Rural University:
Learning about Education and
Development
Farzam Arbab
This work was partially supported with
the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent
the views of the Centre.
ABSTRACT
The experiences of the Fundación
para la Aplicación y Enseñanza de las Ciencias (FUNDAEC)
from its inception in 1974 up to mid-1982 are described. During these years
FUNDAEC developed a rural university as an institution of learning for
the inhabitants of Norte del Cauca, a rural region near the city of Cali
in Colombia. The tasks of the rural university have been defined in terms
of a series of learning processes which are to be set in motion in all
the villages of the region. These learning processes fall into three main
categories, the development of human resources, the application of science,
and the strengthening of community structures. At the heart of the strategies
of the rural university has been an educational program to endow the region
with a pyramid of workers in rural well-being: engineers, technicians,
and promoters. The details of the very successful educational innovation
that made accelerated learning possible for the youth are discussed in
these pages. The experiences of the students and their professors in setting
in motion learning processes, especially those concerned with alternative
production systems, associations for production, propagation of technology,
and marketing systems, are also described in detail.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Preface
The philosophy
The
region and the people
Investing
in human resources
Applying
science and disseminating technology
Searching
for alternative systems of production on farms
Building
new units of production
Organizing
community action
Conclusions
Appendix:
Excerpts of a development project
FOREWORD
Researchers are concerned that their results should
be understood and used. Indeed, one of the most interesting debates concerning
research in recent years has been the relationship between research and
action to the point that it has resulted in a "subspecies" called, not
inappropriately, "action research." Although the experience of following
the debate has not been without its frustrations, two general lessons are
now apparent. First, that to concentrate on action or on research and to
exclude the other leads to an unsatisfactory understanding of the development
process and so limits any possible impact that the activity is likely to
have. Second, research that is likely to have the greatest impact has to
be framed with action and diffusion in mind from the beginning. These lessons
have been learned after considerable experience but are difficult to transfer
from one institution to another.
The value of Rural University is that
it explains how one institution set about the task of transferring knowledge
into action. There are few case studies to guide other institutions who
wish to set about a similar activity and this study, written by one of
the prime movers, will be helpful not only as an evaluation but also as
a comparison for similar institutions. There are, to be sure, a number
of special, possibly local, circumstances that account for the success
of the Fundación para la Aplicación y Enseñanza de
las Ciencias (FUNDAEC) but among the more general lessons is the emphasis
that education is not a static system but a process that evolves and changes.
Learning, therefore, becomes the heart of the development process and influences
not only what is learned but how it is learned. FUNDAEC itself has changed
during the course of its first 8 years and if this account is updated,
as I hope it will be, we shall find that FUNDAEC has changed yet again.
Learning and change become the method of understanding the development
process of the community.
The publication of this book by the International
Development Research Centre not only illustrates the continued commitment
by the Centre to rural experimentation but also represents a recognition
of how much we have learned, as an agency, from this particular research
group. I know that I write for my colleagues in the Agriculture, Food and
Nutrition Sciences and Social Sciences divisions as well as other parts
of the Centre in expressing our admiration for FUNDAEC's work and for the
lessons in dedication and skill that they have shown us. Although the book
represents a collective enterprise, it is fitting that it has been written
by Farzam Arbab who has taught so many of us to look at rural communities
in a new and productive way. We hope that in sponsoring this book others
will learn of and from this interesting development experiment.
A.D. Tillett
Associate Director, Science, Technology and Energy Policy
Social Sciences Division
International Development Research Centre
PREFACE
This is the account of an experience in rural
education and development to which many people have contributed over a
period of about a decade. The small group that participated in the entire
program from the beginning was formed between 1974 and 1976, although three
of us, all professors of physics at the Universidad del Valle in Cali,
Colombia, had been discussing some of the educational ideas with a group
of our students since 1971. During the 1960s, the Universidad del Valle
had enjoyed a great deal of support especially from the Rockefeller Foundation
as one of the universities around the world to become a model institution
to lead regional development. In 1971, student movements suddenly interrupted
what seemed to be a very successful process of institution building and
the entire model came under criticism. It did not seem to us, however,
that the ensuing debate went beyond superficial analysis of social factors
or ever touched the profound crisis in the basic assumptions of education,
whether in natural or social sciences, medicine or engineering, the arts
or the humanities. Although some of the conversation of the groups involved
in the controversy centred around the conditions of the masses, we felt
that the connection between university crisis and the irrelevance of the
content of the educational system to the life of the poor was seldom examined
with clarity. We decided, then, to become intensely involved in the processes
of community life in a nearby rural region and search for the content and
the form of "education for development." The Rockefeller Foundation agreed
to support our first efforts to create a private foundation, FUNDAEC, to
consolidate our group, and to begin certain educational programs. Fundación
para la Educación Superior (FES) was the first Colombian institution
to offer us help. Later on, a number of other agencies, International Development
Research Centre ODRQ the Interamerican Foundation, Private Agencies Collaborating
Together (PACT), Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA), Appropriate
Technology International, as well as the Colombian Ministries of Education,
Agriculture, and Planning, contributed to the expansion of FUNDAEC and
the consolidation of its work in Norte del Cauca where all of its activities
during the first 7 years were concentrated. Expanded activities brought
new talent to our group among whom we should at least mention Jaime Millan,
Jairo Roldan, Carmen Inez Gamboa, Ana Gonzalez, Enrique Castellanos, Roberto
Hernandez, Alan Fryback, and Gabriel Carrasquilla.
