Good Practices in Literacy and NFE Programmes - Literacyportal.net

- Delegation of responsibility to the target communities can increase the impact ofdesired outcomes;- Experience indicates that people need life skills instruction more than abstractknowledge, and in instances where it is provided as a fundamental part of the CLCcurriculum, people welcome the programmes;- Education programmes will be more successful when they are based on learners’needs and interests; and- Where there is no innovation or creativity, there is no success in the programme. CLCs are a powerful mechanism for empowering communities. They need to befurther strengthened. The problem of community development should be viewed as along-term activity – it takes time and requires investments (human, financial, technicaland capacity building) to produce results. The concerned local authorities should beactively involved at all stages of establishing and operating CLCs. In selecting futureCLCs, it is beneficial to work with (credible) local NGOs to determine their optimallocation, since the latter have gained both experience and visibility on communitydevelopment issues. Some of the main reasons for the failure of the Community Education ResourceCentres (CERCs) in the Maldives, have been the following:- The staff were employed part-time and were selected from the formal educationsystem, which lacked the capacity to pay attention to the development of nonformaleducation programmes;- The atoll community educators did not have enough motivation to promotecommunity education activities;- There was a lack of public interest in CERCs;- Reading materials were not relevant to the contextual background, and did notaddress the needs of the readers;- Some materials are too factual and lack lighter, recreational reading content. CLCs may be used as a foundation for community development endeavours, through:- Promoting an interactive and participatory process and by using local expertiseand local resources;- Involvement of local people in the design of CLC programmes, which can make astrong contribution to their achieving success;- Focusing on long-term and income-generating programmes; Establishingpartnerships with other organizations and stakeholders;- Developing strategies for mobilizing local resources - human, material, financial –in the implementation of local development programmes;- Institutionalizing the local monitoring and evaluation system, which should consistof local stakeholders;- Emphasizing the operation of the CLC as an evolutionary process- Enabling and empowering local stakeholders to take charge of the entire gamut ofCLC affairs (technically, professionally and financially); and- Revamping the CLC structure to become a donor-facilitated, but communitymanagedinstitution, to assure its sustainable operation Initiatives for specific “at-risk” target groups, such as CLCs specifically targeting street children,should be replicated; and innovative programmes for youth groups should be introduced. Research-based implementation and supervision of projects have been found to help local peoplegain new vocational skills and enhance their employment security. Members of the target groupsselected their vocations through a critical thinking process that in the future will help them to34