INTEGRATING HIGHER EDUCATION AND NONFORMAL EDUCATION FOR THE TRAINING OF NONFORMAL EDUCATION FIELDWORKERS

This paper examines the integration of nonformal and formal education at the level of higher education, specifically for the training of nonformal education fieldworkers. Several patterns of possible linkages between these two educational spheres are defined and described. These patterns explain strategies ranging from programs centrally planned to rural level university programs. From this overview of linkages, seven conditions favorable for the development of integrative linkages are identified. An in depth study of a formal-nonformal integrated program in Indonesia is presented. Underlying this program are linkages between teacher training institutes and a government community education organization for the traning of nonformal education fieldworkers. Central to the program is a one-year diploma course in nonformal education. This paper examines the balance and merger of practice and theory in the curriculum, describes the field practicum, and evaluates staff development workshops and administrative relationships between these two educational organizations. The outcome of the study is an analytical framework that intersects the conditions favorable for integrative linkages with input and design factors. The framework provides a check list of program areas where integrative development might occur. Educational program planners can use the analytical framework as a tool to help design, examine, evaluate and transform programs that involve linkages between formal and nonformal education. In conclusion, nonformal education, while more reflective of community participation and needs, has neither gained the institutional stability nor credibility of formal education. Moreover, nonformal education fieldworkers have usually been poorly qualified and/or transient. More expensive and in greater social demand, formal education takes up the major portion of most developing countries\u27 budgets. This study advocates that educational planners look towards the integration of nonformal and formal education at the level of higher education in the hopes of minimizing the weaknesses inherent in their separateness and capitalizing on the potential strengths of integration