ASSIGNMENT No. 2
Q.1 what are main steps in instructional strategies which are used in adult education?
The classroom is a dynamic environment, bringing together students from different backgrounds with various abilities and personalities. Being an effective teacher therefore requires the implementation of creative and innovative teaching strategies in order to meet students’ individual needs.
Whether you’ve been teaching two months or twenty years, it can be difficult to know which teaching strategies will work best with your students. As a teacher there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution, so here is a range of effective teaching strategies you can use to inspire your classroom practice.
1. Visualization
Bring dull academic concepts to life with visual and practical learning experiences, helping your students to understand how their schooling applies in the real-world.
Examples include using the interactive whiteboard to display photos, audio clips and videos, as well as encouraging your students to get out of their seats with classroom experiments and local field trips.
2. Cooperative learning
Encourage students of mixed abilities to work together by promoting small group or whole class activities.
Through verbally expressing their ideas and responding to others your students will develop their self-confidence, as well as enhance their communication and critical thinking skills which are vital throughout life.
Solving mathematical puzzles, conducting scientific experiments and acting out short drama sketches are just a few examples of how cooperative learning can be incorporated into classroom lessons.
3. Inquiry-based instruction
Pose thought-provoking questions which inspire your students to think for themselves and become more independent learners.
Encouraging students to ask questions and investigate their own ideas helps improve their problem-solving skills as well as gain a deeper understanding of academic concepts. Both of which are important life skills.
Inquiries can be science or math-based such as ‘why does my shadow change size?’ or ‘is the sum of two odd numbers always an even number?’. However, they can also be subjective and encourage students to express their unique views, e.g. ‘do poems have to rhyme?’ or ‘should all students wear uniform?’.
4. Differentiation
Differentiate your teaching by allocating tasks based on students’ abilities, to ensure no one gets left behind.
Assigning classroom activities according to students’ unique learning needs means individuals with higher academic capabilities are stretched and those who are struggling get the appropriate support.
This can involve handing out worksheets that vary in complexity to different groups of students, or setting up a range of work stations around the classroom which contain an assortment of tasks for students to choose from.
Moreover, using an educational tool such as Quizalize can save you hours of time because it automatically groups your students for you, so you can easily identify individual and whole class learning gaps.
5. Technology in the classroom
Incorporating technology into your teaching is a great way to actively engage your students, especially as digital media surrounds young people in the 21st century.
Interactive whiteboards or mobile devices can be used to display images and videos, which helps students visualize new academic concepts. Learning can become more interactive when technology is used as students can physically engage during lessons as well as instantly research their ideas, which develops autonomy.
Mobile devices, such as iPads and/or tablets, can be used in the classroom for students to record results, take photos/videos or simply as a behaviour management technique. Plus, incorporating educational programmes such as Quizalize into your lesson plans is also a great way to make formative assessments fun and engaging.
6. Behaviour management
Implementing an effective behaviour management strategy is crucial to gain your students respect and ensure students have an equal chance of reaching their full potential.
Noisy, disruptive classrooms do no encourage a productive learning environment, therefore developing an atmosphere of mutual respect through a combination of discipline and reward can be beneficial for both you and your students.
Examples include fun and interactive reward charts for younger students, where individuals move up or down based on behaviour with the top student receiving a prize at the end of the week. ‘Golden time’ can also work for students of all ages, with a choice of various activities such as games or no homework in reward for their hard work.
7. Professional development
Engaging in regular professional development programmes is a great way to enhance teaching and learning in your classroom.
With educational policies constantly changing it is extremely useful to attend events where you can gain inspiration from other teachers and academics. It’s also a great excuse to get out of the classroom and work alongside other teachers just like you!
Sessions can include learning about new educational technologies, online safety training, advice on how to use your teaching assistant(s) and much more.
Being an effective teacher is a challenge because every student is unique, however, by using a combination of teaching strategies you can address students’ varying learning styles and academic capabilities as well as make your classroom a dynamic and motivational environment for students.
