1OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING FOR BASIC AND NON-FORMAL EDUCATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The paper begins by outlining the rationale and objectives of the research. It reviews the progress of the ‘Education For All ’ proclamation of 1990 at Jomtien, and shows how this research fits within that context. Second, it demarcates the boundary of the research by presenting the definitions and research questions. Third, it provides an illustration of the cases for in-depth study. Fourth, the report describes the methodological approach and the progress. The report ends by providing some concluding remarks. The rationale and research objectives There have been numerous regional and global proclamations, and approaches to provide basic education for all during the latter part of the century (Colclough with Lewin, 1993). Jomtien was the latest global proclamation to provide education for all by the year 2000. However, the UNESCO’s 1996 mid-decade reviews show that ‘education for all ’ is unlikely to be a reality, not even by the foreseeable future (UNESCO, 1998a). Some of the developing country governments ’ reluctance to allocate adequate funds for education is partly to be blamed. The failure to analyse the limitations of conventional methods to reach the millions of children and adults in developing countries is also to be blamed. The major development banks allocate increasing amounts of funds for basic education; the World Bank’s allocation for basic education will increase to about 60 percent of its education budget by the year 2000 (World Bank, 1998). While this is the case, there are only a handful o