Key Message 6: Bringing Learning Closer to Home

The document Creating Our Future Together that constitutes Malta's National Curriculum proposes the following with respect to our country's vision to bringing learning closer to the home:

" Schools should serve as community learning centres that also cater for the education of adult members of the community. This principle combines the commitment of this Curriculum to a holistic education with the recognition of the importance of lifelong education and the need for stakeholder participation in the educational process."

The National Curriculum moreover states that, in the process of transforming our schools into community learning centres, consideration should be given to:

• investment in furnishing and other resources that are required for the running of educational programmes;
• structural changes and the reorganisation of other parts of the school so that adult users would feel comfortable and respected;
• surveying the community's needs and interests;
• encouraging community members to actively participate in putting this principle into effect by indicating their needs and interests; forming educational interest groups; assisting in the administration of the projects; offering expertise to the community; participating as students; and providing help with school maintenance;
• strengthening the Adult Education section of the Division of Education to provide a support system for these initiatives;
• the development of collaborative mechanisms between School Councils and Local Councils;
• the need for Local Councils to consider this field as a priority area and to allocate financial resources.

Recommendations by Stakeholders at the June 2000 Workshop: Participants considered the plan presented by the Working Group on Schools as Community Learning Centres as a realistic and viable one that should be implemented after a careful and rigorous selection process for Centre Co-ordinators. Since the required competencies of a Co-ordinator include the ability to engage community members in a process of reflection about individual and collective educational support needs, working non-directively with young and adult members of the community, facilitating capacity building, and harnessing locally available energies and resources for the fulfilment of identified educational support needs, the Co-ordinator do not necessarily have to be members of the teaching profession. Such centres would require a management structure which can be resisted by certain categories of stakeholders.

Recommendations by stakeholders who answered the Consultation Questionnaire on Lifelong Learning: Stakeholders mentioned 5 major benefits of bringing learning closer to home:

1. It is learner-focused rather than teacher focused.
2. ICT use in support of learner-initiated learning is easier to use, faster in accessing required materials and tutors, and has a wider applicability and accessibility;
3. Independent home-based learning ensures flexibility both in determining and accessing own-choice learning as well as learning at one's own pace and time in one's own environment. Moreover, differences in individual body cycles and peak concentration as well as learning abilities are respected.
4. Independent home-based learning has the additional potential of engaging and stimulating other family members to embark on their own self-directed, independent learning journey.
5. Community-based learning opportunities can maximise local resource utilisation, such as computers in schools, school buildings normally empty after 2.30 in the afternoon, and local expertise.
    

Stakeholders mentioned the following potential obstacles to bringing learning closer to home:

1. Independent home-based learning:
   - lacks face-to-face learner interaction/ peer stimulation/ opportunities to develop social skills / loss of campus life experience/ structure and supervision;
   - requires restructuring of teaching methodologies and tools;
   - generates resistance by educators to retraining in production of ICT self-learning tools and modules;
   - the home environment can be distracting.
2. Schools as Community Learning Centres: Implementing the mandate provided by the National Curriculum to transform schools into Community Learning Centres may require a certain degree of physical restructuring of the physical environment to accommodate adult learners. It also requires a co-ordinated planning approach and substantial funding.
   Stakeholders made the following key suggestions:
   1. A major paradigm shift is needed from planning for learners towards the on-going involvement of learners in identifying own learning needs and interests.
   2. Collective effort to target underachievers through (a) early identification and intervention approaches, as well as (b) the provision of second chance and other opportunities.
3. National motivation campaign on learner-initiated learning that would be undertaken simultaneously with the development of ICT in support of learner-initiated home-based learning. Initiatives would include capacity building courses at work and in community, and guidance regarding advanced search engines to filter out distracting information. A mix of approaches would have to be used - home-based learning & group tutorials, community-based courses, education channel, etc. New opportunities can be created through community-based linkages with regional networks.
4. Collective and collaborative resource mobilisation and allocation that involve School Councils, Local Councils, Parish Councils, Employment and Training Corporation, community-based organisations, public and private educational entities, NGOs, professionals, and community members.
5. Immediate piloting of schools to be transformed into community learning centres. A national plan for such an initiative has already been formulated and a few Local Councils, such as the Fgura one, have already made plans to start this initiative. Such centres should also target latchkey kids, gifted children, and give priority to early years education for parents, especially those with children below three years.
6. A national data-base of non-formal and informal learning opportunities should be created and accessed through internet so that interested individuals, community based organisations, job brokers, etc. can tap into it. Such a data-base should be marketed so that citizens learn how to tap it.
7. Upgrading roles and functions of School Councils: School Councils should eventually take on the role of a School Governing Board that would also be responsible for staff recruitment, policy development, business and financial planning, etc. However, this measure goes hand-in-hand with a school management decentralisation policy and plan. School management should be further decentralised.
8. A system needs to be developed whereby skills and knowledge learned through informal learning channels can be valued. Parenting skills would constitute one of the categories of skills given value.
9. Examples of good practice should be recorded and promoted to stimulate other initiatives and to create a multiplier effect.
10. Training courses in non-directive approaches to working with the community should be provided to those actively involved in managing schools as community learning centres.