Roberto García-Marirrodriga Pedro Puig Calvó PROMOTING ...

Roberto García-Marirrodriga Pedro Puig Calvó

PROMOTING RURAL DEVELOPMENT THROUGH EDUCATION

© 2015 Roberto García-Marirrodriga & Pedro Puig Calvó Promoting Rural Development Through Alternating Cycle Education AIMFR

ISBN: xxx-xxxxx-xx-xx-x Translation into English: Judith Polo & Gregory Vaughan Cover photographs (from the AIMFR photo archive):

(from left to right and top to bottom) 1. Graduates from various ICEFATs in Quetzaltenango (Guatemala). 2. Promoter Group of Rural Families from Cuzco CRFA (Peru). 3. Team of Pedagogical Coordinators from EFAs in Cameroon. 4. Team of Tutors of Talon FFS (Batangas, Philippines).

Content design:

XXXXX XXXXX Cover design:

XXXXX XXXXX All rights reserved. The partial or total reproduction of the present work without prior written consent from the copyright-holders is prohibited. Editor: XXXXXX AIDEFA-AIMFR Collection Printed in the Philippines First edition, January 2015

DEDICATION

To our parents Roberto (in memoriam) and María Paz García-Marirrodriga,

Pedro (in memoriam) and Núria Puig Calvó,

and to our brothers and sisters.

To those who began the Family Centers of Education using the Alternating Cycle

Pedagogical System (CEFFAs) in different countries, and who with untiring

dedication rapidly created a real social and cultural revolution in the

environments where they worked.

Especially to Fritz R. Gemperle (in memoriam), who initiated the first Family

Farm Schools in the Philippines.

To the rural youth throughout the world that every day construct their own

future and that of their communities, especially to those linked to the different

Family Movements for Rural Alternating Cycle Formation. To their parents,

primary educators, who have realized the irreplaceable value of education in the

future of their children. To the families and everyone else who gives life to the

Associations dedicated to the progress of their surroundings.

To the Tutors, who tirelessly accompany youth and adults in the processes of

formation and local development.

To rural people throughout the world, often so forgotten, especially to those who

make their living from farming.

The authors

INDEX DEDICATION PRESENTATION PROLOGUE

Page

CHAPTER 1 THE CEFFA, AN INITIATIVE OF RURAL FAMILIES

THE FIRST CEFFA A Small Village in the Southeast of France: Sérignac-

Péboudou Constructing the First Formation Plan The First Year The First Monitor, the Legal Status and the Commitment of

the Families THE MAISON FAMILIALE RURALE (MFR) OF LAUZUN THE PROGRESS OF THE MOVEMENT The “National Union” and the Center for Pedagogy G. Thibon & F. Nové-Josserand The First “Professors” of Alternating Cycle THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FAMILY MOVEMENTS

FOR RURAL FORMATION (AIMFR) Dakar, 1975: the Birth of AIMFR Philosophy, Objectives and Instruments of the AIMFR FROM A LOCAL INITIATIVE TO THE WORLDWIDE EXPANSION

OF THE MOVEMENT

CHAPTER 2 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CEFFA

DEFINITION, ENDS, AND MEANS OF THE CEFFA

The Association Formation Development The Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle The “Four Pillars” of the CEFFA THE MAIN STAKEHOLDERS OF THE CEFFA The Families, Responsible for the Education of their children

and the operations of the CEFFA The Educators and the Educational Structure Local businesses and Alternating Cycle coordinators The Youth in Formation THE NECESSITY OF FORMATION AND THE GUIDANCE OF

DEVELOPMENT AGENTS The Formation of Families The Formation of the Administration Councils of the

Associations The Initial and Continued Pedagogical Formation of the Tutors The Formation of Directors University Formation for the CEFFA Educators

CAPÍTULO 3 THE VITALITY OF THE CEFFA MOVEMENT

PRESENT SITUATION OF THE WORLDWIDE CEFFAs The CEFFAs in Europe The CEFFAs in America The CEFFAs in Africa The CEFFAs in Asia and Oceania Future Perspectives: the Expansion of the CEFFAs all over the