The experience described in the next pages
only takes us to the middle of 1982, when FUNDAEC was in the midst of a
process of autoevaluation, transition, and expansion to other regions.
Since then, many of its plans have met with further success and have confirmed
the optimism with which this account was written. The description presented
here does not have the characteristics of a research report and undoubtedly
reflects the biases and the emotions of a group that has tried to describe
its experience as objectively as the nature of its activities permits.
We hope that other groups involved in similar endeavours will find this
presentation useful and that it will serve to draw the attention of concerned
individuals and institutions to the urgent need for the reexamination of
the concepts of rural development prevalent during the past few decades.
The people who formed the core of the FUNDAEC
group during the period treated in this book were Alberto Alzate, Farzam
Arbab, Gustavo Correa, Edmundo Gutierrez, Martin Prager, and Francia de
Valcárcel. One of us was chosen to write this account but, of course,
everyone contributed to its content.
Farzam Arbab
THE PHILOSOPHY
FUNDAEC (Fundación para la Aplicación
y Enseñanza de las Ciencias) was created in 1974 by a small group
of professors from the Universidad del Valle in Colombia at a time when
the role of education in development was being critically questioned throughout
the university. During the late 60s and early 70s, it was becoming increasingly
evident that development, defined mostly in terms of industrialization,
was failing many of its basic objectives and was not improving the living
conditions of the vast majority of the inhabitants of the developing countries.
Traditional indicators, such as the gross national product, measured growth
but said little about the well-being of the poor; In spite of economic
advances in many countries, the conditions of the majority as far as health,
nutrition, housing, and real income were concerned, had not improved appreciably
and, in many cases, seemed to have worsened. It was repeatedly stated that
development had created two separate sectors in the developing countries
- a small modern sector, living the lifestyle of the industrialized nations
with the same values, cultural patterns and aspirations, and a traditional
sector, mostly rural or in the process of migration to the urban slums,
dedicating all of its efforts to subsistence: food, clothing, and shelter.
Researchers were contemplating projects that
would work more directly with the community and the results of which would
be measured by indicators of the well-being of the population of a region.
Concern with the well-being of specific communities, and an understanding
of the problems they faced, had an effect on the composition of research
action groups, which immediately became interdisciplinary and turned their
attention to multisectoral actions. Within a multisectoral approach to
development, education was gaining in importance, especially as a support
for other activities. Nonformal education was spreading widely, although
its merits were often exaggerated.
Integrated Action
A number of interdisciplinary groups were created
in Colombia during this same period. Those concerned with rural life argued
that rural development projects should go beyond traditional interventions
in technical assistance, credit, and marketing, and should also seek solutions
to the problems of health, shelter, education, and community organization.
The need for integrated action was evident from a number of experiences:
health care programs had been forced to consider nutrition, and were soon
involved in production; literacy programs had been led into community organization,
and from there into health, housing, and agriculture; production projects
found their economic goals difficult to reach unless actions from other
sectors were also included.
The interdisciplinary groups formed during
this period went through many initial difficulties related to the lack
of understanding among disciplines and institutions. A common philosophy
was not easy to achieve, and, even when agreement had apparently been reached,
time and again it would breakdown as each sector tried to absorb more resources
for its own agencies and plans of action. Many groups never passed this
initial ordeal, but a few that survived succeeded in demonstrating some
of the merits of integrated plans for development. In fact, enough excitement
was generated in Colombia to lead to the adoption of a large-scale, integrated,
rural-development project by the government in its plan to close the gap
between the modern and traditional sectors.
The small group of professors who later established
FUNDAEC participated in an interdisciplinary group at the Universidad del
Valle and familiarized themselves with the work of a number of similar
groups. As valid as the efforts of these groups were within an overall
plan of development, they seemed only to present a better organization
of the modern sector in order to study and understand the poor and, hopefully,
offer them a few improved services. Multisectoral actions from the top,
even when successfully carried out, at best give partial solutions to the
basic problems of development. Coordinating agencies and bringing disciplines
together are essential but far more important are plans organized from
the standpoint of the inhabitants of a region and meaningful, significant
participation of the people in their own processes of development.
