NN38, February 2007
Technical and Vocational Skills Development
INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO TVET IN RURAL MEXICO
By Christopher Martin, Ford Foundation, Mexico City
KeywordsTVET, Mexico
Summary
In some rural, particularly indigenous areas, of Mexico a range of local, usually independent, educational innovations have emerged over the past 20 years with a more holistic educational approach to TVET. This article examines some examples.
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TVET is often seen as an alternative or addition to standard education. Unfortunately, it has tended to be a lower status one. This is certainly the case in Mexico where technical and vocational educational tracks reinforce the great divide between those who will pursue academic studies that will lead them to the professions and those who have to prepare themselves for earlier incorporation into the economy as wage labourers or farmers. This is the norm at national level (see Pieck Gochicoa, 1999 and 2004). Important departures from this problematic model have emerged, one of which I will refer to at the end of this paper. But whereas these are the exception in the mainstream, they are more common on the margins, in some rural, particularly indigenous areas where a new, holistic educational approach has been emerging.
Here a range of local, usually independent, educational innovations have emerged particularly over the past 20 years, sharing a concern to affirm two fundamental principles of indigenous education. These are a) that knowledge is a social affair not just an individual acquisition, and 2) that distinct fields of knowledge, and the theoretical and practical dimensions of knowledge are connected particularly through their application to daily lives: the development of natural and human resources. Even the most advanced and abstract mathematical and astronomic knowledge of the Mayas was intimately related to agricultural production cycles. This integrated conception of education extends to the act of learning itself, through which the learner, teacher and community all play a part, Even though this view contrasts with the modern, western approach, consistent with their integral philosophy, indigenous educators seek dialogue between the two educational types, recognizing the value of both for the outward-looking and possibly out-migrating young people.
The integrated view of learning present in these projects and in its lessons for TVET is best demonstrated through examples. I give three here. In the heart of the northern highlands of Oaxaca, there is a prestigious community, boarding primary school, (one of the last of its kind) whose reputation rests on its high scholastic attainments (De Agüero and Muñoz, 2005). Analysts and community alike consider this achievement to derive from the close interaction between school and community in many aspects. This is clearly demonstrated by the school band. Brass bands are in important aspect of local tradition in the region. The school teaches musical theory and the mastery of the instruments in order for the children to learn a skill, but most importantly to employ it in the service of the community in marriages, funerals and a wide range of local festivities. What is more, many school graduates find employment in professional bands both in Mexico and the USA, where many migrate. This in one integrated educational process; the young reconnect themselves to their cultural traditions, acquire an income generating skill and enhance their broader educational formation.
The Oaxacan school is not alone in promoting a wide range of skills not just music, but horticulture, leatherwork and food science as an integral part of the curriculum. Go to any such educational innovation in an indigenous area, and the mainstream curriculum will be taught with and through practical skills. For example in Northern Puebla, a network of TV secondary schools share a mobile laboratory that teaches science through community development activities one of whose outcomes has been the propagation of medicinal herbs, reforestation and commercial garlic production ? thereby regenerating local agriculture and income generation (Salom Flores, 2001). Similarly, in the Tatutsi secondary school in the remote northern mountains of Jalisco (Secretaria de Educación Publica, Coordinación General de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe, 2004), a unique approach to civic education combines classroom-based studies in the everyday practice of citizenship and the field based study of local land rights issues in a school project. Tatutsi, like most of the other indigenous educational NGOs have drawn upon the ILO?s 169 agreement (available here), protecting indigenous ways of life and work to bolster their project. This important introduction to civic and legal issues at secondary school level has stimulated some students to pursue legal careers in defence of their territorial rights. The school bakery that applies mathematical, agricultural and scientific aspects of the curriculum to bread-making has also engendered the establishment of a highly successful local commercial bakery that employs past students.
Perhaps the indigenous educational innovations of Mexico seem remote from TVET in other parts of the world and are obviously not transferable. What is a valuable wider lesson is that a close engagement between school community and local labour market can be the basis of a more integrated, holistic vision of education in which TVET is central not only in promoting employability and income generation, but also in enriching the whole view of a comprehensive education. Some urban regeneration projects ? e.g. City Challenge projects in the UK - had a similar approach as does the new Mexico City University, where, on the urban/rural margins of this megalopolis, the challenges of environmental degradation, unemployment and poverty have stimulated school based learning and production projects as a new way of educating youth for their futures in higher education or in the Mexican or US economies.
References
De Agüero, M. and Muñoz, M. (2005) Momentos de belleza educativa. La escuela, la banda y la comunidad de San Bartolomé Zoogocho, in Margarita Zorrilla Fierro, (Ed.), Hacer visibles buenas prácticas. Mientras el debate pedagógico nos alcanza, México, COMIE, pp. 141-188.
Pieck Gochicoa, E. (1999) Educación de jóvenes y adultos vinculado con el trabajo, in Boletín del Proyecto Principal de Educación en América Latina y el Caribe, No. 50, UNESCO/OREALC
Pieck Gochicoa, E. (2004) La oferta de formación para el trabajo en Mexico, Documento de Investigación No. 3, Instituto de Investigación para el Desarrollo de la Educación/UIA.
Salom Flores, G. (Ed.) (2001) La telesecundaria rural vinculada a la comunidad. Una Experiencia en la Sierra Norte de Puebla, México, Ángeles Editores, S.A.
Secretaria de Educación Publica, Coordinación General de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe, (2004), Tatutsi Maxakwaxi: Proyecto Educativo Wixárika in Experiencia innovadoras en educación intercultural Vol. 1. México, SEP, pp. 127-152.
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