- to higher-class groups, this is not done. ' T h e primary school has become not the place where one is educated for a useful life, but the place where one competes for an exit visa from rural society' (Dore, 1980, p . 71). It is no wonder, then, that disadvantaged children choose to opt out of primary if they have little chance of getting into secondary, for they k n o w there is no job for them after primary. T h e m o d e r n sector has grown too slowly to accommodate the whole of the labour force. Development was seen as a matter of creating an outpost of modernity in an otherwise tradi- tional society; through natural economic forces (initiated by certain inputs) the former would engulf the latter, creating a modern society. T h e flaws in this strategy are n o w being experienced. T h e salaries of modern sector workers are out of proportion to traditional sector incomes, and, as inequalities grow, so too do social tensions. In this situation, it is in the interest of the state, especially the capitalist state, to try to keep the lid on the problem. According to Bowles (1980, p . 207), the educational system as a significant influence on political life, ideology and development of la- bour power is one of the indispensable instru- ments of the state. T h e features of educational inequality and inequality of income discussed earlier are reflections of the class structure of capitalist societies. These class relations circum- scribe the contribution educational policies could m a k e to either growth or equality. In capitalist countries the school system contributes to the expansion of capitalism by serving both as a recruiter and gatekeeper for the capitalist sec- tor. A s a recruiter the system turns out a labour force able and resigned to working productively within the capitalist firm. Productivity is increased through education firstly by transmitting and reinforcing values necessary for adequate job performance and smooth functioning of the la- bour market and secondly by developing the technical and scientific skills needed for effi- cient production (Bowles, 1980, p . 215) . Y o u n g people are integrated in the capital- ist m o d e w h e n the education system is beyond their or their parents' control; w h e n success is measured by external examinations; and w h e n this structure suppresses any personal interest in knowledge or learning. Features of class, sex and race are reflected in differential access to school, drop-out rates and promotion prospects. These are, according to Bowles, the capitalist social relations of production reflected in the schools. T h u s , it is in the capitalists' interests to pattern the structure of education after the so- cial relations found in this societal formation. Analogously, it is in their interest to regu- late the growth of the education system to the expansion of the actual m o d e of production. This is the gatekeeper function of the educa- tional system. Sometimes, owing to the ideo- logical emphasis on education as the route to success, popular d e m a n d outstrips the rate ap- propriate to the employment needs of the economy at that point in time. A n important point to consider in the expansion of education, particu- larly for the ruling class, is the amount of ideo- logical or political benefit that expansion will produce. However , the overexpansion of edu- cation has risks for the capitalist class. First, it m a y bring about productivity increases and tech- nological progress in the traditional m o d e , thereby diminishing the pool of cheap labour found in the traditional sector. Second, the costs of ex- pansion constitute a tax burden on capitalists and a diversion of state resources that might otherwise have been used for m o r e profit- generating projects. Third, if the entire popula- tion of a specific age-group received a fairly high level of education, they might all expectEducation and developmi lent: African perspectives 237 employment in the capitalist m o d e - an expec- tation which, in reality, might not be met , there- fore leading to great social frustration and ten- sion. This serves to demonstrate that the par- ticular social formation has a bearing on the educational system found. W e must not be too hasty in condemning the educational system as an instrument for bringing about growth and income distribution; instead, w e mus t take a closer look at the wider society within which the system functions. These issues must be seri- ously addressed before any true performance evaluation of the critical role education plays in national development can be undertaken. Conclusion This study has attempted to investigate the role of formal education in the development pro- cess. It has examined the functions, dynamics and challenges of the education enterprise in sub-Saharan Africa. In general, the manifest functions of the education enterprise include the socialization of the young; cultural transmission and social in- tegration; the creation of n e w knowledge; the development of personal skills; training for work; and the promotion of social and economic mobility over time. However , education also has latent or hidden functions. For instance, it has been argued that educational institutions s o m e - times operate as deadly instruments of oppres- sion and exploitation. A s Rodney (1972) put it: 'colonial schooling was education for subordi- nation, exploitation and the development of underdevelopment.' T o a very great extent, Rodney 's argument is applicable to post-inde- pendence Africa, even if what is happening n o w is not necessarily a consequence of deliberate policy-making, but of the inherited colonial legacy. T h e principal indictments against colonial (and, to a certain degree, neo-colonial) education in- clude the following: Colonial education was an instrument of impe- rialist domination and economic exploita- tion. This brand of education was pardy responsible for the prevailing economic and political crises in Africa. Colonial education was a major source of econ- omic inequalities and social stratification. For instance, a handful of Africans had access to education, which they used to exploit and dominate other Africans. A s a result, those tribal, ethnic or regional group- ings which were denied this type of edu- cation increasingly became economically and socially disadvantaged. For Africa, colonial education served as an instrument of intellectual and cultural ser- vitude. Western culture was promoted at the expense of the indigenous culture. S o m e of the consequences of colonial edu- cation include acquisitive egocentricity, re- ligious fanaticism, and political alienation. T h e curricula and models of colonial education were largely inadequate and irrelevant to the development of Africa. These were some of the characteristics and prob- lems of the education system that was bequeathed to the newly independent countries. Colonial education was different from pre-colonial edu- cation, which laid emphasis on 'social responsi- bility, job orientation, political participation and spiritual and moral values' (Fafunwa and Aisiku, 1982, p. 9). Following the achievement of political in- dependence in the 1950s and 1960s, the n e w nations set out to modify the colonial education legacies, for instance, by trying to establish sys- tems of education corresponding to their social, economic and political aspirations and circum- stances. There was general agreement that edu- cation was a panacea for miscellaneous socio- economic ills; it was seen as a key to economic growth and a weapon against deep-seated in- equalities and injustices. In short, it was rightly believed that there was a link between education and modernization. In connection with the quantitative expan- sion of educational services, it goes without saying that impressive progress has been m a d e . Since the early 1960s student enrolment at primary,238 Apollo Rwomire secondary and tertiary levels has doubled or even tripled. T o be sure, post-independence education systems of L D C s are far different from what they were during the colonial era. T h e impor- tance of education has been recognized and measures to rectify the limitations of colonial education taken. T h e building of institutions, development plans, curriculum changes, in- creased allocation of funds to education, accel- erated educational development in rural areas and non-formal education are all bold attempts to universalize and democratize education sys- tems. Unfortunately, these measures are set against the backdrop of colonial legacies that make de- velopment plans and strategies all the harder to realize. Despite the phenomenal expansion of educational systems, there is a widespread feel- ing that the qualitative aspects of education have not received enough attention. With reference to Africa, it is felt that edu- cational institutions are producing academic robots - or, to use Leopold Senghor's famous terminology, 'photographic negatives' - of the British, French, Portuguese and Belgian colo- nial rulers. M a n y of the educational and development strategies initiated by L D C s over the past twenty or thirty years have not been as successful as previously anticipated owing to certain prob- lems and dilemmas, including, inter alia, the following: rapid population growth; the malad- justment between modernity and tradition; the misfit between economic development and so- cial development; the imbalances between edu- cation and development needs; the wide gap between education and lucrative employment; the disparities in educational provision rooted in geography, social grouping or gender; un- timely localization and institutional overload and mismanagement. W e are convinced that education and de- velopment are strongly correlated. However, the successful synthesis of the two will depend on our ability to resolve effectively die above-men- tioned predicaments. T h e struggle for total lib- eration continues. • References A Y A N D E L E , E . A . 