World SOME COMMON ASPECTS THAT MUST BE CONSIDERED The Origins and Promotion of the CEFFAs Recognition and Administrative Oversight Financial and Economic Resources The Question of Power Transfer Relations with Public Administration Teaching in the CEFFA: the Tutors THE DIVERSITY OF PROFESSIONAL ORIENTATIONS IN THE

CEFFAS The Ages of Students

The Diversification of Professions and Levels of Formation ALTERNATING CYCLE, PEDAGOGY FOR THE FUTURE: IN WHAT

CONDITIONS?

CHAPTER 4 CEFFAs AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT

DEVELOPMENT: REFLECTIONS ON SOME KEY CONCEPTS Local Development Rural Development and “Rurality” Agriculture or Rural Areas? Urban-Rural Synergies THE “NEW RURALITY” IN LATIN AMERICA THE CREATION OF SOCIAL FABRIC THROUGH THE CEFFA

ASSOCIATION THE PROJECTS OF THE CEFFA STUDENTS, A CONTRIBUTION

TO LOCAL DEVELOPMENT Formation Plan and Youth Project Some Projects of CEFFA Graduates TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE RURAL DEVELOPMENT BASED ON

PEOPLE AND THEIR FORMATION

REFERENCES

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

PRESENTATION

The International Association of Family Movements for Rural Formation (AIMFR)

is composed of the Family Centers of Education using the Alternating Cycle

Pedagogical System (CEFFAs) from 40 countries on five continents. Among its

objectives are the provision of basic services for the development of the CEFFA

Associations, and in particular a Central Service for Pedagogy Research and

Information.

To advance this international movement, it is necessary to spread word of its

mission, characteristics, functioning, and the impact of CEFFAs on rural youth

and their families. One way to do this is the publication of awareness-raising

books of a high academic standard. To this end in 2007 the AIDEFA Collection

(International Alternatives in Development, Education, Family, and Alternating

Cycles) was released, with titles in Spanish, Portuguese, French, and now

English.

The present work, the first of the collection in English, presents some general

traits of the CEFFA educational and development movement. Its authors,

Roberto García-Marirrodriga and Pedro Puig Calvó, have updated much

information from their 2007 book “Formación en alternancia y desarrollo local. El

movimiento educativo de los CEFFA en el mundo”, published in Argentina. They

have added data, broadened the conceptual discussions, and revised the editing.

Their experience of many years as a technical/pedagogical assistance team in

DISOP-SIMFR gives the work a global dimension, such that the affirmations are

not limited only to certain settings but rather to the general CEFFA movement

backed by AIMFR.

It is my great pleasure to present this book, “Promoting Rural Development

through Education”. In the first place, because I am a good friend of the authors.

Then, because as I said in my first address as President of AIMFR, our movement

must preserve and value each person in his or her totality. We must work in

favor of the family, whose rich legacy of values is so necessary for the

development of young people and their territories. Books such as this, conceived

especially for the formation of members of local CEFFA Associations and Tutors,

contribute to the development of rural territories through the integral

development of youth and their families. Because of this I recommend that

everyone give this book a calm, reflective reading.

I am sure that this book will contribute to the development of each reader, of

every family, of every CEFFA, and of the entire Movement in every country and

throughout the world. Its publication in English will allow this work to reach

many more people, many families, many territories that will discover the

Alternating Cycle as an alternative for education and development for rural

youth.

Octacilio Echenagusía

President of AIMFR

PROLOGUE: A NEW WORLD, A NEW PEDAGOGY

This publication seeks to introduce you to the evolving universe of Alternating

Cycle Formation. It is a world in constant change. The truest school is the school

of life, because it is life that shapes all schools!

Over 20 years ago, the Belgian organization SIMFR (International Solidarity of

Family Movements for Rural Formation), created at the beginning of the 1980s,

had the exceptional privilege of founding (along with AIMFR) an international

structure for the promotion of CEFFAs (Family Centers of Education using the

Alternating Cycle Pedagogical System). Experts from France, Spain, Portugal,

and Italy joined efforts to develop this great family of CEFFAs in the world. Their

shared experience was also united to the years of work in Argentina, Brazil, Peru,

Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, Guatemala, and a few African and Asian countries.

