7(4 DOCUMENT RESUME ED 289 013 CE 049 070 AUTHOR Landrum, Roger L. TITLE The Role of the Peace Corps in Education in Developing Countries: A Sector Study. Appropriate Technologies for Development. Peace Corps Information Collection & Exchange Reprint Series R-49. INSTITUTION Peace Corps, Washington, DC. Information Collection and Exchange Div. PUB DATE Jul 84 NOTE 265p. PUB TYPE Reports - Research/Technical (143) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC11 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Adult Education; *Agency Role; *Developing Nations; *Education; Foreign Countries; *International Programs; *Policy Formation; *Voluntary Agencies; Volunteers IDENTIFIERS *Peace Corps ABSTRACT This report examines the role played by the Peace Corps education sector in developing countries. Section I providesa general overview of the progress over the past 20years of education assistance. A case study is presented of educationprograms in Sierra Leone. Section II provides an overview of distribution of education volunteers worldwide and by programming categories in 1980. SeCtion III considers the current condition. It describes conditions of education in developing countries, addresses the development significance of education, and presents sketches of conversations with host country officials, Peace Corps staff, andvolunteers. These 30. sketcher convey the influence of the Peace Corps todayon students and education systems in Sierra Leone, Togo, and Kenya. SectionIV identifies policy areas whore decisionscan be made and offers recommendations as to decisions that should be made to guide the activities of the education sector. Appendixes, amounting toover one-half of the report, provide a summary overview of education programs in each of the three regions to which the Peace Corps sends volunteers. Each education program is briefly described. (YLB) *********************************************************************** Reproductions svpplied by EDRS are the best thatcan be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGIESFOR DEVELOPMENT U.R. DEPARTMENT Of EDUCATION Offic Educational Research and Improvement E0 TIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has received from the been reproducedas originating it person or organization O Minor thing*. reproducilon qualityhave been made toimprove Points of view or op, nions mint do not ncemsnlystaled in this docu. 0011 position orpoky.represent official The Role of thePeace Corpsin Education in DevelopingCountries: A SECTOR STUDY yesI II re_ V. a SI Peace. Corps INFORMATION COLLECTION& EXCHANGE REPRINT SERIES R-49 BEST COPYAVAILABLE INFORMATION COLLECTION & EAMANGE Peace Corps' Information Collection & Exchange (ICE) was established so that the strategies and technologies devel- oped by Peace Corps Volunteers, their co-workers, and their counterparts could be made available to the wide range of development organizations and individual 'corkers who might find them useful.Training guides, curricula, lesson plans, project reports, manuals and Other Peace COrps-generate& materials developed in the field are collected and reviewed. Scale are reprinted "as is"; others provide a source of field based information for the production of manuals or for re- search in particular program areas. Materials that you sub- mit to the Information Collection & Exchange thus became part of the Peace Cbrps' larger contribution to development. Information about ICE publications and services is available through: Peace Corps Information Collection & Exchange Office of Training and Program Support 806 Connecticut Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20526 Add your exverie to the ICE Resource Center. Send ma- terials that you'v, _pared so that we can share'them with others working in the development field.Your tech- nical insights serve as the basis for the generation of ICE manuals, reprints and resource packets, and also ensure that ICE is providing the most updated, innovative problem- solving techniques and information available to you and your fellow development workers. Peace Corps 3 THE ROLE OF THE PEACECORPS IN EDUCATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A SECTOR STUDY Roger L. Landrum Reprinted By: PEACE CORPS Information Collection and Exchange Reprint Series R-49 July 1984 4 JANUARY 1981 Printed 1981 by the U.S. Peace Corps Peace Corps Office of Planning and Evaluation 806 Connecticut Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20526 ii 5 CONTENTS Introduction I. AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THEEDUCATION SECTOR 1. Overview of Twenty Years of Education Assistance 6 2. Twenty Years in Sierra Leone 14 II. DISTRIBUTION OF EDUCATION VOLUNTEERS AND PROGRAMMING TRENDS;:;j978-1980 3. Worldwide Review hr 24 III. EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT 4. Conditions of Education in Developing Countiies 47 5. The Development Significance ofEducation.,,, 61 . 