NN46, September 2011
Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark
The Possible Utilisation of Social Enterprise Principles for Community-based Education and Training for Employment, and Community Empowerment
By Stephen Vardigans, Consultant: The Association of Canadian Community Colleges, Bureau of Non-formal Education, Dhaka
Email: svardigans@hotmail.com
Keywords: Bangladesh; continuing education; social business; community empowerment; sustainable NFE
Summary: This piece summarises aspects of the work being done by the Association of Canadian Community Colleges in assisting the Bureau of Non-formal Education of the Government of Bangladesh to find ways to make community-based continuing education, and training for employment, more sustainable. The work is attempting to establish whether more effective, demand-driven skills for employment, community empowerment and prosperity, can be realised through the adoption of social enterprise principles.
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In rural Bangladesh, even though there has been a significant increase in school enrolment and retention rates, there exists, especially in more rural areas, a dearth of appropriate skills development opportunities for wage and self employment.
Currently, the Curriculum Development and Program Implementation (CDPI) Project is engaged in primary research on sustainable and community-owned adult education and training provision for wage and self-employment. This research is suggesting that the establishment of a more vibrant, community-managed structure is needed, and one which could benefit by adopting social enterprise principles.
Before looking at the sort of structure being suggested it is useful to consider why, after many years of development activity at rural community level, the enabling environment for training for wage and self-employment opportunities is still very limited.
In many districts of Bangladesh, poverty remains stubbornly high and communities themselves appear to remain impotent and unable to do much about it. One hypothesis which might explain this impotence is that community ambition itself has been diluted by the very presence of the agencies which purport to enhance it.
Numerous agencies (mostly local NGOs) are providing various development interventions at community level but often these do not result in lasting improvements in livelihoods. Most interventions are still top down in design, short term, project-based, externally funded and hence unsustainable. They tend to have little linkage to the local economy and are disempowering rather than empowering. In essence, many communities have become dependents and peripheral recipients of support, as opposed to being central activists in creating it.
In addition, many NGOs are multi-faceted - engaging in numerous types of activity but often being true masters of none. This is especially so of those which engage in an ad-hoc manner in basic training for wage and self-employment. These agencies rarely have a solid grasp of labour market issues, have little facility to properly assess the market demand for wage employment, and have limited capacity to provide market-driven training and business development services for entrepreneurial learners.
Unless funded by the Government in some sort of public-private partnership arrangement, local NGOs must raise funding for themselves. The mechanism is usually through a mixture of project funding, grants and some sort of income generating activity. In the latter case the waters often become extremely muddy since the enterprise activity, usually funded through some initial donor grant, can actually undermine local business opportunities. In essence it represents the adoption of unfair competition. In other cases the NGOs act as clearing houses for products produced by ‘their’ communities. Instead of selecting and training community members in how to manage such businesses, and then assisting them to take off and act independently, the NGO retains a tight grip and retains its dominant position in a ‘parent company’ role.
Even when local NGOs talk about empowering communities, they tend not to have indicators of success to capture what they mean, or a specific target date on which to leave.
In trying to change this scenario for the better, the CDPI project is exploring the world of social enterprise and wishes to test the hypothesis that social enterprise principles can be used to empower communities and increase prosperity. But what, exactly, do we mean by this terminology?
Social Enterprise UK gives a nice definition of what social enterprises are:
Social enterprises are businesses trading for social and environmental purposes. Many commercial businesses would consider themselves to have social objectives, but social enterprises are distinctive because their social and/or environmental purpose is absolutely central to what they do - their profits are reinvested to sustain and further their mission for positive change.
(Source: http://www.socialenterprise.org.uk/pages/frequently-asked-questions.html)
So how can businesses having social purposes be grown as part of the process of creating more sustainable, community-based training for wage and self employment?
To answer this question the CDPI project team has carried out some primary research at community level, without the presence of any government or non-government representatives. This research has attempted to obtain accurate information about existing community networks and attitudes towards community-based basic education and training, managed along social business lines. Among other things the discussions included:
- - Listing family connections to the wider world (including those of families who have migrated to other countries).
- - The perceived willingness of community members, including more educated and wealthy members of families, both local and remote, to make a small financial investment in a social business which maintains and runs a permanent community centre within which a wide range of functions, including non formal education and training, could take place.
- - The availability of community members who would be willing and able to train to become centre managers, teachers of basic education, finance officers and small business development officers.
- - The willingness of some of the investors to become trained to act as Board members to give oversight support and direction to the centre managers.
- - The willingness of small business owners and local artisans to share their skills with other community members and to offer attachment training in exchange for technical and business development support.
- - The willingness of local families to pay for market demanded training for waged and self employment.
A pre-prepared focus group discussion questionnaire was used but community members were encouraged to extend the discussions to be as wide ranging as they felt appropriate.
To date, a total of four focus group discussions in different parts of the country have been held and in all cases a representative cross section of the community participated. The discussions were extremely vigorous and very positive and in no cases did the community members express a need for any external support apart from training and guidance.
On request from the Bureau of Non-formal Education (BNFE), the CDPI team is now working with a number of community representatives, and with representatives from the Government’s own Comprehensive Village Development Programme (CVDP), on the development of a pilot initiative. This will test both the receptivity and capacity of community members to become engaged in the management activities mentioned above, and the social business angle where community-linked investors will have their investment returned over a period of time but will not receive investment earnings - apart from the increased wealth and social capital that ought to accrue to their families and the community at large. The first pilot will be tested in an existing area where cooperative societies and the CVDP are already active.
[The views expressed in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Association of Canadian Community Colleges.]
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Cite article as: Vardigans, S., (2011) ‘The Possible Utilisation of Social Enterprise Principles for Community-based Education and Training for Employment, and Community Empowerment’, in NORRAG NEWS, Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark, No.46, September 2011, pp. 38-41, available: http://www.norrag.org
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