1982. Africa: The Challenge of Higher Education. Daedalus, Vol. Ill, N o . 2. B O W L E S , S. 1980. Education, Class Conflict and Uneven Development. In: J. Simmons (ed.), The Education Dilemma: Policy Issues for Developing Countries in the 1980s. Washington, D . C . , World Bank. C A R N O Y , M . 1974. Education as Cultural Imperialism. N e w York, M c K a y . C O O M B S , P . 1985. The World Crisis in Education. N e w York, Oxford University Press. C O U R T , D . ; KINYANJUI , A . 1986. African Education: Problems in a High-growth Sector. In: R . J. Berg and J. S. Whitaker (eds.), Strategies for African Develop- ment. Berkeley, Calif., University of California Press. D O R E , R . 1980. The Future of Education. In: J. Simmons (ed.), The Education Dilemma. Oxford, Pergamon Press. D R U C K E R , P. 1961. The Educational Revolution. In: A . H . Halsey et al., Education, Economy and Society. N e w York, The Free Press. F A F U N W A , B . ; AISIKU, J. U . 1982. Education in Africa: A Comparative Survey. London, George Allen & Unwin. G O L D S C H M I D T , D . 1987. The Role of Universities in Development. Development and Cooperation, N o . 6. H A R B I S O N , F. H . 1973. Human Resources as the Wealth of Nations. N e w York, Oxford University Press. H A W E S , H . ; C O O M B E , T . 1986. Education Priorities and Aid Response in Sub-Saharan Africa. London, Over- seas Development Administration. H U M M E L , Charles. 1977. Education Today for the World of Tomorrow. Paris, U N E S C O . H U N T , E . K . ; S H E R M A N , H . J. 1975. Economics: An Intro- duction to Traditional and Radical Views. N e w York, Harper & R o w . H U S É N , T . 1979. The School in Question. Oxford, O x - ford University Press. JENKINS, D . 1988. What is the Purpose of a University, and what Light does Christian Faith Shed on this Question? Studies in Higher Education, Vol. 13, N o . 3. K I - Z E R B O , J. 1974. Historical Aspects of Education in French-speaking Africa and the Question of Develop- ment. Development Dialogue, N o . 2. L E E , K . H . 1988. Universal Primary Education: A n African Dilemma. World Development, Vol. 16, N o . 12. M A G A G U L A , M . C . M . 1987. Education for Develop- ment. (Paper presented at the Professors World Peace Academy Conference, Johannesburg.) M A Z R U I , A . 1980. The Africa Condition: The Reith Lec- tures. London, Heinemann. M C I V O R , C . 1987. Zimbabwe Tackles Education Prob- lem. Development and Cooperation, N o . 6. M O R R I S , D . M . 1979. Measuring the Condition of the World's Poor: The Physical Quality of Life Index. London, Frank Cass.Education and development: African perspectives 239 M O S H A , H . J. 1986. The Role of African Universities in National Development: A Critical Analysis. Compara- tive Education, Vol. 22, N o . 2. N Y E R E R E , J. 1974. Education and Liberation. Develop- ment Dialogue. (Opening address.) P O R T E R , A . T . 1972. University Development in Eng- lish-speaking Africa: Problems and Opportunities. Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol. 71, N o . 282. P S A C H A R O P O U L O S , G . 1988. Education and Development: A Review. Washington, D . C . , World Bank. R A M , R . 1982. Composite Indices of Physical Quality of Life, Basic Needs Fulfillment and Income: A Princi- pal Component Representation. Journal of Develop- ment Economics, N o . 11, pp. 227-48. R O D N E Y , W . 1972. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Publishing House. S C H U L T Z , T . W . 1981. Investing in People. Berkeley, Calif., University of California Press. SICINSKI, A . 1985. Educational Objectives and Cultural Values. Reflections on the Future Development of Edu- cation. Paris, U N E S C O . S I M M O N S , J. (ed.). 1980. The Educational Dilemma: Policy Issues for Developing Countries in the 1980s. N e w York, Pergamon Press. S T R E E T E N , P . 1988. Reflections on the Role of the University and the Developing Countries. World De- velopment, Vol. 16, N o . 5, pp. 639-40. T A T A , R . J.; S C H U L T Z , R . R . 1988. World Variation in H u m a n Welfare: A N e w Index of Development Sta- tus. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 78, N o . 4 , pp. 580-93. T O D A R O , M . 1985. Economic Development in the Third World. London, Longman. U N E S C O . 1985. Reflections on the Future Development of Education. Paris, U N E S C O . . 1988. Goals of Development. Paris, U N E S C O . UNITED NATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL D E - V E L O P M E N T . 1972. Contents and Measurement of Socio- economic Development. N e w York. U P H O F F , N . T . ; I L C H M A N , W . F. 1972. The Political Economy of Development: Theoretical and Empirical Contributions. Berkeley, Calif., University of Califor- nia Press. W A T S O N , K . 1988. Forty Years of Education and Devel- opment: From Optimism to Uncertainty. Educational Review, Vol. 40, N o . 2. Y E S U F U , T . M . 1973. The Role and Priorities of the University in Development. In: T . M . Yesufu (ed.), Creating the African University. Ibadan (Nigeria), O x - ford University Press.Profiles of educators Condorcet (1743-94) Bernard Jolibert In the discussions of ideas that constitute our daily intellectual environment there are certain words that reek of cordite and certain writers w h o give us a sense of peace. T h e term 'secu- lar' is in the first category, and Condorcet in the second. A person w h o speaks of secular or non- religious education or schools, or of educational 'neutrality', immediately lays himself or herself open to being regarded either as a supporter of the 'independent school', that is private, cleri- cal, religious, 'right-wing' and, needless to say, reactionary, or as a champion of public, secu- lar, positivist, 'left-wing' and, needless to say, anti-clerical education. Simplistic images are powerful, and ingrained mental habits so re- assuring. A n d yet the divisions are not always where one would like them to be, and it m a y be that one of the first people to notice the caricatural exaggeration of this Manichaean representation of the school was in fact Condorcet, at a time w h e n the present-day French noun denoting the principle of non-religious education did not yet exist. Bernard Jolibert (France). Teaches education and the history of educational thought at the University of Réunion. He is the author o/L'enfance au xvii siècle, raison et éducation ana L'éducation contemporaine. Founder of the 'Philosophy of Education' collection published by Klincksieck in Paris, he has published translations into French of Saint Augustine's D e Magistro, Comenius' Didacta M a g n a and Erasmus' D e Pueris. Rather than bludgeon the reader with an encyclopaedic account of the educational writ- ings and thought of Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, it seemed m o r e useful to accompany this writer, insufficiently k n o w n in spite of media excitement over the bicentenary of the French Revolution, along the path that led h im to discover the secular ideal. His approach is highly instructive for us w h o are not all that far removed from the conflicts of his o w n day.' An all-round man Condorcet was a writer, polemicist, scholar and politician,2 but it would be somewhat rash to class him, strictly speaking, as an educator. Never did he have a school in his charge to test his ideas, and he left us no psychological, socio- logical or pedagogical analysis of the child. H e showed little interest in the techniques of teach- ing. But to say that he was not a practising teacher and that the whole of his work was di- rected primarily towards philosophy, chiefly political philosophy, could not discredit the rel- evance or Tightness of his ideas. T h e depth and coherence of Condorcet's thinking about edu- cation m a k e h im a philosopher and educator in his o w n right. Condorcet achieved precocious distinction as a mathematician, entered the A c a d e m y of Sciences at the age of 26 and became its Per- Prospeas, Vol. XXII, [, N o . 