Q.2 Write a note on the importance of adult education in E-9 counties
Besides teaching adults basic job skills or proficiency education such as reading, writing and English, adult teachers also help learners who left school at an early age in order to support their family, get a job-or for other reasons-complete their high school equivalency diploma program. Adult teachers are important advocates for instilling confidence and skills in those who haven’t had the chance to complete their basic learning and preparation for a fast-paced job field. These teachers also help students who may already work in a trade or vocational field-such as mechanics, construction, electrical or cosmetology-advance their learning, earn professional certification so they may move into management or senior roles-or start a business of their own.
It’s important to remember that students enrolled in adult education courses are voluntarily participating and consequently they are often highly motivated to complete their coursework and program successfully so you will need to be able to help propel them to their ultimate goal as well as teach required curriculum.
Once you start looking, you will find that opportunities to teach adult education courses are nearly everywhere. Universities and community colleges have full quarterly schedules of self-enrichment and continuing education classes. Public schools often have dance or music classes for adults at night or on the weekends. Local grocery and specialty stores offer cooking classes, and technology companies offer computer classes at night. Hospitals and private healthcare practitioners offer workshops on health and wellness, parenting, grieving and nutrition; and health clubs offer exercise and yoga classes. Senior and community centers are often excellent places to teach specialty courses for patrons of all ages, including various art and performing skills, outdoor recreation and academic endeavors.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics cites the following places as the largest employers of adult education teachers:
- Secondary schools
- Community and junior colleges, both local and private
- Other schools and institutions
- Healthcare and social services facilities
- Colleges, universities and professional trade/vocational schools
- Prisons and internment facilities
If you are part of the technology industry, professional certification is available through established tech software companies such as Microsoft certifications and Oracle and others. Where and what you teach will determine the education level you’ll need as requirements for adult education teachers vary as much as the industry’s scope. If you are a cook, specific culinary school training qualifies you to teach continuing education classes in cooking at community colleges; however, if you are a house builder with just a high school education or vocational training, you may still be qualified to teach a class on house framing at your local home improvement store or community center, though you will not be able to teach in a community college setting
More commonly, just like teachers in other types of classrooms, adult education teachers should have a bachelor’s degree, especially if you plan on teaching adult literacy or high school equivalency diploma classes. Most states require these types of teachers to hold a bachelor’s degree while some prefer a master’s degree or some post-graduate work in adult education or ESL.
If you plan on working for the government, chances are you’ll need your teaching certificate as well, and some other states have certificates specifically for adult education. You’ll need to check with your state’s Department of Education or the U.S. Department of Education for exact requirements.
You may need to complete specific degree programs and classes in order to teach adult basic education, high school equivalency or English as a Second Language.
Not only will you give instruction in your chosen subject to your students, you’ll also have many behind the scenes duties to perform. Some of the tasks that don’t strictly involve teaching may include the following:
- Create lesson plans to help adult learners meet their goals
- Adjust your curriculum and style to adapt to a classroom full of diversified strengths and weaknesses
- Work on skills that will help students find jobs, such as resume building and interview techniques
- Assess students for possible learning disabilities
- Monitor and record student progress
- Be adaptable to several types of curriculum for adult learners who may be trying to complete their high school diploma
- Teach time management and study skills besides the required coursework
- Help students find the resources to network in the job community
Being an adult education teacher takes a special sort of person. Here are some of the skills and qualities that make for the best adult educators:
- Communication skillsare essential to help adult learners achieve their goals. You must be able to explain their progress and where they may need to focus in terms they can understand.
- Cultural sensitivityis also essential, especially if you plan on teaching English as a Second Language. In any event, you may deal with a variety of students from different cultural, economic and educational backgrounds.
- Resourcefulnessis a must as you’ll need to be able to respond to all types of situations. What may work well for one student may not for another. You’ll need to dig deep to find the right middle ground that is appropriate for everyone in your classroom.
- Patience is the most crucial trait, as you’ll deal with some students who grasp the material quickly while others need more hand-holding and on-on-one help.
Because your students have special circumstances and may be focusing on a particular subject, you’ll need to be adept in not only the curriculum but dealing with adult learners in general. Here are some of the types of classes you’ll take in a typical master’s degree program that can help you address their particular needs:
- The Teaching of Adults
- Perspectives on Adult Learning
- Family Literacy
- Adult Literacy
- Teaching Math to Adults
- Language, Literacy, Identity and Culture
- Social Issues in Adult Education
- Distance Learning for Adults
- Teaching Reading to Adults
- Program Planning in Adult Education
- Emerging Web technologies and Learning
Q.3 how literacy and adult education can be imparted through television? How tele-school program can be extended in Pakistan for promotion of adult education activities?
