Link Education And Practice

While the concept of non-formal education is becoming more and more spread, it is equally becoming more and more difficult to establish a clear-cut definition of what it actually represents. How will the next generations find an answer to its today’s questions and how much is non-formal education really accepted in the academic environment and on the labour market?

Whether you are a supporter of the benefits non-formal education may bring on the long term, or whether you think that it is just as passing as a fashion trend, LEAP would like to invite you to reading this short summary of the following debate.

Debate theme: Non-Formal Education: long-term investment or just a trend?

Event organized under the umbrella of the The National Week of Active Participation of Youth
Place: Hobby Café
Special Guests: Marian Staş, CODECS
Diana Rosetka, Achieve Global
Traian Brumă, CROS

Participants: Representatives of the following student associations:

Participants that have sent motivational letter to
Debate moderator: Radu Răcăreanu, LEAP

We are grateful for the presence of our volunteer team and Simona Iftimescu, LEAP President.

The main issues that have been approached within the debate were personal development and professional orientation. Diana Rosetka identified the problem of miscommunication with the formal education environment, which is considered to own a rather old view on how youth should be taught and supported. Consequently, the discussion evolved towards depictions of the formal system in comparison to the non-formal one. From the smallest stage of education, to the institutional and law-making perspectives, education is in an ongoing process of transformation.

Marian Staş agreed to this latter observation and furthermore, he stated the principles of non-formal education today, as he sees them. Therefore, he considers non-formal education to be complementary to the formal one, while it succeeds in transmitting those soft-skills which are to be provided (i.e. volunteering). Our generation is described as being “ahead of its times”, throughout shaping and practicing non-formal education in our own process of both personal and professional development.

The employability of an individual who starts realising the importance offered by the experience of non-formal education is formed within the duality sell-deliver, as Marian Staş comments: “As long as the resources are not only of financial nature, but represented by persons as well, the ability of balancing out the sell/deliver ratio becomes even more important.” .

Traian Brumă described the change through which the non-formal education is currently going as major transformations in the entire educational system are taking place. He started his argument from stating the concept of school as “a 12 year old sentence to prison” and thus underlining the problems most young people face in our nowadays educational systems. The question by which Traian Bruma challenged the participants was “Why is this way of thinking so spread and bleak among the young generations?”

He didn’t hesitate to bring out in the discussion thus risen the institutional issue of the matter, best described by yet another quote: “The educational system cannot be reformed; it has to be replace, and each country bears its own war of change” Alvin Tofler.

The debate lasted approximately two hours, during which the participants could ask questions and were able to develop an intense discussion in several moments of the evening. It was rather interesting to observe how the definition of non-formal education was perceived in different colours from generation to generation, from the questions asked by the high school pupils to those asked by the representatives of the student associations.

The debate moderator, Radu Răcăreanu, ended the debate with the following conclusions reached during the debate.

• There are multiple definitions for what non-formal education really is, but perhaps we don’t even need a standard one.
The importance of the concept lies in identifying its clear traits, such as the support offered to those who are learning to participate to the educational process and to assume responsibility for it.
• The quality of education is thus linked to the degree of responsibility and mutual implication.
We can see that this characteristic of quality is very similar to the approach of formal education: whereas the learning process is being strongly influenced by the teachers, the motivation, the involvement and the effort of those who are taught matters just as much.
• The non-formal education may not be the best method for everyone
It is important to emphasize the possibility to choose and to blend the non-formal education with the formal one, according to each one of us. Non-formal education allows this flexibility in completing the formal educational process.

Key-themes of the debate:
• opportunity associates (experimental learning)
• starting to combine the non-formal education with formal education earlier
• the problem of employment early in the college years correlated with the lack of non formal education
• Having ½ of the Beatles in your classroom and not knowing it
• Untargeted non-formal education
• Adverse reactions to the non-formal education
• Learning muscle and blended learning

Quoted authors:
• ROBINSON, Ken The Element http://www.theelementbook.com/
• TOFLER, Alvin

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