2, 1992 (82)242 Bernard Jolibert manent Secretary in 1776 and a m e m b e r of the French A c a d e m y in 1782. W h e n the French Revolution broke out he was one of the last authentic survivors of the spirit of the Enlight- enment that had permeated Voltaire and the compilers of the Encyclopédie. In September 1791 he was elected to the Legislative Assembly to represent Paris and became a m e m b e r of the Public Instruction Committee, which was re- sponsible for the reform of schools. In truth, the question of reorganizing edu- cation in France had long been exercising peo- ple's minds. Everyone remembered the Essai d'éducation nationale et plan d'études pour la jeunesse (Essay o n National Education) (1763) by L a Chalotais, a fiery attack, on the religious m o n - opoly over education. Condorcet, moreover, had already given considerable thought to the question. In 1790 he had published in the periodical La bibliothèque de l'homme public four 'memoirs ' on educational issues: Nature et objet de l'instruction publique (Nature and Purpose of State Instruction); De l'instruction commune aux enfants (Universal In- struction for Children); De l'instruction commune pour les hommes (Universal Instruction for Adults); and Sur l'instruction relative aux professions (Vo- cational Instruction). A fifth memoi r , not p u b - lished during his lifetime, w a s devoted to L'instruction relative aux sciences (Instruction in the Sciences).3 In view of the urgent political situation, however, it was no longer the m o m e n t for purely theoretical reflection. A group of five m e m b e r s of the committee was asked to prepare a gen- eral plan for education. Together with Lacépède, Arbogast, Pastoret and R o m m e , Condorcet set to work and presented his report and draft de- cree {Rapport et projet de décret sur l'organisation générale de l'instruction publiqué)'1 in 1792, but, for political reasons, it failed to receive the at- tention the subject required, and discussion of the report was postponed. T h e idea of edu- cation that was free of charge, compulsory, non-religious and universal contained in that report was not to become reality until a century later. Let us take a closer look at Condorcet's ideal and at the fundamental principles on which it is based. Caught up in the revolutionary turmoil, Condorcet was faced with a problem not very different from that encountered by any educa- tional theory or school that attempts to carry its principles to the logical conclusion. H o w can the unity of the school be recon- ciled with the social diversity of children? H o w can a m i n i m u m of knowledge and moral senti- ments be uniformly inculcated in all the m e m - bers of a republic - identical basic knowledge for all - in a national environment that is so- cially and culturally diverse and is also multidenominational? H o w can one prevent the knowledge acquired by a few from being trans- formed into absolute power over the others? It was no doubt a political and a religious issue, but it was above all an educational issue, since, in concrete terms, the aim was nothing less than to group together peacefully in the same school children with different religious beliefs, from different backgrounds, with different languages and destined for different occupations, so as to produce at least the m i n i m u m of universal feel- ing and knowledge needed to secure the unity of the republic and, beyond the republic, the unity of the h u m a n race. Let us try to trace the genesis of this vision through Condorcet's writings. Three essential stages stand out as landmarks on his journey from a convinced and militant anti-clericalism5 to a m o r e serene conception of the necessary cohabitation between religious diversity and secular unity and finally to the idea of h u m a n universality based on the ideal of knowledge and instruction for all, without which both in- tellectual progress and independent citizenship would be impossible. The Protestant question Even before the Revolution Condorcet c a m e u p against the question of a secular education in connection with the educational status ofProfiles of educators: Condorcet (1743-94) 243 children and teachers w h o were Protestants. Following Louis X I V ' s revocation of the Edict of Nantes in October 1685, the children of Prot- estant families were sent to Catholic schools, and adult Protestants were forbidden to teach. Teachers were appointed by the congregations, which inspected them and defined the curricula. This allowed the R o m a n Catholic clergy to keep education and teachers in their grip. In such a situation the main function of the school is not so m u c h to instruct as to maintain above all the orthodoxy of the Catholic faith where that faith is firmly established and to pros- elytize in regions where it encounters resistance from other faiths. L a Chalotais (1701-85), in his 'Essay o n National Education' (1763), had already denounced this explicit shift from in- struction to indoctrination. It was from L a Chalotais, the fiery Procureur Général in the Breton Parlement, that Condorcet borrowed the principle that it is not the most important function of the school to deal with denominational issues: its object should be the greatest public utility. T h e teaching of political laws and the sciences is a matter for the state, the teaching of divine laws one for the Church. Condorcet distilled from this the essential prin- ciple that the first job of the school is to in- struct. A s a m a n of science and a mathemati- cian he concluded that the school's m o s t important task must be to transmit knowledge that is useful to everyone. H e n c e his c o n d e m - nation of what w e could call, using Bernard Chariot's expression, the 'pedagogical mystifi- cation'6 of the eighteenth-century school. That school was expected to instruct children, but instruction w a s impeded by the fact that the children were placed in the exclusive grip of religious congregations and the fact that the school institution w a s assigned the role of ideological indoctrination. Teachers were recruited for their moral profile, not for their knowledge or skill; education was neglected in favour of the cat- echism; knowledge was presented dogmatically; the voice of authority overrode individual criti- cal thought; and hatred between social groups w a s fuelled and legitimized - as evidenced by the Callas affair and the Chevalier de la Barre affair. All these traits were violently attacked by Condorcet in his Fragments sur l'éducation des enfants (Fragments concerning the Education of Children), Petits résumés sur l'histoire de l'éducation (Notes o n the History of Education) and Sur l'instruction ( O n the Subject of Instruc- tion), which have been published by Manuela Albertone under the general title Réflexions et notes sur l'éducation (Thoughts and Notes o n Education).7 Faced with this religious monopoly over education, Condorcet directed his attack at two levels - the political level and the school level - without drawing a clear distinction between them. During the period that he wrote several Écrits sur les protestants (Writings o n the Protestants)8 (1775-81) his line of argument was essentially political. His e n e m y was the monopoly held by the religious congregations. It w a s thus necessary to start by breaking the hold of the Catholic clergy over school education and remove the school from the temptation of indoctrination. Teachers must be selected, curricula developed and buildings used that were independent of the Church. T o each side its o w n preserve, its sphere of influence and its tasks. Let the school be responsible for transmission of the knowl- edge indispensable to the free citizen: reading, writing, arithmetic, civic duties and fundamen- tal moral values; let the family be responsible for the affections; and let the Churches be re- sponsible for the metaphysics of the faith. T o achieve this outcome a state school had to be set u p outside the monopoly of the Church. It was the price to be paid for a peaceful society. In the actual schools this division of re- sponsibilities had a theoretical consequence that was immediately perceived by Condorcet: a clear distinction had to be drawn between education in general, which included general physical, af- fective, intellectual and moral training, and ac- tual instruction, which was only a part of that education. W h e r e education in the broad sense was concerned, each person was entitled to re- spect for his or her metaphysical beliefs. These were already taken in hand by the family and the Church. A t the very least, no one should be244 Bernard Jolibert placed in a position of diminished civic dignity on account of his or her religious convictions. T h e utmost tolerance was desirable. A s for in- struction, on the other hand, the school should take in all citizens without exception and in- struct them in everything that makes responsi- bility possible, i.e. in everything that forms and consolidates the h u m a n being as a political citi- zen: reading, writing, arithmetic and the func- tioning of institutions - without which a person had to hand over to others his or her freedom of judgement and choice, which are the funda- mental moral principles recognized by all sys- tems of ethics. In his report and draft decree on the gen- eral organization of public instruction, Condorcet was perfectly explicit in his definition of the aims of the school: T o offer all individuals of the h u m a n race the means to provide for their needs and well-being, know and exercise their rights and understand and fulfil their duties; the opportunity to perfect their skill, make themselves capable of performing the social functions to which they have a right to be called and develop the full range of talents given them by nature; and in so doing to establish between citizens an authentic equality to make