Most basically defined, adult education is the intentional, systematic process of teaching and learning by which persons who occupy adult roles acquire new values, attitudes, knowledge, skills, and disciplines. As a concept, “adult education” demarcates a subfield of education that is distinct from the latter’s historical and still general identification with the formal schooling of youth in primary and secondary schools, colleges, and universities. Once lacking the central social significance long recognized for this formal schooling, adult education expanded rapidly after 1950. Changing social, economic, and demographic forces occasioned new educational forms and organizations and new levels of adult participation in existing forms. Adult education is now so widespread and important a feature of societies worldwide that it increasingly occupies the attention of social scientists, policy makers, businesses, and the public. Adult education now permeates modern societies. It does not do so, however, with the kind of public funding, legislative sanction, organizational cohesion, and standardization of practice that have made universal schooling a highly visible and central institution. Precise substantive definition and classification of adult education is frustrated by the great and changing variety that characterizes the field (Courtney 1989). The complex circumstances of adult life and development lead to the informal, nonformal, and formal pursuit of education for many different purposes. In response to an intricate array of social, economic, and political conditions, formal and nonformal organizations—from multi-state international agencies to corporations to local recreational clubs—support and develop adult education programs. In consequence, an eclectic set of professions, occupations, disciplines, and practices forms the division of adult education labor. Adults seek a wide variety of educational goals. These include basic literacy and work readiness skills; knowledge and technical competencies required for entering and improving performance of occupational, avocational, and recreational roles; credentials for status attainment; information for the improvement of family life, health, and psychological well-being; knowledge, values, and disciplines for spiritual growth and intellectual enrichment; and tools for addressing community problems and advancing political and social-action agendas. An equally diverse set of organizations and groups provides such education. Publishers and producers of print and electronic educational media serve a growing market for informal adult education with products that range from golf tutorials to taped lectures on the history of philosophy. A large and rapidly expanding nonformal sector (i.e., educational organizations that are not a part of the formal school and college system), now mobilizes very considerable resources to educate adults. Businesses, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations train employees to enhance productivity, organizational effectiveness, and client satisfaction, to spur innovation in products and services, and as an employment benefit to attract workers. Proprietary schools and training companies seek profits by providing similar training to both businesses and individuals. National, regional, and local governments fund adult education programs to reduce welfare dependency and promote economic development. Political parties and special-interest groups deliver adult education designed to foster either dominant or insurgent civic values, knowledge, and action. Professional associations sponsor and certify continuing education to maintain and enhance member competence, ensure the value of their credentials, and maintain market advantages for their members.
Other major providers of nonformal education programs that expressly target adults include unions; churches; libraries, and museums; the armed forces; prison systems; charitable, fraternal, service, and cultural associations; and the health care industry. The formal educational system itself no longer serves only the young. Community school adjuncts to primary and secondary schools teach basic literacy, prepare adults for high school equivalency exams, and offer classes in subjects ranging from the latest computer software to traditional arts and crafts. Colleges and universities now educate almost as many adults as youth; in the United States almost half of all college students are adults above twenty-five years of age. With increasing frequency, these students study in divisions of colleges and universities specifically dedicated to adults.
The functional and organizational diversity of adult education is mirrored in its professions and occupations. Those working in the field include the administrators, researchers, and professors in university graduate programs that train adult educators and maintain adult education as an academic discipline. Teachers and student-service personnel in university, governmental, and proprietary organizations deliver graduate, undergraduate, and continuing education to adults. Managers, trainers, and associated marketing and support personnel staff the employee, technical, and professional training industry. Adult literacy and basic education practitioners form a specialization of their own. Professional activists, organizers, and volunteers consciously include adult education in the portfolio of skills that they apply to pursuits ranging across the full spectrum of ideologies and interests. Policy analysts, planners, researchers, and administrators staff the adult education divisions of international organizations, national and regional governments, and independent foundations and development agencies.
