Limitation of Formal Learning

Before you read, the article below is actually one of my weekly coursework for "Personal and Professional Development" subject. Hence, I've made for my weekly article and below are the answer to my coursework on "Limitation of Formal Learning". Moreover, I've stated the authors' name in the paragraph to distinguish my own ideas from those of someone else.

Limitation of Formal Learning

Formal learning has dominated policy thinking, which shaping the ways in which education  and training are provided and coloring people’s understanding of what counts as learning. However, there are limitations in formal education which arouse, and there are;

 1. Formal education is unreachable for the poor and needy people and remote dwellers

An example for this is Zambia. The remote dwellers in rural areas in Zambia are sparsely populated; so many people in this remote place receive less education and most importantly less encouragement, and his is also directed to the poor people in Zambia who facing hardship. This is because Zambia government has already set two education levels, there are; basic education and upper secondary. The basic education covering grade 1 until grades 9, while the upper secondary covering grades 10 until Grades 12. Most children in Zambia will drop out after grades 7, because the government only gave free tuition to student who enrolled from grade 1 until grades 7 as most of school in Zambia are private school, hence without enough money to pay the tuition fees most parents take decisions to drop out their children because when the grades 7 class commence, parents have to pay the tuition fees themselves. As the result of these, in 1991, 40 000 school age children were not in school compared to1,494,817, which were in school. This number increased by 1996 to 650,000 not in school compared to 1,506,650 who were in school (Lungwangwa, 1999). This means that one third of the school age children in Zambia do not attend school.

2. Formal education is unreachable to some kinds of children such as custom loyalist family, illegitimate children, children with disabilities, late beginners and others. 

Some parents strongly bound to their custom or practice that they learnt and followed since they were childhood, so they intend to make the custom that they believes as a continuity. An example for these is the Rasta people which largely found in Jamaica and South America. The Rasta people really highly bound to their practices such they do not drink alcohol, they do not cut their hair, they spiritually smoke marijuana, they are vegetarian and even not receive western medicine. There is a case that is related to Rasta people in Philippi, South Africa where a small number of student who still practices Rasta custom were not allowed go to school, because they refused to produce clinic cards which contain their medical histories as which required by the law in every school in the world just for school admission purposes, especially the immunization for the children. As stated that Rasta people do not consume western medicine, in the end their children did not attend the school because of their bound to heir custom. Hence, most of Rastafarian does informal education as their source of education. 

Aside from that, some of formal education (school) in this world do not accept illegitimate child to enroll in the school. Some school do accept this kind of children on which depends on the school’s policies or requirements, for example in Malaysia where they only require the Birth Certificate to fulfill the requirement needed. However, most school in Philippines required Marriage Contract of Parents in order for their child enrols to the school. So, many of illegitimate child do not attend school.

3. Formal education incurs high cost for infrastructure facilities and man power facilities.

It was indeed that a budget for formal education particularly high because the demand of education in every country is high where the population of these generation Y keep increasing every year, so, the government of each country have to take it seriously as priority. Nevertheless, Haiti and Somalia were listed as the worst and poor education countries (United Nations, 2010) and the education in these two countries became worst when the global financial crisis hit them when they been forced to cut down their education budget by $4.6 billion a year at a time when intensified efforts are needed to achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goal of ensuring a primary school education for every child in the world by 2015. The United Nations also have listed Eritrea, Comoros, Ethiopia, Chad, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Liberia as top ten of poor education countries which was based on access to basic education, teacher-student ratio and educational provisions for the girls. 

It’s come to my attention that education in Ethiopia fairly worst like other poverty countries where there is few school supplies that were available to each student; for example, school don’t have enough pen or pencil to provide to student or even books, papers and most schools don’t even have water or use-able toilets, this is due packed class where 65 students per teacher in each class in one school. The curriculum of the school is not organized and attendance also follows this unorganized trend. Attendance is not compulsory and as a result there is a low literacy rate. Since supplies are so rare and education is not available to everyone, children often become frustrated and drop out (Van Horn, Christopher and Tilman, Dave, 1997). To overcome this, the Ethiopia government tried to improve the school system by building more schools and enrolling more children in school. However the rates on literacy still low, so they improvised their curriculum system and made education more relevant or realistic to children’s lives. 

The government also started the National Literacy Campaign Coordinating Committee in 1979 to raise literacy rates, and officials distributed more than 22 million reading booklets for beginners causing enrollment rates to increase from 2.5 million to 4.9 million. The government is trying to make improvements in the educational system in Ethiopia; however these changes are occurring at a very slow rate. In relation to these cases, the World Bank Managing Director, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala announced that its forces that gives grants and soft credits to the world's 79 poorest countries is pledging an additional $750 million over the next five years, a 40 percent increase in the bank's basic education spending over the last five years directed at the poorest countries. 

In conclusion, we as the Malaysian should be at least grateful at our education system because compared to the poor country, we at least received a full supplies of education kit such stationery, free text books, food and drink, and even laptop and pocket money given to Malaysian students. Even though Malaysia’s education curriculum is still not that great compare to UK’s education system (for example), but we still felt comfortable to study in schools without any facilities lacking.