The exchange of different experiences created a body of research and practices

adapted to local realities. This is similar to the story of a good wine. When

grapevines have adapted to their surroundings and have given fruit, after a long

wait they ripen and are ready for harvest and transformation, and they become a

good product. When these same grapevines are planted in other regions or even

other countries, they adapt once again to produce excellent results. This is how

all the labor of the CEFFAs has been undertaken:through multiplication and

rearrangement. The fruit is valid insofar as it meets the concrete needs of each

territory. The transfer of technology is the interchange of experiences. Each

region is different, each country is unique, and even more so each continent.

The idea of a single way to work, a monopoly on truth, goes against the very

essence of this pedagogical undertaking. Any cooperation or exchange should try

to offer a pertinent response to reality.

In some countries of Latin America cooperation has translated into help for

national structures, especially where some local initiatives had already

established their own dynamic. There has also been the development of new

local or regional initiatives, both in the inauguration of CEFFA activities and in

their underlying structures. In every occasion these initiatives are inspired by

their own local reality, with widespread local support and some external help

where needed. The guiding philosophy is, “what you can do yourselves, you will

do better,” and, “the exchange of your experiences is the best teacher”. Based

on this experience, the number of CEFFAs has multiplied spectacularly in

countries like Peru, Guatemala, Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil.

A fundamental aspect has been the pedagogical construction and strengthening

of the CEFFA system. This has been possible thanks to a well-trained team with

experience in alternating cycle education. This team has grown gradually over

the years, based on the experience and the reflections of many people who have

worked in the EFAs, MFRs, CEAs, CFRs, etc. We must highlight the extraordinary

contribution of Pedro Puig (Belgium) and Jean-Claude Gimonet (France) to this

work. Following them are Roberto García-Marirrodriga (Spain) and Francisco da

Cruz (Portugal). They created a team of some ten people, which has contributed

an indispensable oversight to realizing this work of technical assistance.

Today this labor continues in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In these countries it

is important to retain the reasoning of, “how do they respond to their own

necessities?” and, “what can we offer them?” Rural communities, parishes,

existing local organizations, family associations, etc., constitute the best base to

give form to these new initiatives that have a grand respect for diversity and

tradition, different beliefs and vital customs. From the moment in which families

get together, manifest their desire to educate and form their youths, and express

their willingness to work together, it is possible to create the base structure for a

true CEFFA.

This procedure has become the guarantee of a present-day pedagogy practiced

in many countries that offers a response to the necessities of each family, each

region, each country. In the future, it will also be the essential element for a

sustainable expansion of the CEFFAs. It is possible to create some supporting

elements to contribute to their development, insofar as these elements are

faithful to these initiatives. Above all, such support much be discrete in order to

sustain and conduct this work. Authorities must manifest themselves as

subsidiary elements. The governing rule should be that in aspects where people

are willing and able to act by themselves, the authorities have little to offer. To

the contrary, they should respect the creative forces of civil society, offering

support and stimulus. This is real democracy.

The different aspects of this new pedagogy are introduced in the four chapters of

this book, which will lead us to the discovery of this interesting pedagogical

system that continues to evolve in some 40 countries today. Chapter 1, by

Roberto García-Marirrodriga (also author of Chapter 4) explains the reasoning

behind the basic responsibility of the family in the CEFFAs, through their history

and the founding principles of AIMFR. In our opinion, the family is the first

teacher. Chapter 2, elaborated (like Chapter 3) by Pedro Puig Calvó, presents the

characteristics and particularities of the system, embodied in the “Four Pillars”.

Chapter 3 reviews the dynamism of the CEFFAs, which constitute a response to

the necessities of today's world. Ever-evolving, the CEFFAs are ready to adapt to

the necessities of the moment, and to always be the school of the future.