While those who occupy these professional statuses and roles are clearly doing adult education, not all identify themselves as adult educators or, even when sharing this identity, see themselves as engaged in similar practice. The field is conceptually, theoretically, and pedagogically heterogeneous both within and among its many sectors. Role identity and performance differences based in organizational setting and population served are compounded by differences in fundamental aims and methods. One of the sharpest divides is between many in the “training and development” industry and those in academia and elsewhere who identify with “adult education” as a discipline, as a profession and, sometimes, as a social movement.
Training and development specialists tend to define their task as cultivating human resources and capital that can be used productively for the purposes of businesses, armed forces, government agencies, and other formal organizations. For training line employees, and all employees in technical areas, they tend to emphasize teaching and learning methodologies that maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of individual acquisition of skill sets that can be easily and usefully applied to well-established performance objectives. For executive and managerial development, they tend to emphasize leadership, team, problem-solving, strategy, and change management competencies in the context of developing general organizational learning, effectiveness, and continuous quality improvement.
Those who identify themselves as adult educators, on the other hand, tend to emphasize theories and methods designed to “facilitate” individual transformation and development. Variants of the facilitation model advocated by the adult education profession include the following: one perspective focuses on the special characteristics of learning in adulthood, and on “andragogy” as a new type of specifically adult teaching and learning distinct from pedagogy, as critical to successful adult education (Knowles 1980); another emphasizes adult life circumstances and experiences as key variables (Knox 1986); a third sees facilitating new critical and alternative thinking as the key to successful adult transformation (Brookfield 1987); and yet another sees adult education as active, consciousness-transforming engagement with social conditions to produce individual liberation and progressive social change (Coben, Kincheloe, and Cohen 1998). Common to all of the facilitation approaches is the ideal of adult education as a democratic, participatory process wherein adult educators facilitate active learning and critical reflection for which adult learners themselves assume a large measure of responsibility and direction.
Theoretical and ideological differences among adult education practitioners draw sharper lines than does their actual practice. Active learning techniques through which concepts, information, and skills are acquired in the course of real or simulated practical problem solving, strongly advocated by professional adult educators, have been embraced by the corporate training and development industry. Educational technology tools such as interactive, computer-based learning modules and Web-based tutorials, tools most robustly developed by the training industry, enable precisely the kind of independent, self-directed learning celebrated by the adult education profession. In most of its settings and branches, adult educators of all types deploy the entire array of pedagogies from rote memorization to classic lecture-recitation to the creation of self-sustaining “learning communities.” Few central methodological tendencies demarcate distinct factions within the field, or the field itself from other types of education. Visible variants, such as the training and facilitation models, serve only partially to distinguish different segments of the field; and even these differences stem more from the particular histories, conditions, aims, and clients of those segments than from distinct disciplines, theories, or methods. Other methodological tendencies, such as widespread reliance on adult experience and self-direction as foundational for instructional design and delivery, reflect differences between adult and childhood learning more than a distinctly adult pedagogy (Merriam and Cafferella 1991).
Adult learning has several well-established characteristics that distinguish it from learning earlier in the life cycle: greater importance of clear practical relevance for learning, even of higher-order reasoning skills; the relatively rich stock of experience and knowledge to which adults relate new learning; “learner” or “student” as a role secondary to and embedded in adult familial, occupational and social roles; and the application of adult levels of responsibility and self-direction to the learning process. Indeed, at the level of practice, the learning characteristics of those being educated (i.e., adults) serve to distinguish adult education as a distinct field much more clearly than do distinctively adult educators, organizations, or methods.
DEVELOPMENT OF ADULT EDUCATION
The remarkable variety of contemporary adult education directly reflects complexity in the social environment and the necessities and rewards associated with mastering that complexity. Like schooling, adult education emerged and developed in response to the social, economic, political, cultural, and demographic forces that produced increasing structural and functional differentiation as one of the few clear trends in human social evolution. As social roles and practices proliferated, conveying the skills, knowledge, and disciplines that they embodied required the intentional and organized teaching and learning that is education. As productivity, wealth, power, and status became more dependent on the mastery and application of knowledge, education to acquire it increasingly occupied the interest and resources of individuals and groups.
