NN40, May 2008
Education for Sustainable Development? Or The Sustainability of Education Investment? A Special Issue
Skills Training in Rural Secondary Schools: Sustainability Challenges of a Meaningful Experience in Mexico
By Enrique Pieck, Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico)
Email: enrique.pieck@uia.mxThe educational system faces important challenges when it endeavours to address the educational and job-training needs of young people living in impoverished sectors. Set up in 1982, the Community-linked Telesecondary Schools (Spanish initials: TVC) are an example of an educational practice developed at lower secondary education level in vulnerable contexts. The TVCs offer job training as part of their curriculum and set out to provide an education that is relevant to the profile and needs of students from such contexts. This type of program has the legitimate aim of offering schooling that responds to: (i) the lack of programs at this level in rural areas, (ii) student desertion on completing this level, (iii) the need to anchor young people in their communities, thus preventing them from migrating, and (iv) the need to develop local productive options.
The TVC educational model, developed in 14 schools belonging to the Telesecondary system, consists of a flexible, nation-wide, government-run programme designed for isolated rural zones. Hence, though the TVCs are bound by the same rules that apply to the Telesecondary system, what makes them different is their implementation of an innovative model that was created at the local level in the northerly mountain region of the State of Puebla. The said model consists of five basic components: an alternation between education and productive activities that links theoretical content to practical work-related activities carried out by the students in workshops; practical research projects that link the contents of each scholastic level with local and regional concerns; the recovery and complementing of know-how whereby students recuperate traditional community knowledge; communicative-expression furthering whole language (involving oral, body-language, dramatic and artistic skills); and life within the educational community that helps the student to develop social competence by experiencing school as a place for socializing.
An outstanding feature of the model is the inclusion in the curriculum of work activities that involve participation by the students in various productive workshops (devoted to bakery, vegetable growing, preserve making, mushroom cultivation and handicraft creation). This structure overcomes the traditional split between education and work by incorporating the latter into everyday scholastic life.
In short, the TVC experience is proposed as a contribution to efforts to redefine traditional education, springing up out of local practice per se, rather than constituting a model imposed from outside.
To what extent, then, can we speak of self-sustainability when referring to the TVC experience? Various research studies of the programme have pointed out certain limitations -such as improvisation by the teachers, parental doubts about the productive elements, the low level of preparation of the students involved in the various workshop activities, and the dearth of job-related skills in graduating students- that affect its sustainability. Nevertheless, not only do these shortfalls take second place to the model?s achievements; they arise precisely because of the magnitude of the challenge faced by the TVCs.
As indicated in the following list of pros and cons, though the study of this programme that was carried out from 2005 to 2007 points to a series of situations that weaken the experience, nevertheless it simultaneously acknowledges organizational and knowledge-generating processes that strengthen it:
? Effectiveness is watered down as a result of teachers both being rotated within the TVC system and switched between the said system and other ones, since the knowledge accumulated in the special technical workshops is lost. However, the said teachers constitute a collective group whose members are willing to learn about the productive workshops by watching them and making them more systematic.
? The said teachers report that one of the main difficulties is the fragility of the workshops, since new practices get watered down, while the learning-for-life aspect of them is forgotten, making it necessary to ?start all over again?. On the other hand, the incursion of teachers into new specialized areas leads to a flexible attitude towards work on the part of both teachers and students.
? The lack of financing for the workshops, which are not covered by the federal budget that is assigned, is another limiting factor, forcing the schools to look for alternative funding in order to shore up this component and maintain high training quality.
? Social and economic pressures win out over the schooling in question, since, though the aim is to prevent young people from leaving their communities, the TVCs are unable to achieve this objective in the face of spiralling migration and its inevitable cultural and economic effects
? The project is dependent on a body of teachers whose initial training, which has been along the same lines as that provided to TVC teachers, results in teachers identifying with, and becoming committed to, the project. However, this situation can be seen as a weakness, since teachers trained in other systems, who are not familiar with job-related training and other aspects of the model, are also assigned to the programme, so that their involvement in, and commitment to, the TVCs are weaker. Though the TVCs? dependence on a leader-organizer who has functioned as an overseer of the project from the outset might be seen as a drawback, the length of the experience, along with a solid structure, ongoing, intensive on-the-job teacher training and high levels of teacher commitment lead us to conclude that the wheels might well keep turning even without such a leader.
Faced with the aforesaid limitations, one can point to some factors that could arguably support the conclusion that the project is self-sustaining. One such feature is the system?s special sui-generis location within the federal Telesecondary programme. In other words, due to the activities and links of the experienced leaders, the TVC has run for 25 years as a programme attached to the Telesecondary schools, but without operating in the same way as the latter ? i.e. a different model has been allowed to operate within, and run alongside, the context of a federal programme.
Over time, it has been possible to put down roots inside the official structure, so that we can be optimistic both that the program in question will be able to keep running and remain self-supporting, and also that it can be expanded to other regions where Telesecondary schools exist. This is very significant and leads one to believe that much remains to be learned in the future regarding the advantages of promoting educational innovation within the confines of the official education system. Another significant feature is the way in which the project has continued to renew itself and generate innovation based on its own dynamics and the lessons learned along the way. Moreover, there is a track record of joint participation by students, parents and the community, which bears witness to the project?s increasing consolidation in the different community environments where the schools operate.
Finally, another crucial aspect of the project?s ability to sustain itself is the presence of work as the linchpin of the whole experience, slotting into the other innovative dimensions of the program, rather than being something separate from it. One point to be stressed in this regard is the way in which the teaching staff impart a wide range of meanings to the work component, just as the workshops, in practice, serve different purposes for the students, allowing them to acquire various technical, work-related and emotional competencies, making it easier for them to fit into the job market, laying the foundations for the possible development of micro-enterprises, enabling local resources to be exploited, forging community links, and providing a context in which values and attitudes (pertaining to leadership, teamwork, etc.) may be fostered.
These varied conceptions of job training are just the opposite of authoritarian schemes based on models bent on homogenization. In the TVCs, experience itself leads to reinvention and learning on the part of both students and teachers, making it possible for new meanings to spring up out of a praxis that is open to change and diversity. Thus, it is not resources or adherence to standard patterns that guarantee sustainability, but, rather, training per se. In other words, the high quality of the training and the resultant satisfaction of the students, teachers and parents constitute a cornerstone of sustainability, being in turn, rendered possible only by the existence of the teaching collective.
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