WHY SHOULD WE DISCUSS NONFORMAL EDUCATION FROM THE ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE?

Juma Abdu Wamaungo

A. Introduction Understanding economic issues is essential in all fields of education including nonformal education. Manzoor (1975) notes that, Two important factors:- pressure on resources and the inadequacy of present educational structures have combined to spur a growing interest in new avenues that go beyond the conventional for system. Although written forty years ago, Manzoor brings forward an amazing and important point for nonformal education. In a world full of imbalances in both the local and global contexts and with over 800 million illiterate, 780 millions poor and with the current economic crisis, nonformal education has a right to discuss issues concerning the economy or economics. This makes it true that as an economic activity, nonformal education is not fundamentally different from form education. According to Manzoor still, the resources consumed (the time and skills of instructors and learners, physical space and structures, equipment and books) and the yields produced (the increased skills, knowledge and understanding gained by successful learners are similar in both modes of education. There are however, important differences in the ways formal and nonformal education activities are usually organized and operated, and in the specific aims they serve (1975). These differences and the implications are generally economical. However, one can not entirely base on Manzoors justifications, since his studies only focused on programme implementation (cost benefit and expenditures) and besides, they are only drawn based on the lines of nonformal and formal education. Ahmad forgot that when talking of economics in nonformal education we should look beyond the programmes to be implemented in comparison to the formal schooling. He also didnt take in consideration what the future holds in stock. Yet the basis of lifelong learning is the fact that, instructing students to learn, unlearn and relearn, a powerful new force is added to education. Tomorrows illiterate will not be the man who cant read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn (Alvin T, Future Shock, 1970: 367; Peter Scale, 2008). Of recent, writers like Pierre Andre Julien (2007) have come-up with theories of local entrepreneurship knowledge economy and also the economic crisis of 2008/2009, left many academicians thinking of economic literacy for their communities. Besides, the need to enable a graduate of nonformal and continuing education to play an effective role as a global
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citizen in working toward the eradication of poverty, injustice and social exclusion in a world where almost over a billion people live on less than a dollar a day, a safe haven for nonformal and continuing education to discuss economy/ economics. With this brief introduction, I will examine the concepts of economics nonformal and continuing education in the present and in the past. I will also highlight the importance of economic literacy in relation to development issues which are of relevance in the current world. B. Why Economics in Nonformal and Continuing Education Based on the introduction, discussion of the economics of nonformal and continuing education is only a focus on programme implementation, where by in the past, most programmes of out of school education were basically government based. This implies that most programmers were of a top-down perspective. In the present situation, the world has changed talking of economics in out school education is beyond the limit of policy makers, in this case therefore, Iam to look at economics in out of school education in three different perspectives, namely: 1. Government (Policy Maker) perspective, 2. Local Community Perspective, and 3. The Global Community Perspective The two, that is; local and global community perspective will entail the changes taking place in our communities which call for nonformal and continuing education, and with the government perspective, am to basically take in account Manzoors accounts, hence, justifying the need for economics in out of school education.