The long and discontinuous trajectory of increasing social complexity within and among human societies yielded very little formal and nonformal adult education before the advent of industrialism. Prior to the Neolithic revolution, education of any type was rare; informal socialization without conscious, systematic intent to train or study sufficed for most cultural transmission and role acquisition. Agrarian, state-organized societies, especially the early and late classical civilizations of the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, developed the first formal and nonformal schooling in response to the increasing complexity of knowledge, administration, social control, and production. This schooling was delivered by professional tutors and early versions of primary and secondary schools to educate the children of political, military, and religious aristocracies for their rulership roles; in schools and colleges to train bureaucratic and religious functionaries, professionals in law and medicine, and the elite in the liberal arts; and by nonformal systems of apprenticeship, such as the medieval guilds, for specialized crafts and trades. Although there are many examples of adults seeking informal education from adepts in the arts, religion, and natural philosophy, the educational systems of agrarian societies were devoted mostly to preparation for adult roles.
The widespread and diverse adult education of the present era emerged in response to the development of modern, urban, scientifically and technologically complex societies. Education became an important and dynamic institutional sector, one that gradually extended its territory from basic schooling for the literacy, numeracy, and general knowledge necessary to market relationships, industrial production, and democratic politics to adult continuing education for advanced professional workers in the theoretical and applied sciences. With some exceptions, the pattern of extension was from earlier to later stages of the life cycle (finally yielding education for learning that is “lifelong”) from the upper to the lower reaches of class and status hierarchies (yielding “universal education”) and from informal education occurring in avocational and domestic contexts, to nonformal education conducted by voluntary organizations to increasingly institutionalized formal systems.
Prior to industrialization, informal and nonformal adult education was relatively widespread in Europe, especially in England and North America, and especially among the growing urban middle class of artisans and merchants. As this new middle class sought to acquire its share of the growing stock of culture, and as literacy spread and became intrinsic to social and economic participation, adults increasingly engaged in self-directed study (aided by a publishing explosion that included a growing number of “how-to” handbooks) participated in informal study groups, and established cultural institutes and lyceums that delivered public lectures and evening courses of study.
Systematic efforts to spread adult education to the working class and the general population emerged during the process of industrialization. Until the last decades of the nineteenth century, these were almost entirely voluntary efforts devoted to democratization, social amelioration, and social movement goals. In both Britain and the United States, mechanics’ institutes, some with libraries, museums, and laboratories, delivered education in applied science, taught mechanical skills, and conducted public lectures on contemporary issues. In Scandinavia, “folk high schools” performed similar functions. Religious groups conducted literacy campaigns among the new urban masses and established adult educational forums in organizations such as the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). Women’s suffrage groups, labor unions, abolitionists, socialists, and many others developed educational programs both to develop their members and as an organizing tool. After 1860 and until World War I, efforts to popularize education among adults continued in various ways: in an extensive network of lyceums, rural and urban Chautauquas and settlement homes; in educational efforts to aid and acculturate immigrants to the burgeoning industrial cities; and in post-slavery self-improvement efforts of African Americans. These middle-and working-class adult education activities received considerable support and extension from the spread of public libraries.
Q.4 critically examine community mobilization techniques in adult education.
Mobilization in community development denotes a process whereby people are prepared psychologically, mentally and attitudinally for change. It is a movement to galvanize people for action towards development. Mobilization is important to activate people in the right attitude towards programmes of development. This gears the community to effective utilization of human and material resources available.
Mobilization involves the pooling of available resources of a community for development purposes. It fosters the willingness of people to participate in community development. Once the people are mobilized, they involve themselves in planning and execution as well as monitoring and evaluation of programmes for the community. Mobilization should enlist the interest of the people in their own affairs. This is to achieve better health services, economic productivity, mass literacy, physical development etc.
Citizen participation involves the people taking part actively and freely in discussions and decisions affecting their welfare. It is a process in which the people identify existing resources in the community, plan and utilize the resources for the benefit of all members of the community.
Mobilization involves all groups in the community. All members and organizations are stakeholders in ensuring participation of the people in community development to address problems such as poverty, health, housing, and illiteracy.