Two Essential Elements of Participation
Concern with community participation is not new,
and many development projects have incorporated its principles to some
extent. Feedback, contribution in labour and kind, involvement in the detection
of needs, and formulation of plans are examples of prevalent views on community
participation. The originators of FUNDAEC, however, tended to examine participation
more within the context of the institutional capacities of a population
and the organization of their common learning than in terms of the methods
of dealing with segments of the population.
The group recognized that the differences in
conditions of the modern and traditional sectors in Colombia go beyond
simple disparity in economic capacity. The modern sector includes a large
number of institutions that allow it access to political power, to information,
capital, and credit, as well as technology and technical assistance. In
the rural areas, little administrative structure exists. The channels for
the flow of resources and information seem to end at the interface between
the two sectors. Even the more successful development projects have had
to manage their resources through the institutions of the modern sector
and tailor their actions according to the structure of these institutions,
which have experience in working only with successful farmers with large
tracts of land. The full scope of the structural differences between the
lifestyles of the two sectors is only slowly and painfully being recognized
by these institutions. Thus, with a few exceptions, extension is planned
according to the schemes successful with the large farmers, whose needs
for assistance are specific, who can progress independently of their neighbours,
who are usually better educated and have access to many sources of information,
and whose net production at a given harvest is not necessarily crucial
to other aspects of their lives such as the education of their children
or the health care of their families. Large holders have access to more
than one source of credit, can sell their products to more than a single
buyer, and often have investments in the marketing system. In all, they
participate directly or indirectly in a number of institutions from which
they can choose a variety of services.
Far different are the conditions of the small
farmers. They need both basic education and specific technical assistance.
Their only capital is their smallholding, which does not attract credit
from different sources. Their hopes for credit depend on the whims of official
agents who visit them occasionally. There is little or no infrastructure
on their farms and technological advances they may be aware of are not
accessible to them. Their inability to choose sources of technical assistance,
credit, and markets means that they must buy and sell at prices beyond
their control. Above all, their destiny is inextricably tied to that of
their neighbours; their village has to progress, to be educated, to have
access to information, credit and technical assistance, and to develop
its own viable organization.
The originators of FUNDAEC, thus, saw that
the population's role would ultimately have to be defined in terms of gradual
development of its institutions and organization. Most development efforts
include some institutional development in their plans, often for the improvement
of government services, for the organization of group production or marketing,
or for channeling political pressure toward or against the existing government
structure.
For FUNDAEC's creators, however, a second essential
element of participation, almost as important as organization, was knowledge.
How could a rural people claim to be in charge of their own development
if they had no access to knowledge so easily available to other sectors,
if they did not learn systematically from their own experiences, and if
they did not participate in the generation, as well as the application,
of knowledge accumulated at a global level? They perceived their first
task, then, as the organization of learning and the first institution as
one that provided education - an education almost equivalent to development
itself. In fact, FUNDAEC was created to be such an institution, to become
more than a school or university in the traditional sense and to involve
itself in all aspects of community life, in an effort to bring knowledge
to bear on the problems of rural development, examining them always from
the point of view of the inhabitants of the regions it served.
The Institution
The institution that has evolved during nearly a decade has been called
a rural university because of the level of its capacities, but, in fact,
the word "university," with its traditional connotation, does not adequately
describe the role that is assigned to it and the nature of the processes
in which it is involved. Not only is this rural university concerned with
education at all levels, but its role in the development of the region
differs markedly from that of most institutions of higher learning. Many
people believe that the educational sector contributes to development by
providing individuals with specific skills and knowledge; they assume that
somehow the existence of such individuals will by itself bring about development
and give a country the capacity to maintain its pace. The institution described
here, on the other hand, considers its main objective to be the search
for strategies for development of the region it is to serve; training programs,
the nature of which must necessarily change over time, are only components
of the overall strategies. (In fact, FUNDAEC's rural university consisted
of about 15 professors-investigators and some 30 students during its first
6 years. Only later did the student population grow to several hundred
as educational programs were established in many villages by graduates.)
Some of the underlying principles and characteristics of the rural university
are:
-
Its professors and graduates make a consistent and continuous effort to
develop an institution that belongs to the people of a rural region and
try to understand development from their point of view. As a result, they
avoid the danger of considering development as a product that is handed
out to a people through a series of projects and interventions; they become
more concerned with the long term. Although many processes are set in motion
through interventions from outside, they must finally be managed by individuals
and institutions of the region itself. Within this context, the participation
of the population is not considered a mere methodology of community action
but inherent to development.