real the political equality recognized by the law.9 According to Condorcet, religious beliefs, though perfectly legitimate, should not cross the threshold of the school. T h o u g h it is not always easy to m a k e a distinction between education and in- struction in practice, the fact remains that reli- gious beliefs should give w a y to the need for knowledge and 'elementary' (in the mathemati- cal sense of an essential component) moral feel- ings that are essential to each citizen. T o quote Milner's expression, there exists a 'strategic knowledge'10 to which it is the school's respon- sibility to give priority. A s Condorcet saw it, a secular ideal presupposes an anti-clerical stance and is imbued with the ideas of citizenship and political unity. Political dogmatism But he quickly c a m e to see this militant anti-clericalism as superficial and above all as inadequate. It was not enough to fight against a religion, to drive churchmen out of the schools and replace them with the ideal of a universal knowledge that would foster social reconcilia- tion. Catherine Kintzler has convincingly shown h o w Condorcet became aware of the danger that dogmatism would simply be displaced." Incoherent illuminism is not confined to reli- gions or their followers. T h e spirit of exclusive- ness, though clerical par excellence, also blows in other quarters. Condorcet encountered it per- sonally in the two main areas of his activity, in science with Marat and in politics with Robespierre. This battle on two fronts drove Condorcet to look more closely at his secular ideal of a universal knowledge intended for each and every individual. T h e growing understanding of nature and social mathematics and the idea of unlimited progress propagated by science ushered in a n e w form of clericalism in politics and learned societies. T h e goddess Reason, the god Progress and their daughter Science were becoming the objects of a n e w religion and n e w theology. Condorcet was one of the first to spot and in- vestigate this substitute priesthood and the in- tellectual danger it represented: w h e n the Church is dispossessed of its monopoly in education, it does not necessarily follow that the ideal of universal learning will capture the school and the ideal of individual liberty the republic. O n the contrary, w e tend to find, as Charles Coutel12 puts it, a 'transference of sacredness', both in political action and in the world of science. Let us take political action first. T h e n e w revolutionary power was sorely tempted immediately to put the school to the service of the victorious ideology. T h e educa- tional plans of Babeuf, Rabaut-Saínt-Étienne, Bouquier and le Pelletier-de-Saint-Fargeau tended to substitute civic indoctrination for elementary instruction and at the same time to eliminate all outside influence that might still be brought toProfiles of educators: Condorcet (1743-94) 245 bear on children. Instruction was of secondary importance; it w a s the child as a whole that had to be taken in hand. Lawmakers , educators and politicians swore by the Spartan model; one deputy even proposed burning d o w n the Bibliothèque Nationale as a source of inequal- ity in knowledge. W h a t could this m o v e m e n t be except a n e w clerical distortion, just as dog- matic and monopolistic as the clergy used to be? If you call a school a national temple, if your teacher is a magistrate, you add to the statements m a d e in that place by that m a n an authority that is foreign not only to the evidence necessary to arrive at the truth but also to the type of authority that, without impeding the progress of knowledge, m a y influence our provisional belief - the belief that accounts for the k n o w n superiority of the Enlightenment. I a m right to believe a physical experiment on the authority of a scholar whose science and accuracy I have checked; I should be an idiot to believe it on the authority of a high priest or grand official. There is no hope for the salvation of h u m a n reason unless this same rule is applied to ethics and politics. Let us therefore hasten to prefer reasoning to eloquence and books to speakers and bring at last to the moral sciences the philosophy and method of the physical sci- ences.13 In his Premier mémoire sur l'instruction publique (First M e m o i r on Public Instruction) (1790),14 Condorcet had already denounced this n e w evangelistic trend within the education system, which distorted its main purpose. Children were roped into festivities, celebrations and parades, and the cult of the Nation, the goddess Nature and the tree of Liberty replaced citizenship, science and a sense of personal responsibility. T h e fact of the matter was that schools had n e w high priests. T h e mos t scathing remark by Condorcet against this n e w political class - priests in disguise - was aimed at Robespierre, w h o was never to forgive h im for it. T h e rebel Condorcet15 maintained that all these n e w cults were the very negation of cul- ture. T h e social idol supplanted the religious idol, political rhetoric ran high, but the result w a s the same - one d o g m a was merely replac- ing another, to the detriment of genuine civic education. F r o m an educational point of view, the consequences were serious. In order to foster the full socialization of young people, schools played on their gregarious instinct instead of helping them to reason critically for themselves, the only sound approach to science. Education was replaced by patriotic incantations and the comforting companionship of the crowd. This meant that schools no longer educated but in- doctrinated, betraying their primary function, which was to impart the basic knowledge ena- bling all to pursue their o w n education. A m a n w h o , on completing his education, does not continue to strengthen his reasoning faculties, sustain the knowledge acquired by n e w knowl- edge, correct any errors or rectify any incomplete notions he m a y have been taught will soon see the fruit of his early years' labour vanish: as time obliterates the traces of any first impressions that are not renewed by further studies, the mind itself, once it is no longer in the habit of applying itself, will suffer a loss of flexibility and vigour.16 Science misapplied and the idea of progress A similar p h e n o m e n o n could be observed in the realm of science and was well described in the short essay entitled Raisons qui m'ont empêché jusqu'ici de croire au magnétisme animal (Rea- sons that H a v e Hitherto Prevented M e from Believing in Animal Magnet i sm) , 1 7 directed against M e s m e r , a sort of latter-day pseudo- scientific prophet. Scientists themselves are just as easily tempted as charlatans to misuse the quasi-religious power conferred o n them by knowledge. Condorcet feared the emergence of a n e w clericature, of the scientistic variety this time, that was just as stubbornly opposed to progress and as conservative as the clergy. H o w would the m a n in the street be able to distin- guish between a true scientist and a quack? H o w246 Bernard Jolibert to resist the temptation of the power conferred by knowledge? T h e theory of progress as it emerges from the Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain (Sketch for a His- torical Picture of the Progress of the H u m a n M i n d ) (1794) can shed n e w light on these two thorny issues. In order to gain a better under- standing of what progress means and entails, let us start out from its opposite, obscurantism, vigorously denounced apropos of the Chaldean priests, the archetypes of that breed of scholars w h o jealously sought to keep their knowledge to themselves so as to maintain their intellectual and moral hold over the people. In fact, obscu- rantism resides not in ignorance but in the de- liberate will, artfully applied, to prevent the truths gradually acquired by science and technology from being divulged to the world at large. Whether a would-be custodian of the truth or a prey to illusion, the bogus scholar harbours illusory knowledge so as better to preserve his or her power. B y contrast, w h e n Cordorcet speaks about 'progress of the h u m a n mind ' he means not only qualitative and quantitative knowledge but also the spread of knowledge to everyone. In this sense, and despite their radically different metaphysical theories, Comenius and Condorcet are alike in seeking to create an education for all, a genuinely universal education for all h u - m a n beings without distinction. This is the pre- requisite for the intellectual and, especially, moral progress of humankind as a whole. Quantita- tively, the mass of available truths is growing; qualitatively, all this knowledge is rationally c o m - bined in such a w a y that it is easier to propa- gate. T h e whole question is whether universal education has the practical means of ensuring its dissemination. This is a matter of political decision-making. Here again, Condorcet is not very different from Comenius in believing that education for all and the participation of every- one, together, in the advancement of knowl- edge are a pre-condition for improving the lot of humankind. F r o m this point of view, nations, individu- als and peoples all share in the unity covered by the concept of 'the h u m a n mind ' . It is the h