4 . 6. Role of the Peace Corps in Educational Development 63 4 IV. PROGRAMMING POLICY FOR THE EDUCATIONSECTOR 7. Interpreting the Basic Human Needs Mandate j 72 8. The "Elitism" Issue 80 9. Demand and Supply 82 10. Additional Issues 96 V. RECOMMENDATIONS' APPENDICES: REVIEW OF EDUCATION PROGRAMS BY REGION AND COUNTRY, 1980 A. Africa Education Sector: Summary and Country Overviews 102 B. North Africa/Near East/Asia/Pacific Education Sector: 168 Summary and Country Overviews C. Latin America/Caribbean Education Sector: Summary and 220 Country Overviews iii 6 Introduction This report examines the role played by the Peace Corps education sector in developing countries.An overall review has been necessitated by several factors. In recent years, Peace Corps educationprograms in scores of countries have been passing througha period of close scrutiny. In the main, this has been an effortto bring the education programs under the discipline of the Basic Human Needsdoctrine mandated for all U.S. development assistance by Congress. Now a clear picture isi needed of how much reshaping of the education sector has actuallytaken place. In ad- dition, there has been a spirited debate abouta range of policy issues related to redefining the activities and goals ofPeace Corps volunteers in the education systems of developing countries. Ministers of Education in several countries,some Peace Corps country directors, and senior staff in the Africa Region of theagency have called for clarification of agency policy, and reconsideration ofsome aspects of that policy. Other factors gave impetus to a sector study. Neither inside nor Outside evaluators haveever looked systematically at the worldwide in- volvement of the Peace Corps in education. any prior evaluation studies, some prepared as far back as 1962, have examined all Peace Corpsprograms or a particular sector of activity within individual countries.Some of these are excellent pieces of work, butnone have traced the history of Peace Corps education assistance in specific countries,and none have pulled information about educationprograms together into a broader pic- ture of sector activities in a regionor worldwide. In an effort to de- fine an agency-wide policy for the educationsector, a review was under- taken in 1979.by an agency team, but thisposition paper reflected a particular policy perspective and didnot provide an empirical descrip- tion of how the education sector actually operates.*A straightforward demographic overview of the sector has beenneeded for some time, along with an historical and analytical lookat what has been the largest con- centration of Peace Corps activity since theagency's inception in 1961. Recent reports by the World Bank and the U.S. Agency forInternational Development suggest the discovery of powerfulrelacionships between formal education and several key variables in development.**Just as many of- ficials were concluding that education investments havebeen overempha- sized for the past 20 years, these reports.have c..vated freshinterest among development assistance decision makers in the education field, In- cluding those in the Peace Corps. Questions regarding the distribution *Knowledge/Skills Project Review Team (John Sommer, chairman),"Knowl- edge/Skills Projects and Programming," Memorandumto Peace Corps Country Directors, July 23, 1979. **World Bank, World Development Report, 1980 and EducationSector Policy Paper, 1980; U.S. A.I.D., "Investments in Education in Develop- ing Countries: The Role for A.I.D.," (Draft) May 7, 1980. 1 7 4 2 . of Peace Corps volunteers among various sectors, and shifts in program- ming emphasis within the education sector, suddenly take on a new urgency, especially when the demand for eduCation volunteers is still high. A numbers factor should also be readily admitted as part of the call for a sector review. The Peace Corps has steadily declined in size since the mid-1960s. This has partially reflected an emphasis on quality over quantity since 1967, when the agency peaked in terms of total volun- teers overseas. But the decline in qualified volunteers to fill program demand has recently become so sharp as to threaten the viability of the organization. Peace Corps management is faced with difficult decisions about the appropriate mix of programming sectors in particular countries or regions and trade-offs in development impact. Whether the decline in volunteers is partially explained by a phasing-out of certain education pro- grams without a corresponding capacity to implement other types of pro- grams effectively is a critical issue. Working Procedure The work on which this report is based was conducted over a period of three months. It has been a large