-
The members look for resources from outside the region in agencies and
programs in charge of educational or health service, credit, extension,
research, or the development of infrastructure, and try to attract them
to the region. They take upon themselves the task of integrating the efforts
of these institutions at the village level, a task that is essential even
when integral plans are made at higher levels. In fact, they devote a great
deal of effort to preparing local people themselves to coordinate such
activities. In addition to integration of sectoral efforts, they try to
provide continuity and permanence to the process of development. Many development
projects that have achieved a certain degree of success, upon termination,
have left rural populations with rapidly deteriorating conditions because
of the region's lack of institutions capable of providing and sustaining
the actions.
The rural university buildings.
-
They see access to knowledge and participation in its generation as one
of the most important elements of the process of development, and the lack
of such access as a condition that opens doors to oppression. The first
step in a development effort should be education to increase the population's
capacity to use and generate knowledge for its social well-being. People
require more than skills to share in development; manuals that transfer
know-how - how to apply fertilizers or how to give an injection - are based
on the assumption that decisions relating to rural development will always
be made outside the region. More learning is required to equip people with
the capacity to participate in basic decisions about their welfare. An
inherent premise of the rural university is that people are not the problem,
as has been assumed in many development programs, but rather the resource
for bringing about change. Contrary to current conventional wisdom, educational
investment at higher levels within a rural population is more efficient
than at lower levels if it sets in motion a dynamic process for the development
of human resources at different levels according to regional requirements.
-
The educational system in Colombia, divided into levels with specific and
inflexible functions, was designed in the modern sector to serve its perception
of national interests. By providing training in particular skills to some
segments of the population and offering opportunities for intellectual
development to others, the system reinforces the gap between the traditional
and modern sectors. Present disciplines and professions similarly reflect
a division of knowledge that evolved in response to the needs of the modern
sector in Colombia and elsewhere. By concentrating on the development purposes
in the rural areas, the members of the rural university try to free themselves
from the educational legacy of the past. They begin their educational activities
with the identification of the characteristics needed to develop human
potential for solving problems of the community at all levels. They then
select the knowledge relevant for these purposes and integrate it in new
ways so that individuals can comprehend it at different levels of competence.
Curricula are designed for the rural peoples' needs and, when necessary,
new disciplines are created. A constant revision of the educational content
to address changing conditions is a necessary part of the educational process
that parallels the path of development itself. By emphasizing the design
of organization and content according to broad social purposes, the university
transcends the conventional categories of formal, informal, and nonformal
education; different educational approaches become complementary rather
than mutually exclusive.
-
The objectives of the rural university are stated in terms of setting in
motion and catalyzing processes within the rural population that in their
totality would form a lasting process of development. Among these, three
types of activities are given special importance and great effort is made
to carry them out simultaneously.
The first are concerned with the development of
human resources. The corresponding programs cover education at different
levels, using formal and nonformal methods, and their basic concern is
the whole structure of personnel for the development of the region.
Training in itself, however, no matter how
successful, will not bring about change. A second series of processes,
concerned with the application of knowledge and the adaptation and propagation
of technology are set in motion simultaneously. Many of the resources of
the rural university are dedicated to the gradual development of the scientific
and technological capacities of the rural population. At present, research
in the final adaptation of technologies is not carried out adequately because
of the lack of institutions able to mediate between sophisticated international
and national centres and the grass-roots organizations working with the
traditional sector. The rural university is to fill this institutional
gap and become an important element of the scheme for technological research.
Yet a third series of processes is related
to the organization of the community. Organization, is conceived as more
complex than simple group action and community projects. The whole structure
of the community and the region, the services they offer, and the institutions
and mechanisms that sustain social and economic activities at the village
level are studied. Heavy emphasis is put on production, and channels for
the flow of goods and marketing, for access to credit and the accumulation
of capital, for the flow of information and technological assistance (without
which increase in production and income is not possible) are improved or
newly established. Within the context of this third component, activities
in production become linked to training and research in technology, as
these invariably are concerned with production.
· The total weight of development
cannot be placed entirely on the shoulders of the rural population. The
members of the rural university try to avoid the danger of assuming that
the farmers by themselves can bring about a great deal of change. Even
when all the necessary processes are in motion within a population, for
decades to come, resources from outside the rural communities will have
to be mobilized to fuel development. Although, as an institution, the rural
university avoids political contention, it is clear, for example, that
rural development is a meaningless concept if no land is available to the
farmers. The existing separation between the modern and the traditional
sectors - even when the government is willing to improve rural conditions
- is such that intermediaries are needed to channel resources and make
theoretical plans into operational realities. The professors and graduates
of the rural university, therefore, take upon themselves the role of broker
and try to attract and channel the resources of the modern sector. Without
such activities, the graduates of the training program would be left with
little to do, and many examples around the world show how training without
subsequent opportunities for work and for bringing about change has led
to frustration and has accelerated migration from rural areas to urban
centres.
Copyright 1997 © International Development Research
Centre, Ottawa, Canada
reference@idrc.ca
| Updated: 10 November 1998
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