u - m a n mind that is capable of indefinite improve- ment: ' O u r hopes in the future condition of the h u m a n species m a y be s u m m e d up in these three important points: the destruction of in- equality a m o n g nations; the progress of equal- ity within a single people; and lastly the genuine improvement of the h u m a n person.'18 A s regards this improvement, w e must guard against a c o m m o n misconception that would distort Condorcet's thinking. This constant pro- gression must not be seen as the realization of some immanent historical force that, though latent, has a recognizable form and a predict- able purpose. Nothing could be m o r e remote from Condorcet's theories than a deterministic representation of the course of history. Perfectibility is a notion that in his think- ing reflects a hope, an ideal, whose legitimacy is corroborated by two explicit observations m a d e in the Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind. First, the ideal of h u m a n progress, understood concretely as the improve- men t of knowledge and behaviour, has no in- ternal contradictions that might undermine its logical relevance. Secondly, the history of sci- ence, technology and h u m a n relationships to these two branches of knowledge shows that there has indeed been progress over the centu- ries of h u m a n intellectual journeying. This lat- ter observation leads Condorcet to believe that there are legitimate grounds for hoping that similar progress will continue to be m a d e in the future. A n d since such progress has an influence o n h u m a n behaviour, in other words o n morals in general, there is reason to believe that there will be progress in the political and h u m a n spheres as well. It is therefore a hypothesis in the strict sense. Condorcet never says that progress is necessary; he merely asks for it to be accepted as a possi- bility and he bases it entirely on the fundamen- tal idea of h u m a n perfectibility. This is con- trary both to the anthropology of antiquity, which assigns h u m a n beings a definitive place in a finite cosmos, and to Christian metaphysics, which holds that they are essentially stable in nature and divine in origin. T h e idea of per- fectibility suggests only that the h u m a n mind isProfiles of educators: Condorcet (1743-94) 247 open to an indeterminate future. It m a y go either backwards or forwards, but in either case it cannot be confined. T o Condorcet's mind , therefore, the idea of progress is m o r e a p r o g r a m m e than a law of history. It will be achieved only if h u m a n be- ings b e c o m e aware of it and decide to m a k e it a reality. T h e representation of progress and con- fidence in their o w n perfectibility is what in- duces h u m a n beings to seek constant self- improvement. It is understandable, in this context, that Condorcet was so distrustful of d o g m a - tism, especially w h e n it took the form of the mos t extravagant scientism. If, then, progress is indefinite, w h o can claim to be the custodian of a definitive theory of the universe? Marat's would-be Découvertes sur le feu, l'électricité et la lumière (Discoveries about Fire, Electricity and Light) (1779) are as arbi- trary as M e s m e r ' s Le mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal (Memoi r o n the Discov- ery of Animal Magnet ism) is confusing. These two illustrations of lapses into d o g m a showed Condorcet that the principle alone of anti-clericalism did not provide a sufficiently sound basis for a genuinely public education system. O n e can be religious without having a clerical turn of mind; one can be clerical with- out being religious; above all, one can misdirect science and all that goes under the n a m e of science towards the most hare-brained illumi- nism. H o w to guard against such a temptation? The human mind and instruction A deeper analysis of Condorcet's thinking o n the difficult question of secularity is to be found in the Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, his last work, written in difficult circumstances while he was in hiding. Outlawed by the Convention for a brochure in which he had denounced Robespierre's m o n a r - chist leanings, Aux citoyens français sur le projet de nouvelle constitution (To the French Citizens o n the Draft for a N e w Constitution) (1793), he found refuge in the h o m e of a M a d a m e Vernet, where he wrote his Avis d'un proscrit à sa fille (Advice from an Outlaw to his Daughter), 'one of the finest books on morals that can be read',19 and the Sketch, which remains his mos t famous work. Recapitulating the history of the h u m a n m i n d through its scientific and political achieve- ments, he retraces its vicissitudes through progress and decadence, setbacks and triumphs, in nine chapters, before finally announcing the advent of what he calls the 'tenth epoch'. In this final chapter he considers the future progress of the h u m a n mind as it can be inferred from the present and on the basis of laws that can be seen to have regulated change in the past. This leads h i m to draw a distinction between two major ways of considering societies. T h e distinction he draws is not based directly o n either eco- nomics or politics but first and foremost o n the manner in which knowledge is seen to be dis- tributed a m o n g the individuals making up a given society and, o n the basis of that specific case, h o w science is seen to be imparted to h u m a n - kind in general. T h e opposite of'secular' {laïque) is not the religious adjective 'clerical', but the m o r e general term 'clerk', which in the e tymo- logical sense means one w h o belongs to the right lot or allotment (klerikos, clericus), to the chosen few, as distinct from the ordinary people, the uninitiated, w h o have to be guided because they are ignorant {laicos, laicus). There are thus, he asserts, two conceptual approaches to humankind, two philosophies of our relationship to knowledge and freedom. T h e first is a 'clerical' approach, which marked the history of ideas u p until Descartes and the birth of the idea of the m o d e r n republic and which differentiates between two social groups that are distinct from each other in their relationship to knowledge and power , are m u - tually exclusive and socially immobile: o n the one hand the 'clergy', the guides w h o k n o w and whose mission is therefore to provide moral lead- ership and guidance to the others o n the basis of the truth they alone possess; on the other the 'laymen', that is to say the mass of those w h o have not received the beneficent enlightenment of knowledge and have no option but to defer248 Bernard Jolibert to those w h o have received it. T h e former are the spiritual shepherds of humankind, while the latter must obey unquestioningly. Indeed, what questions could they ask, since by definition they are denied any means of knowing? In the dark ages, the tyranny of force was c o m - pounded by the tyranny of enlightenment, albeit feeble and faltering, yet concentrated solely in the hands of a few classes. Priests, jurisconsults, m e n w h o had the secret of trading transactions, and even doctors, trained in a small number of schools, were no less the masters of the universe than the armed warriors whose hereditary despotism was itself based on their superiority, before gunpow- der was invented, as being the only ones to be trained in the art of wielding weapons.20 This 'clerical' conception of h u m a n relation- ships to power and, especially, knowledge - a conception of which the attitude of the reli- gious clergy is but one historical manifestation - was countered by the second approach: Condorcet's idea, shared with Descartes and the tradition of the Enlightenment, that anyone at all w h o is prepared to m a k e the effort has the ability to comprehend the world sufficiently well to be able to guide himself (or herself) in his private and public life. W e must all take our fate into our o w n hands. O u r o w n critical rea- soning must be our only guide, and our o w n conscience our only spiritual adviser. It is for us to make our o w n decisions, since w e are equipped to do so. A s Alain Pons says: ' T w o absolute certainties underlie the "Sketch": die first is that h u m a n s are by nature indefinitely perfectible beings, and the second is that history shows that they have indeed perfected themselves over the centuries, which warrants m e belief that they will continue to do so in the future.'21 There is a third certainty worth emphasiz- ing. Condorcet believes that all h u m a n beings are endowed with sufficient 'reason' to progress on the path to knowledge and to guide them- selves in life. Litde does it matter whether it is what Descartes calls 'good sense' or what Rousseau calls 'conscience'. It is this faculty that constitutes h u m a n dignity and makes it possi- ble to think of h u m a n beings not as dependent, submissive 'subjects' of a monarchy but as in- dependent, responsible 'citizens' of a republic.22 But if h u m a n beings possess the ability to understand in order to be their o w n guide and be responsible for their o w n acts, the exercise of such an ability still has to be aroused and its substance nurtured. It is here that Condorcet's educational position is at its most forceful. In order