Finally, Chapter 4 looks at the impact of CEFFAs in rural development.

We believe that you will be convinced by reading this book that it is possible to

respond to the challenges of a New World with a New Pedagogy. Each innovation

will bring new fruit!

Aimé F. Caekelbergh

President of DISOP-SIMFR

PROMOTING RURAL DEVELOPMENT THROUGH ALTERNATING CYCLE EDUCATION Chapter 1

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CHAPTER 1

THE CEFFA, AN INITIATIVE OF RURAL FAMILIES1

THE FIRST CEFFA2

The Maisons Familiales Rurales (MFR)3 did not emerge by chance, nor were they the decision of public authorities. They had their own pioneers, their own “artisans”, a group of very diverse people in terms of profession and circumstances: farmers, small business owners, traders, priests, urban and rural residents. These people were endowed with great character and with a common ideal despite having different points of view due to the circumstances and the process of development of their rural communities.

The founding of the first MFR in Lauzun in 1937 was the result of deep reflections and multiple debates presiding in the French countryside since the 1920s, as well as a “períod of experimentation” for two years in the small village of Sérignac-Péboudou. The influence of the parish priest (Father Granereau), an agricultural organization (the Central Secretariat for Rural Initiatives), and some farmer-parents of adolescents committed to trade movements (led by Jean Peyrat, first President of the historic MFR), were decisive. Chartier describes the important transformation occurring in French agriculture from 1920 to 1939 (Chartier, 1986). It had not yet generalized the use of tractors, although farmers had

1 This chapter was written by Roberto García-Marirrodriga, adapted from: GARCÍA-MARIRRODRIGA, R. 2002. “La formación por alternancia en el medio rural: contexto e influencia de las MFR sobre el desarrollo local de Europa y los PVD. Modelo de planificación y aplicación al caso de Colombia” (“The Alternating Cycle Educational System in Rural Communities: Context and Influence of the MFRs on Local Development of Europe and the Developing Countries. A Planning Model and its application to the case of Colombia”). Doctoral Thesis (Polytechnic University of Madrid, UPM), published on line by the Digital Archive of UPM. 2 We will use the name “CEFFA” maintaining the Spanish and Portuguese acronym (meaning Family Centers of Education using the Alternating Cycle Pedagogical System), that describes MFR types of schools (currently scattered in 40 countries in five continents, as what we will see in Chapter 3). In the same way, we will use the name “alternating cycle” to speak about the modality of education used by the CEFFA (even if in some cases the name “alternation” could appear). For the teachers, we will use the name “tutor” (used in the Philippines instead of “monitor”, used in Spanish, French and Portuguese). 3 Original French name of the first CEFFA, whose origin and development will be explained in this Chapter. The text means: “Rural Family Houses”. We thought of lining up for the first time the systematic information about the first years of this Movement in English, it could be interesting for the CEFFA in Asia and some countries of Africa & Oceania. For this reason, and because we believe that it is important to know the history as thoroughly as possible -to maintain the “identity”, there is a need to know and value the “roots” of the movement-, it does not have to be very exhaustive in the explanation of the birth and the first years of the CEFFA.


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implemented some degree of mechanization. There was also a crisis in the selling of milk, pork, beef, and other agricultural produce. There were incipient attempts to manage the market, as with the Wheat Service. And a phenomenon of rural exodus and urbanization was underway, leading to the abandoning of numerous specific towns and the rural community in general. In 1932, the number of agricultural youth who received professional formation did not even reach 4%. Nevertheless, from the last years of the 19th century, numerous methods had been implemented to generalize agricultural education. Some had success, but the majority favored rural exodus. Some farmers were aware of the situation of this technical, economic, and social evolution that was going on before them. Some wanted to go forward, to organize themselves; but there were few who responded to this specific call.

