School drop outs as bare foot veterinarians: lessons from a nonformal education project

Abstract

This paper is based on the experience of a non-governmental organization in educating 113 school drop-outs as ybare-footz veterinarians in the tribal areas of Gujarat. The pedagogy focussed on yunlearningz and countering certain internalized stereotypes like ybackwardnessz in order to make a meaningful integration of theoretical knowledge and experiential learning possible. The development of the curriculum for the programme involved a combining of local material and cultural practices with external technologies in order to evolve blended material practices. Locating the latter in appropriate institutions was equally important. The paper develops a framework for understanding the content and context of learning and research in such educational projects which deal with people with minimum qualifications. While learning at the individual level is no doubt important, group-learning methodologies are especially relevant in order to understand the merging group technologies and to locate them in appropriate institutions. Developing yreflexivityz is equally important for monitoring the context of learning.