to prevent anyone else from tak- ing decisions for m e about something that is best left to m y o w n judgement, the first thing to do is to form that judgement. This will be done through instruction. T h e priority function of the school, therefore, is to give everyone, with- out any exception whatsoever and not just to a chosen few as before, the basic essential knowl- edge that will m a k e it possible subsequentiy to dispense with a 'clergy' of any kind. It is not that everyone can become a N e w t o n or that everyone has exacdy the same knowledge at his or her disposal, which would be a caricature of equality, but everyone can and must have ac- cess to elementary knowledge that will develop the only legitimate kleros - his or her o w n criti- cal reasoning power. Society thus has another duty - to provide all individuals with the means of acquiring the knowl- edge of their intelligence and the time they are able to spend on educating themselves put within their reach. T h e probable result is that the scales will be weighted in favour of those w h o have more natural talent and those with private means, giv- ing them freedom to spend longer on their stud- ies; but if this kind of inequality does not subject any individual to another, and if it affords support for the weak without imposing a master on them, it is neither an evil nor an injustice; indeed, a love of equality that is afraid of swelling the ranks of the enlightened and adding to their knowledge would be a most sorry thing.23 For, as Catherine Kintzler rightly says, 'it is not the knowledge of the knowledgeable that op- presses the ignorant, it is the ignorance of the ignorant'.24 T h e pedagogical impact of this both h u - manistic and classical ideal is unequivocal. Condorcet impugns neither the Church, nor the faith, nor religious education; he merely assertsProfiles of educators'. Condorcet (1743-94) 249 that there is a c o m m o n core of instruction - radical in the sense that it is fundamental to the h u m a n person - that everyone m u s t be given, not only for political reasons of national unity but, above all, as a simple humanitarian duty. All m u s t receive instruction, all are destined to b e c o m e free, and there is n o freedom possible without instruction. Educational institutions as a liberating force W h a t are the essential institutional features of such instruction? Condorcet sets t h e m out and elaborates o n t h e m in a plan that is possibly the m o s t comprehensive and reasoned piece of writ- ing of its kind during the revolutionary period, at a time w h e n there w a s n o dearth of pro- nouncements o n various aspects of education and instruction. This w a s his Rapport et projet de décret sur l'organisation générale de l'instruction publique (Report and Draft Decree o n the G e n - eral Organization of Public Education) (1792).25 Drawing a distinction from the outset be- tween 'instruction', which consists in transmit- ting fundamental moral tools and sciences, and 'education', understood as the inculcation of social and religious beliefs, Condorcet confers full powers o n the republic to expand the former and if need be m a k e it compulsory. B u t whereas instruction m u s t b e c o m e public, education, for its part, m u s t remain private. Religious worship is not admissible in public instruction, it is true, but this clearly implies that the state m u s t allow individual beliefs absolute freedom in private. T h e secular ideal is actually a liberating force for the Church. 2 6 T h e militant anti-clericalism of his early days w a s b y n o w a thing of the past, and Condorcet w a s to take u p the cause of Protes- tants and Jews threatened with prosecution and also of Christians and atheists harassed as ' T h e Terror' d r e w nigh. In his report Condorcet coherently draws the logical consequences from his philosophical theory of the individual and the citizen. Since instruction is the price to be paid for freedom it m u s t be compulsory and free of charge so that it is accessible to all: to the poor as well as to the rich, to the less gifted as well as to the m o r e gifted, to w o m e n as well as to m e n . Instruction must be universal, in other words it mus t be extended to include all citizens. It mus t be shared out as evenly as possible, subject to necessarily limited expenditure, the geographical distribution of the population and the amoun t of time children can spend on it. At its various levels it must encompass the entire system of h u m a n knowledge and m a k e it possible for individuals at any age in life to store u p what they have learnt or acquire n e w knowledge.27 W h a t precise measures does the report propose? Let us s u m u p the m a i n points. Condorcet proposes five levels of public instruction: T h e first level, called 'elementary' because it wou ld be for the teaching of the 'elements' of all knowledge (reading, writing, arithmetic, morals, economics and natural science), w o u l d be compulsory for all for four years. T h e next would be the secondary school, of three years' duration, teaching g r a m m a r , his- tory and geography, one foreign language, the mechanical arts, law and mathematics. It w o u l d be 'intended for children w h o s e families can d o without their labour for a longer period of time'. T h e teaching at this and the first level wou ld be non-specialized. T h e n would c o m e institutes, which wou ld be responsible for 'substituting reasoning for eloquence and books for speechifying, and for bringing philosophy and the physical science methodology into the moral sciences'. T h e teach- ing at this level would be m o r e specialized. Pupils would choose their o w n course of study (at least two courses a year) from a m o n g four possible classes: mathematics and physics, moral and political sciences, science as applied to the arts, and literature and fine arts. T h e fourth level wou ld b e the lycée, the equivalent of our universities, with the s a m e250 Bernard Jolibert classes as the institutes and 'where all the sci- ences are taught in full. It is there that scholars-teachers receive their further training'. Education at this and the first three levels was to be entirely free of charge. T h e last level would consist of the N a - tional Society of Science and the Arts, a re- search institute responsible for supervising the formal education system as a whole and ap- pointing teachers. Its role would be one of sci- entific and pedagogical research.28 T h e basic idea underlying this report is that although knowledge does confer power such power cannot become absolute without expo- sure to risk. Although not everyone can k n o w everything, at least each person can be suffi- ciently educated not to be taken in by others. Condorcet's secular ideal comes d o w n to this: Education, however egalitarian, is bound to in- crease the superiority of those w h o by nature are better organized. But equality of rights will be preserved if this superiority does not entail any real dependence and if each individual is suffi- ciently educated to exercise, of her or his o w n accord and without having to submit blindly to another's judgement, the rights guaranteed to her or him by law. The superiority of a few, far from being a bad thing for those w h o have not been so well-favoured, will thus contribute to the good of everyone, and h u m a n skills and knowledge will become the c o m m o n heritage of society.29 It is for the state to transmit the knowledge that is vital to everyone; as for the rest, individual freedom is equally necessary to the scholar and to the ordinary citizen. It is that freedom that conditions the progress of science, understood, as w e have seen, as the 'ever-perfectible h u m a n mind'.30 O n e last word on the fate of this report, which foreshadowed Condorcet's o w n fate. His plan, regarded as unadventurous and over-liberal, fell into oblivion as soon as it had been submit- ted to the National Assembly on behalf of the Public Instruction Committee on 20 and 21 April 1792. A s for Condorcet, w h o received warning that the house of the devoted M a d a m e Vernet was about to be searched, he left his hiding-place and m a d e his way to Fontenay-aux-Roses, where his friend Suard declined to take him in as he had hoped. H e was arrested at an inn in Clamart and gave his identity as Pierre Simon, no doubt to avoid trouble for his relatives. O n the day after his imprisonment (28 March 1794) the prison warden found him dead. Suicide? E x - haustion? Murder? H e was subsequently iden- tified only by his silver watch and his copy of Horace, which never left his side. His final rest- ing-place is unknown. A n d yet tribute was paid to him by Marie- Joseph Chénier through the important decree of 18 December 1794: 'Primary studies consti- tute the first level of education: they will pro- vide instruction in the knowledge strictly nec- essary to all citizens. T h e persons responsible for teaching in such schools are called insti- tuteurs.'^ Thus the republic rendered homage to the 'last of the philosophers, without w h o m it would never have existed'.32 • Notes 1. See in this connection the review L'enseignement philosophique devoted to 'L'idée de République'. (Paris), Vol. 39, N o . 3, January-February 1989. 