A Small Village in the Southeast of France: Sérignac-Péboudou

One of them, a true community leader, was Jean Peyrat4. His son Yves was one of the first four students of the first MFR. Together with him the parish priest, Father Granereau5, who according to Duffaure was a machine of ideas, although one should better not leave him alone to put those ideas into practice (Duffaure, 1985). In a very personal way he wanted to listen and work with others and consider their opinions. He was also a member of the “Sillon” Movement6, whose ideas seem to have contributed to the formation of his personality. Father

4 A Sérignac-Péboudou farmer who was born during the first years of the 20th century. A very competent farmer and President of the Farming Organization in his town. He was convinced of the necessity of good education in farming to efficiently manage farms, and had a great interest in the political and social problems of his day. He was a member of the SCIR and was the first President of the MFR National Union of France from its creation in 1941 until 1943. 5 Born in 1885, he was a son of a farmer and felt very attached to the land. He had a deep loyalty to the ecclesiastical hierarchy and, at the same time, an uncommon spirit of initiative.Passionate about the “social question”, he was connected to the Sillon movement. He was ordained priest in 1909 and adjusted his activities to two very specific objectives (Cf. Chartier, 1986): the education of youth and his own formation in social issues (including the founding of an agricultural organization in the parish of Nérac). He was the General Secretary of the SCIR and became the institution’s chaplain. His apostolic zeal and the enormous activity that unfolded in his life left a deep mark in his region and a notable influence in France. As he himself explains in “Le Livre de Lauzun” a work of autobiographical sketches, he considers himself the founder of the MFR. He died in 1987 in Auch, in the region where he spent his life in the service of rural communities. 6 A Christian-inspired movement created in 1899 by Marc Sangnier, which aligned its activities with social democracy. The Sillon ideals also draw inspiration from the personalism of Emmanuel Mounier, with his focus on respecting allmankind, and human dignity. The objective of the Sillon movement was to organize farmers in professional associations and agricultural consortiums not only to improve technical synergy, but also to make farmers aware of the nobility of their aspirations and the importance of not letting themselves give in to outside pressure. As a result of some problems with the Church hierarchy, the Sillon movement ceased to exist, although not its influence, which continues to be felt in the SCIR, the MRP (Mouvement Républicain Populaire) and the


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Granereau played an important role in the launching of the first MFR and the first steps of the Alternating Cycle System. Although it is the parents and in particular Jean Peyrat who are responsible for the very essence of the MFR, the needs of families and the methods and the ideas that respond to them, it was Father Granereau who developed this essence. Finally, Arsène Couvreur7 was also a follower of Marc Sangnier and a "social Catholic". He was very much concerned about the development of rural communities. He dedicated himself to social, family, farmer, and political organizations. As a member of the social democratic movement, Couvreurwas familiar with the experiences of the first MFR. He was the one who, by his numerous and important relations with many Parisians, facilitated the first contacts of the promoters with legal authorities. Before this, his two sons, France-Pierre and Marcel, were also active in this particular work and played an important role during the first phase of the establishment of the MFR. These three individuals, Peyrat, Granereau and Couvreur, helped by others, were unquestionably the three pioneers of the MFR. Nevertheless, the determining factor in the establishment of the school came when a young farm child was discouraged because what he would learn from the existing schools in his area would not be sufficient to equip him with the knowledge and skills to realize his dreams. It is telling that seventy years later, this lack of relevance of rural education was also the major contributing factor in the establishment of the CEFFA in Canada (in 1999), one of the latest countries that has established schools of thise type (García-Marirrodriga, 2002). Yves Peyrat, one of Jean’s sons, obtained his diploma in 1934, when he turned 12 years old. His father had been encouraged by a sensible ambition. He wanted his son to become more learned and even more competent than he was, but Yves did not want to go to school. The son’s attitude was so disappointing that Jean sought help from his parish priest, with whom

JAC (Jeunesse Agricole Catholique). These movements educated many farmers in postwar France, including many of the administrators of the MFR until the 1970s (Chartier, 1986). Marc Sangnier (1873-1950) is considered the precursor of the Popular Christian Democratic Movement. He was a delegate to the French Assembly between 1919 and 1924, he contributed significantly to the development of the “youth hostels” and founded the newspaper “L’éveil des peuples” (The People’s Awakening). He led a campaign for peace in Europe in 1932. 7 A Parisian born in a family of businessmen. At the beginning of his professional career, he became a banker in the Bank of France and of the Territorial Credit Cooperative. Afterwards, he dedicated himself to journalism, and he wrote in one of the papers called, "The Cross and the Alb", which was widely circulated at that time. Founder of France Agricole (Agricultural France), an important weekly paper on the current farming situation even so in our days. He was the Vice President of the SCIR.


