Integrating the non-formal education (NFE) agenda into the formal technical and vocational education and training (TVET) sector: rekindling the promise - avoiding the perils!

Abstract

This paper argues for the inclusion of the non-formal education (NFE) agenda into the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector. For TVET, inclusion holds promise of inserting a more deliberative social development purpose, while for NFE it represents a national response to a clientele which has fallen through the cracks of national education provision. In addition, the exclusive 'youth' focus to which the TVET sector currently finds itself responding to in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) will be widened to include those marginalised communities, both adults and children, who have not been hitherto catered for by the formal system. This will ensure a concerted response to national developmental objectives of lifelong learning for poverty reduction (and HIV/AIDS prevention and reduction interventions) in the sub-Saharan context. This paper identifies the promises and lurking perils of this proposition.