2 . E . a n d R . Badinter, Condorcet, un intellectuel en politique, Paris, Fayard, 1988. 3. These five memoirs were published by Edilig and edited by C . Coutel and C . Kintzler (1989). T h e first memoir, the most general and most philosophi- cal of diem, was published by Klincksieck (1989) in Paris. 4 . Published in L'instruction publique en France pendant la Révolution, pp . 105-51, Paris, Klincksieck, 1990. 5. Condorcet, Réflexions et notes sur l'éducation, pp . 106 et seq., Naples, Bibliopolis, 1983. 6. B . Chariot, La mystification pédagogique, Paris, Payot, 1980. 7. Condorcet, Réflexions et notes sur l'éducation, from Condorcet's papers kept in the Library of the Institut de France in Paris (MS-848-885) , Naples, Bibliopolis, 1983. 8. Condorcet, Œuvres, Vol. V , pp. 393-573, Paris, Arago.Profiles of educators'. Condorcet (1743-94) 251 9. Condorcet, 'Rapport et projet de décret sur l'organisation générale de l'instruction publique', L'instruction publique en France pendant la Révolution, pp. 105-51, Paris, Klincksieck. 10. J. C . Milner, De l'école, Paris, Seuil, 1984. 11. C . Kintzler, Condorcet, l'instruction publique et la naissance du citoyen, Paris, S F I E D , 1984. 12. Analyses et réflexions sur Condorcet, Paris, Ellipses, 1989. See also: C . Coutel, 'Laïcité de Condorcet', L'enseignement philosophique, July-August 1989. 13. Condorcet, 'Rapport et projet de décret . . .', op. cit., p . 119, note 1. 14. Condorcet, Premier mémoire sur l'instruction publique, Paris, Klincksieck, 1989. 15. E . and R . Badinter, op. cit. 16. Condorcet, Premier mémoire sur l'instruction publique, op. cit., p . 47. 17. 'Condorcet', in R . Darnton, La fin des Lumières, pp. 199 et seq., Paris, Perrin, 1984. 18. Condorcet, Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, transi. J. Barraclough, N e w York, Noonday, 1955. 19. 'Condorcet', Dictionnaire de pédagogie et d'instruction publique, p. 347, Paris, Hachette, 1911. 20. Condorcet, Premier mémoire sur l'instruction publique, op. cit., p . 38. 21. Introduction to Condorcet, Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, op. cit. 22. See also on this subject, A . Koyré, 'Condorcet', Etudes d'histoire de la pensée philosophique, pp. 103— 26, Paris, Gallimard, 1971. 23. Condorcet, Premier mémoire sur l'instruction publique, op. cit., p . 39. 24. C . Kintzler, 'Condorcet: Savoirs, liberté, lois', L'enseignement philosophique (Paris), Vol. 38, N o . 1, September-October 1987, special issue on the E n - lightenment. 25. L'instruction publique en France pendant la Révolution, op. cit. 26. E . Borne points out that this ideal stems partly from the actual Gospel: render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto G o d the things that are God ' s . L'enseignement philosophique (Paris), Vol. 39, N o . 3, January-February 1989, pp. 61 et seq. 27. Condorcet, Rapport et projet de décret . . ., op. cit., p. 107. 28. See the interesting comparison between Talleyrand's and Condorcet's drafts, in Cahiers de Fontenay, N o . 5, December 1976. Catherine Fricheau's arti- cle was taken up by M . Crampe-Casnabet in Condorcet, lecteur des Lumières, p. 128, Paris, P U F , 1985. 29. Condorcet, Premier mémoire sur l'instruction publique, op. cit., p . 37. 30. Condorcet, Fragment sur l'Atlantide, p. 320, Paris, Flammarion, 1988. 31. L'instruction publique en France pendant la Révolution, op. cit., p . 10. 32. J. Michelet, Les femmes de la Révolution, Paris, 1854, quoted by E . and R . Badinter, op. cit., p . 621. Paris, Fayard, 1988.T o place your subscription prospects T o place your subscription to Prospects' Arabic, English, French or Spanish editions, send in the order form below. Post it, with a cheque or money order in your national currency, to your national distributor, w h o is listed at the end of this review. (For the subscription price in your currency, consult your national distributor.) 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Box 790, 111-27 P R A H A 1. For Slovakia only: Alfa Verlag, Hurbanovo nam. 6, 893- 31 BRATISLAVA. D E N M A R K : Munksgaard Book and Subscription Service, P . O . Box 2148, DK-1016 , K O B E N H A V N K . E G Y P T : U N E S C O Publications Centre, 1 Talaat Harb Street, C A I R O . E T H I O P I A : Ethiopian National Agency for U N E S C O , P . O . Box 2996, A D D I S A B A B A . F I N L A N D : Akateeminen Kirjakauppa, Keskuskatu 1, SF- 00101 H E L S I N K I 10; Suomalainen Kirjakauppa O Y , Koivuvaarankuja 2, SF-01640 V A N T A A 64. F R A N C E : University bookshops « « ¿ U N E S C O Bookshop, U N E S C O , 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 PARIS 07 SP, tel.: (1) 45 68 22 22. Mailorders: Promotion and Sales Division, U N E S C O Publishing, U N E S C O , 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 PARIS 07 SP, fax: (1) 42 73 30 07, telex: 204461 Paris. For periodicals: Subscription Service, U N E S C O , 1, rue Miollis, 75732 Paris Cedex 15, tel.: (1) 45 68 45 64/65/66, fax: (1) 42 73 30 07, telex: 204461 Paris. G E R M A N Y : UNO-Verlag, Poppelsdorfer Allee 55, D - W 5300 B O N N 1, tel.: (0228) 21 29 40, fax: (0228) 21 74 91; S. Karger G m b H , Abt. Buchhandlung, Lörracher Strasse 16A, D - W 7 8 0 0 F R E I B U R G , tel.: (0761) 45 20 70, fax: (0761) 452 07 14; L K G m b H , Abt. Internationaler Fachbuchversand, Prager Strasse 16, D - O 7010 LEIPZIG. For scientific maps only: Internationales Landkartenhaus GeoCenter, Schockenriedstr. 40a, Postfach 800830, D - W 7000 S T U T T G A R T 80, tel.: (0711) 788 93 40, (0711) 788 93 45, fax: (0711) 788 93 59, (0711) 788 93 54. For 'The UNESCO Courier': Deutscher UNESCO-Vertrieb, Basaltstrasse 57, D - W 5300 B O N N 3. G H A N A : Presbyterian Bookshop Depot Ltd, P .O. Box 195, A C C R A ; Ghana Book Suppliers Ltd, P . O . Box 7869, A C C R A ; The University Bookshop of Ghana, A C C R A ; The University Bookshop of Cape Coast; The University Bookshop of Legon, P . O . Box 1, L E G Ó N . G R E E C E : Eleftheroudakis, Nikkis Street 4, A T H E N S ; H . Kauffmann, 28 rue du Stade, A T H E N S ; Greek National Commission for U N E S C O , 3 Akadimias Street, A T H E N S ; John Mihalopoulos & Son S.A., 75 Hermou Street, P . O . Box 73, T H E S S A L O N I K I . G U I N E A - B I S S A U : Instituto Nacional do Livro e do Disco, Conselho Nacional da Cultura, Avenida Domingos Ramos n.° 10-A, B.P . 104, BISSAU. H O N G K O N G : Swindon Book Co. , 13-15 Lock Road, KoWLOON. H U N G A R Y : Kultura-Buchimport-Abt., P . O . B . 149, H - 1389 B U D A P E S T 62. I C E L A N D : Bokabud, Mais & Menningar, Laugavegi 18, 101 REYKJAVIK. INDIA: Orient Longman Ltd, Kamani Marg, Ballard Estate, B O M B A Y 400038; 17 Chittaranjan Avenue, C A L C U T T A 700013; 160 Anna Salai, Mount Road, M A D R A S 600002; 80/1 Mahatma Gandhi Road, B A N G A L O R E 560001; 5-9- 41/1 Bashir Bagh, H Y D E R A B A D 500001 (AP); 3-6-272 Himayatnagar, H Y D E R A B A D 500029 (AP); Oxford Book & Stationery Co. , 17 Park Street, C A L C U T T A 700016, andScmdia. House, N E W D E L H I 110001; U B S Publishers Distributors Ltd, 5 Ansari Road, P . O . Box 7015, N E W D E L H I 110002; T . R . Publications Private Ltd, P M G Complex, II Floor, 57 South Usman Road, T . Nagar, M A D R A S 600017. I N D O N E S I A : Bhratara Publishers and Booksellers, Jalan. Oto Iskandardinata 111/29, J A K A R T A 13340; Indira P.T. , Jl. Dr Sam Ratulangi 37, J A K A R T A P U S A T . I R A N , ISLAMIC R E P U B L I C O F : Iranian National Commission for U N E S C O , 1188 Enghalab Avenue, Rostam Give Building, P . O . Box 11365-4498, T E H R A N 13158; A S H K A N 3 C o . Ltd, P . O . Box 15875-1787, 123 Dr Mofateh Avenue, T E H R A N 15717. I R E L A N D : T D C Publishers, 28 Hardwicke Street, D U B L I N 1; Educational Company of Ireland Ltd, P . O . Box 43A, Walkinstown, D U B L I N 12. ISRAEL: Steimatzky Ltd, 11 Hakishon Street, P . O . Box 1444, B N E I B R A K 51114. ITALY: L I C O S A (Librería Commissionaria Sansoni S.p.A.), via Benedetto Fortini, 120/10 (ang. via Chiantigiana), 50125 F I R E N Z E , tel.: 64 54 15/16, fax: 64 12 57; via Bartolini 29, 20155 M I L A N O ; F A O Bookshop, via delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 R O M A , tel.: 57 97 46 08, fax: 578 26 10; ILO Bookshop, Corso Unità dTtalia 125, 10127 T O R I N O , tel.: (011) 69 361, fax: (011) 63 88 42.J A M A I C A : University of the West Indies Bookshop, M o n a , KINGSTON 7. J A P A N : Eastern Book Service Inc., 37-3 Hongo 3-chome, Bunkyo-ku, T O K Y O 113, tel.: (03) 3818-0861, fax: (03) 3818-0864. J O R D A N : Jordan Distribution Agency, P . O . B . 375, AMMAN. K E N Y A : Africa Book Services Ltd, Quran House, Mfangano Street, P . O . Box 45245, N A I R O B I ; Inter-Africa Book Distributors Ltd, Kencom House, 1st Floor, Moi Avenue, P . O . Box 73580, N A I R O B I . K U W A I T : The Kuwait Bookshops C o . Ltd, Sour Street, 13030 Safat, K U W A I T . L E S O T H O : Mazenod Book Centre, P . O . Box 39, M A Z E N O D 160. LIBERIA: National Bookstore, Mechlin and Carey Streets, P . O . Box 590, M O N R O V I A ; Cole & Yancy Bookshops Ltd, P . O . Box 286, M O N R O V I A . M A L A W I : Malawi Book Service, Head Office, P . O . Box 30044, Chichiri, B L A N T V R E 3. M A L A Y S I A : University of Malaya Co-operative Bookshop, P . O . Box 1127, 59700 K U A L A L U M P U R . M A L D I V E S : Asrafee Bookshop, 1/49 Orchid Magu, M A L Í . M A L T A : L. Sapienza & Sons Ltd, 26 Republic Street, V A L L E T T A . M A U R I T I U S : Nalanda Co. Lrd, 30 Bourbon Streer, P O R T - L O U I S . M E X I C O : Librería 'El Correo de la U N E S C O ' S.A., Guanajuato n.