Mobilization therefore creates awareness for the collective responsibility of the citizenry to tackle their problems. It brings about a change of attitude and behaviour through acquisition of new knowledge about specific problems, situation or tasks confronting a community. It stimulates acceptance of new values and innovation. It makes the people readily available to perform services in the production of goods and services for national development.
The agents for mobilization include the mass media (radio, television, print media and so on, religious organizations, schools, youth organizations, social clubs and others). In order to ensure adequate dissemination of information to the grassroots, the local language should be used. The message should be simple and clear, without ambiguity, should command people’s attention and should be problem-solving oriented. In addition, the appropriate channels of communication that can reach the people effectively should be identified and utilized.
One can observe that stories have been a vital strategy in education in most societies, especially in African communities. Story telling has been a great tool in transmitting communal values in Africa and elsewhere. Such stories are not just for entertainment but have moral lessons. Many of the stories are fables of the animal kingdom. If we examine these stories critically, they have a bearing on human actions and environment.
In this paper, two such stories that the author has used in many instances to mobilise communities to participate in community development programmes are presented. Moreover, these also teach students the importance of communication, self-help, citizen participation and cooperation in community development.
Once upon a time, the stream that provided animals with drinking water suddenly disappeared into a crack. The animals could not get water to drink after eating. All efforts to locate another good stream were in vain. The other stream that could have served the animal kingdom was so bitter and poisonous that no animal would go near it.
One day, King Lion called the animals to a meeting. The main objective was to find a solution to their prevailing need of water. He believed that the cooperative efforts and ideas of his subjects would solve the problem. Moreover, some animals were already grumbling about his poor leadership. The town crier, the parrot, went through nooks and crannies of the kingdom, announcing the important meeting. The communication network was very effective.
The identification of the need brought all animals together as a community. In attendance were all kinds of animals such as horned and non-horned of various types, birds, reptiles and insects. It was a well-attended meeting. The meeting was presided over by King Lion.
Animals came up with many suggestions to find a new source of drinking water; some even suggested finding the source of the crack from where the former water disappeared. Some suggested consulting spiritualists to change the poisonous water. Finally, it was agreed that they should dig a well near the former stream.
On the agreed day, all animals gathered and laboured to execute the community development project. It was well implemented and everyone participated actively in the self-help project. They all worked within their capability. It was, however, noted that one animal was missing. It was the tortoise. Everyone knew tortoise as a lazy and cunning animal. King Lion sent for him to join others but he refused, giving an excuse of a bad arm. Since he was known for his craftiness, no animal believed him. Hence, they decided to sanction him by disallowing him from drawing water from the well. After all, communities do have social sanctions through which order is maintained. They went further to post the dog to guard the well.
The animals drank water to their satisfaction and went home happily. The dog remained at his post, watching over the well. In the dead of the night, tortoise came to drink water. He had broken calabashes and other noisy objects tied together to cover himself. As he moved, these things made a loud frightening noise. He came down singing through a horn that changed his voice beyond recognition. The song went thus:
The dog did not wait for the warning to be repeated. He took to his heels and ran to King Lion’s palace to report the incident. The next day, King Lion summoned his chiefs and later all the animals. The dog reported what he had gone through. He said that a monster mightier than all animals had come to drink water and sung with a voice of thunder that he had to flee. The animals decided to post two guards that were stronger and bigger than the dog. Hence, an elephant and a tiger were posted.
In the dead of the night, tortoise repeated his visit to the well. He sang and danced as he did the previous day. The elephant was the first to run away, while frightened tiger only had a peep at the monster covered with many things before he too howled and took to his heels.
The incident was again reported to the animals. At the meeting, there were suggestions, and some of the animals argued that no monster could match the strength of all animals put together. At last, the animals agreed to the services of Sokoti, a powerful medicine man.
After Sokoti was briefed, he prepared an effigy, plastered with sticky glue. During the evening time, after all the animals had left the well, he placed the effigy beside the well. The effigy carried a huge club to destroy any intruder.
As usual, tortoise arrived and sang more terribly than before. He thought the animals must have fled but was surprised to see the effigy standing still with the club unmoved by his noise and song. Tortoise firstly warned it of the danger of remaining motionless. When the effigy ignored this warning, tortoise moved closer and slapped it with his right hand. The hand glued to it. He again warned it to release his right hand, otherwise he would slap it with his left hand. He did this and the hand also glued to it. Eventually, he got annoyed and kicked the effigy with both legs and they got stuck.