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he usually discussed important matters. The two had an interesting exchange (Granereau, 1969)8:

- Yves does not want to go to high school. I am dismayed because education shouldn't

end at the age of 12. - Not all is lost. There are other schools around, the priest responded, state schools,

schools offering free education, the Marmande school, for instance. - Yes, all those schools are very good at forming city folk, but not for farmers. - There are agricultural schools; there’s one in Fazanes, about 30 kilometers from your

house. - How many real farmers - Jean Peyrat continued- have you seen coming out of the

agricultural school? Besides that, they charge high fees. The same always happens to us: after studying, we either abandon the land to find success elsewhere, or we stay on the land and stay ignorant all our lives.

- There are also correspondence courses... - That's just a bandage; it doesn't fix the problem.And what if I tutor him individually? - He will get bored; the remedy will become worse than the illness. - And if I find others to study with us? - Father, if you can find others to learn with you, my son will be the first in line. The historic conversation ended in this way, and this marked the birth of the MFRs. Jean Peyrat entrusted his son to the parish priest, but he was aware of the need to build a certain type of school. They decided they would need four students to start. Peyrat’s recruitment work was crucial at this time. He talked to different farmers, particularly those who seemed to be more open to this innovative idea. He first went to Callewaert, an SCIR member9 who

8 This conversation appears to be taken from page 48. It was also taken from Chartier (1986), pp. 63-64, as in different magazines of this epoch like Le Document Agricole in 1936 and Dossiers de l’Action Populaire en 1938, as explained by Chartier. We believe that for its great historic and affective value -it is the source that has allowed the development of the worldwide movement- the fateful conversation deserves an important place in this book. 9 Secrétariat Central d’Initiative Rurale (Central Secretariat for Rural Initiatives). Officially instituted in 1920 under the prevailing union laws, it took up the ideas of the Sillon movement. The idea was to establish independent, autonomous professional farming organizations. The SCIR never sought to become a mass movement, but rather “to gather rural democrats, to collaborate with all existing professional farming associations, and to renew the love of the land, thus renewing the socioeconomic life of the French countryside”. The organization posited in its 1935 statutes (art. 1), the creation of an Agricultural Learning Section for rural youth and for continuing adult education. The objective of this section (art. 2), is “to provide rural youth with intellectual and professional formation, complemented by social, moral, and religious formation capable of converting them into professional leaders of their communities”. In art. 3 are described the benefits of housing students at the school, to improve education, and the benefits of a stable relationship with the families and the social environment. In articles 4 and 9, the characteristics of formation were defined: a center of agricultural learning created by member-parents of the SCIR interested in the formation pointed out in art. 2; that the formation would last for three years; that the center would be overseen by an educator and/or a monitor (“tutor” for us, as explained in note 2) in agricultural studies; that between October and April, one week every month (18 weeks during each of the three years) the students would


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had just enrolled his first son, Lucien, in a special course in Eymet (Dordogne) and was thinking of sending his other son to the same school the following year . Peyrat and Callewaert had a long discussion, until Callewaert decided to entrust his two sons to the parish priest. The same was discussed with Edouard Clavier, who had just established himself on a farm of 25 hectares. These three families who brought four young people together had decided to embark on a purportedly risky adventure. We can already make some observations from these beginnings. In the first place, we are stricken by the personality and the daring and independent character of Jean Peyrat, as well as his confidence in his own judgment. We also see the importance of selecting a few dependable people as they set off on an unseen journey. Jean Peyrat's first partners were men who did not have second thoughts about changing their region in order to ensure a better future for their families and their neighbors. The men involved in the launching of the initiative had the deep “mark” of the SCIR: a spirit of perpetuating and renewing rural values beyond the purely technical and material; a spirit that simultaneously considers production and the producer; a spirit that aims for the development of the person10 through the acquisition of professional competence in collaboration with others, from a perspective of uniting for community development inspired by democratic principles. This “mark” would go on to impact CEFFAs all over the world.