° 72, Col. Roma, C .P . 06700, Deleg. Cuauhtemoc, M E X I C O D . F . , tel.: 574 75 79, fax: (525) 264 09 19; Librería Secur, Local 2, Zona C I C O M , Apartado postal 422, 86000 V I L L A H E R M O S A , Tabasco. M O Z A M B I Q U E : Instituto National do Livro e do Disco (INLD), Avenida 24 de Julho, n.° 1927, r/c, en." 1921, 1." andar, M A P U T O . M Y A N M A R : Trade Corporation N o . (9), 550-552 Merchant Street, R A N G O O N . N E P A L : Sajha Prakashan, Pulchowk, K A T H M A N D U . N E T H E R L A N D S : Roodvelt Import b.v., Brouwersgracht 288, 1013 H G A M S T E R D A M , tel.: (020) 22 80 35, fax: (020) 25 54 93; S D U Uitgeverij Plantijnstraat, ChristofTel Plantijnstraat 2, P . O . Box 20014, 2500 E A D E N H A A G , tel.: (070) 378 96 68, fax: (070) 347 57 68, (070) 347 63 51. For periodicals: Faxon-Europe, Postbus 197, 1000 A D A M S T E R D A M . N E T H E R L A N D S ANTILLES: Van Dorp-Eddine N . V . , P .O . Box 3001, W I L L E M S T A D , Curaçao. N E W Z E A L A N D : G P Legislation Services, 10 Mulgrove Street, P .O . Box 12418, Thorndon, W E L L I N G T O N . Retail bookshops: 25 Rutland Street {mail orders: 85 Beach Road, Private Bag, C . P . O . ) , A U C K L A N D ; Ward Street (mail orders:V.O. Box 857), H A M I L T O N ; 159 Hereford Street (mail orders: Private Bag), C H R I S T C H U R C H ; Princes Street (mailorders: P . O . Box 1104), D U N E D I N . N I G E R I A : Obafemi Awolowo University, ILE IFE; The University Bookshop of Ibadan, P . O . Box 286, I B A D A N ; The University Bookshop of Nsukka; The University Bookshop of Lagos; The A h m a d u Bello University Bookshop of Zaria. N O R W A Y : Akademika A / S , Universitetsbokhandel, P . O . Box 84, Blindem 0314, O S L O 3; Narvesen Info Center, P . O . Box 6125, Etterstad, N-0602 O S L O 6. P A K I S T A N : Mirza Book Agency, 65 Shahrah Quaid i-Azam, P . O . Box 729, L A H O R E 5400; U N E S C O Publications Centre, Regional Office for Book Development in Asia and the Pacific, P . O . Box 2034A, I S L A M A B A D . Sub-agent: Tayyab M . S . Commercial Services, P . O . Box 16006, A - 2/3 Usman Ghani Road, Manzoor Colony, K A R A C H I 75460. PHILIPPINES: International Book Center (Philippines), Suite 1703, Cityland 10, Condominium Tower 1, Ayala Ave., corner H . V . Delà Costa Ext., Makati, M E T R O M A N I L A . P O L A N D : ORPAN-Import, Pake Kultury, 00-901 W A R S Z A W A ; Ars Polona-Ruch, Krakowskie Przedmiescie 7, 00-068 W A R S Z A W A . REPUBLIC O F K O R E A : Korean National Commission for U N E S C O , P .O. Box Central 64, SEOUL. RUSSIAN FEDERATION: Mezhdunarodnaja Kniga, Ul. Dimitrova 39, M O S K V A 113095. SAINT V I N C E N T A N D T H E G R E N A D I N E S : Young Workers' Creative Organization, Blue Caribbean Building, 2nd Floor, R o o m 12, K I N G S T O W N . S A U D I A R A B I A : Dar Al-Watan for Publishing and Information, Olaya Main Street, Ibrahim Bin Sulaym Building, P . O . Box 3310, R I Y A D H . S E Y C H E L L E S : National Bookshop, P . O . Box 48, M A H É . S I N G A P O R E : Chopmen Publishers, 865 Mountbatten Road, N o . 05-28/29, Katong Shopping Centre, S I N G A P O R E 1543. For periodicals: Righteous Enterprises, P . O . Box 562, Kallang Basin Post Office, S I N G A P O R E 9133. S L O V E N I A : Cancarjeva Zalozba, Kopitarjeva 2, P . O . Box 201-IV, 61001 L J U B L J A N A . S O M A L I A : Modern Book Shop and General, P . O . Box 951, MOGADISCIO. S O U T H AFRICA: Van Schaik Bookstore (Pty) Ltd, P .O . Box 2355, BELLVTLLE 7530. SRI L A N K A : Lake House Bookshop, 100 Sir Chittampalam Gardiner Mawata, P .O. Box 244, C O L O M B O 2. S U R I N A M E : Suriname National Commission for U N E S C O , P .O. Box 3017, PARAMARIBO. S W E D E N : A / B C . E. Fritzes Kungl. Hovbokhandel, Regeringsgatan 12, Box 16356, S-103 27 S T O C K H O L M 16. For periodicals: Wennergren-Williams A B , Nordenflychtsvägen 70, S-104 25 S T O C K H O L M ; Tidskriftscentralen, Subscription Services, Box 6086, S- 102 32 S T O C K H O L M . S W I T Z E R L A N D : Europa Verlag, Rämistrasse 5, CH-8024 Z Ü R I C H , tel.: 261 16 29; A D E C O , Case postale 465, CH-1211 G E N È V E 19, tel.: 943 26 73, fax: 943 36 05; United Nations Bookshop (counter service only), Palais des Nations, C H - 1 2 1 1 G E N È V E 10, tel.: 740 09 21, fax: 740 09 31. Forperiodicals.-Naville S.A., 7, rue Lévrier, CH-1201 G E N È V E . T H A I L A N D : Suksapan Panit, Mansion 9, Rajdamnern Avenue, B A N G K O K ; Nibondh & Co. Ltd, 40—42 Charoen Krung Road, Siyaeg Phaya Sri, P .O . Box 402, B A N G K O K ; Suksit Siam Company, 113-115 FuangNakhon Road, opp. Wat Rajbopith, B A N G K O K 10200; Principal Regional Office in Asia and the Pacific (PROAP) , Prakanong Post Office, Box 967, B A N G K O K 10110. T R I N I D A D A N D T O B A G O : Trinidad and Tobago National Commission for U N E S C O , 8 Elizabeth Street, St Clair, P O R T O F SPAIN. T U R K E Y : Haset Kitapevi A . S . , Istiklâl Caddesi N o . 469, Posta Kutusu 219, Beyoglu, ISTANBUL. U G A N D A : Uganda Bookshop, P . O . Box 7145, K A M P A L A .UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Maktabat al-Maktaba, P.O. Box 15408, Al-Ain, A B U DHABI. UNITED KINGDOM: H M S O Publications Centre, P.O. Box 276, L O N D O N SW8 5DT, fax: 071-873 2000; telephone orders only: 071-873 9090; general inquiries: 071-873 0011 (queuing system in operation). HMSO bookshops:^ High Holborn, L O N D O N W C 1 V 6 H B , tel.: 071-873 0011 (counter service only); 71 Lothian Road, E D I N B U R G H E H 3 9 A Z , tel.: 031-228 4181; 16 Arthur Street, B E L F A S T B T 1 4 G D , tel.: 023-223 8451; 9-21 Princess Street, Albert Square, M A N C H E S T E R M 6 0 8AS, tel.: 061-834 7201; 258 Broad Street, B I R M I N G H A M Bl 2 H E , tel.: 021-643 3740; Southey House, W i n e Street, B R I S T O L BS1 2 B Q , tel.: 027-226 4306. For scientific maps: McCarta Ltd, 15 Highbury Place, L O N D O N N 5 1 Q P ; GeoPubs (Geoscience Publications Services), 14 Orleston M e w s , Highbury, L O N D O N N 7 8LL, tel.: 071- 607 90 57, fax: 071-607 50 37, andA<) Halfway Avenue, LUTON LU4 8RA. UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA: Dar es Salaam Bookshop, P.O. Box 9030, D A R ES SALAAM. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: UNIPUB, 4611-F Assembly Drive, L A N H A M , M D 20706-4391, tel. toll- free: 1-800-274-4888, fax: (301) 459-0056; United Nations Bookshop, N E W Y O R K , N Y 10017, tel.: (212) 963-7680, fax: (212) 963-4970. V E N E Z U E L A : Oficina de la U N E S C O en Caracas, 7. a avenida entre 7. a y 8.a transversales de Altamira, C A R A C A S , tel.: (2) 261 13 51, fax: (2) 262 04 28 (postal address: Apartado 68394, Altamira, C A R A C A S 1062-A); Librería del Este, A v . Francisco de Miranda 52, Edificio Galipán, Apartado 60337, C A R A C A S 1060-A; Editorial Ateneo de Caracas, Apartado 662, C A R A C A S 10010. Y U G O S L A V I A : Nolit, Terazije 13ATII, 11000 B E O G R A D . Z A M B I A : National Educational Distribution C o . of Zambia Ltd, P . O . Box 2664, L U S A K A . Z I M B A B W E : Textbook Sales (Pvt) Ltd, 67 Union Avenue, H A R A R E ; Grassroots Books (Pvt) Ltd, Box A 2 6 7 , HARARE. A complete list of all the national distributors can be obtained on request from: Promotion and Sales Division, U N E S C O Publishing, U N E S C O , 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 P A R I S 07 SP, France, fax: (1) 42 73 30 07, telex: 204461 Paris. U N E S C O B O O K C O U P O N S can be used to purchase all books and periodicals of an educational, scientific or cultural character. For full information, please write to: U N E S C O Coupon Office, U N E S C O , 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 P A R I S 07 SP (France).All correspondence should be addressed to the Editor prospects U N E S C O , 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 S P (France) Authors are responsible for the choice and the presentation of the facts contained in signed articles and for the opinions expressed therein, which are not necessarily those of U N E S C O and do not commit the Organization. T h e designations employed and the presentation of material in Prospects do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of U N E S C O concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. © UNESCO 1992 Published texts may be freely reproduced and translated (except where reproduction or translation rights are reserved, indicated by ©), provided that mention is made of the author and source. U N E S C O publications (books, periodicals and documents), including out-of-print titles, are available on microfiche. Please address your inquiries to: Micrographic Service, Section of Archives and Micrography ( D I T / I R / A M ) , U N E S C O , 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 S P (France). Published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 S P (France) Typeset by Editions du Mouflon, Le Kremlin-Bicêtre (France) Printed by Imprimerie des Presses Universitaires de France, V e n d ô m e .