In the morning, all the animals came round to find tortoise glued to the body of the effigy. The tortoise was embarrassed and humiliated. The community punished him for non-participation and cheating on the community development project. Henceforth he joined others in Community development and activities.
Q.5 Write short note on the following:
- a) Andragogy and pedagogy
| Pedagogical | Andragogical |
| Learner is dependent on the teacher. Teacher is the one who evaluates progress and assumes full responsibility for what is taught and its efficacy. | Learner is depending on self. The method requires self-evaluation and direction and self takes responsibility for the process. |
| Learner comes to the table with little life experience. Child-like learning comes with a blank slate and the educator is one of the most influential figures, as peers likely have the same lack of experience. | Learner uses life experience as a foundation. Instructors build on existing knowledge and require an understanding of diverse backgrounds. Adults learn from the instructor, but also from one another. |
| Students advance once they have completed the necessary steps. Child learners are told what they need to do to master a topic in order to move onto the next one. | Learning is triggered by any number of life experiences and not necessarily led by a designated instructor. Learners don’t advance to another topic, but rather fill knowledge gaps as where needed. |
| Learning is prescribed by an instructor and sequenced in a way that makes logical sense. Topics are broken down into content units. | Learning is prescribed by self. Learners see a problem or knowledge gap and organize topics around life/work solutions. |
| Learners are motivated by external sources, such as parents and teachers. The topic is completed by a pass or fail grade. | Learners are motivated by intrinsic means: self-esteem, quality of life, problem-solving, and the quest for recognition. Topics are completed by mastery. |
- b) Adult education programs for women in Pakistan
Pakistan is among those countries where literacy rate is very low. Especially, female literacy rate is 45% against male literacy rate that is 69%. The education in Pakistan shows a bleak picture especially in Balochistan where education is grim. 70% girls are dropped out from schools in Balochistan. The overall female literacy rate is 25% which is not satisfying. More than 40% girls never go to schools. In 2013, 64% rural areas females’ population never went to school in Balochistan. No doubt, the ratio of out of school children is rising. Women find it hard to get education, as in rural areas no separate schooling is present. They are the victims of the violence as they are not allowed to go outside, but work and sew clothes at home. Providing education helps them to earn a better position in society. I request to the government to promote of female literacy in the country.
The impact a high literacy rate for women can have is enormous. In Pakistan, the current literacy rate for women, officially, stands at around 47 percent. Many believe it is actually considerably lower than this. There are also fewer girls enrolled in schools, even though this number has risen sharply over the last two decades, and more girls drop out of schools at the primary or secondary levels, compared to boys. Very few go on to acquire higher education.
In this situation, a poster that is said to have been put up by the TTP outside a government degree college in Samar Bagh in Lower Dir is dangerous. The poster warns girls against acquiring education and, according to the principal of the school, threatens them directly by suggesting they could be killed if they continue to attend classes. This is the last thing we need. We have seen the forced closure of girls schools and colleges in the past and we would not like to see that being repeated. The authorities in charge in Lower Dir need to ascertain who is behind the poster and hand out whatever punishment is available under the law. The TTP is a banned organisation. It should not be permitted to go around putting up posters.
More important than this is the need to encourage women to acquire education to whatever level they can. When women are educated, this has an impact on the entire family and in many has been shown to improve healthcare, education and other basic services because literate and educated women are in a position to demand rights for themselves and their children. The situation in our own country remains alarming. We need to promote education at all levels for girls and women and also encourage them to be empowered in different ways. A professional degree gives women a great deal of power and a position of some authority within families. We need this badly. The question is how the policies that should be put in place to reach this goal are to be achieved. At the present moment, there is no visible evidence of an effort to encourage women to acquire their rights. Indeed, issues such as child marriages and the forced conversion of girls simply disturb them from seeing themselves as citizens, with the same rights as men. We direly need to ensure education for all women in the country. A programme should be devised with the understanding that educating a woman means a huge benefit to her family in the future and to the community she interacts with.