Constructing the First Formation Plan

On September 29, 1935, the officers Peyrat, Clavier, Callewaert, and Granereau held their first meeting in the house of Jean Peyrat. They discussed the founding principles of the new “School”. These pioneers, with an absolute ignorance of teaching and pedagogy, analyzed the current situation, used their common sense, and decided on the basic formation plan guidelines they would like to follow. They outlined a program that would establish three aspects of youth formation: technical, general, and human.

attend classes in small groups for the professional courses and to receive social, moral and religious formation; that in those periods, the parents would provide what is needed for their children’s food and other operating expenses, contributing 300 francs each year... Finally, it was specified that the parents, during the three weeks that students were back on the farm, would entrust their children with the farm's normal practical work, leaving one or two hours each day for schoolwork (cited by Chartier, 1986). 10 Simultaneous to the development of the first MFRs, E. Mounier was developing his ideas of “personalism” in France. This philosophy shares with the Alternating Cycle Educational System a stress on: a) the concept of the person to generate the social change demanded by the times; b) recognizing and developing the spiritual dimension of the human person; c) promoting the importance of community for society's development (Antoniazzi, 2006).


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Technical formation, because the work of a farmer is complicated, meticulous, and risky. Extensive practical learning and real-life study and observation are needed. Hence the farm, as well as the family, the parish, the town, and the province, comprise the most important textbook for the young students. Often in the work of a farmer, the help of the children is necessary to perform farm tasks. The young farmer should know the reasons behind numerous routine tasks. He should understand why things have to be done a certain way, and he can in this way improve his technique if he desires to obtain a better result. There should also be theoretical studies under the guidance of a competent teacher. General formation, and human and Christian formation are also necessary to form character. This allows youth to understand technique, history, society, and the modes of oral and written communication. Moreover the original promotors, Christian parents, wanted to prepare their children professionally for the life they should live, with good social, moral, and human formation. They knew that material success alone does not assure happiness. They wanted their children to be upright and responsible.

They needed to put this program into practice and establish the essentials of the teaching method. To begin with, there were only four students. It was impossible to find a teacher. Father Granereau wanted to help out, but he was not proficient in agricultural practice. He proposed the use of a correspondence course. He had entered in contact with the head of an Agricultural Correspondence course in Purpan. To assure a suitable accompaniment for the students, Father Granereau, who had worked “monitoring” the schoolwork of the students, proposed to reorganize the monthly work period to include one complete week in the parish house. Although there were certain reservations on the part of the parents, the priest convinced them of the necessity of group living, as an indispensable part of the students' formation. He also insisted that the parents needed to allow some time for their children to do schoolwork during the three weeks they would spend at home. In this spontaneous way, the “alternating cycle” was born with a rhythm11 of three weeks in the farm and one week in the school. In this first meeting, they also discussed the students’ board and lodging, maintenance, and other expenses. The parish house of Sérignac-Péboudou was sufficient for lodging: a large room served as the common dormitory; for maintenance, each family would contribute to the

11 Eventually, the more common rhythm became two weeks on the farm and one week in the school. Currently, the practice tends towards spending two weeks in the farm and two weeks in school (but always at least 50% of the time in the actual socio-professional work: the students' small farm, family enterprise, or another enterprise).


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necessary supplies. A total of 300 francs for each student would cover other operating expenses. Another issue those pioneering fathers had to address were the legal statutes. They considered simply enrolling the students in the Purpan correspondence courses of Purpan, bolstered bythe law of January 18, 1929, which gave parents the right to educate their children on the farm. The correspondence courses would serve as theoretical classes. The promotors designated Arsène Couvreur to take charge of linking up with the authorities. Couvreur proposed the creation of an education division in SCIR12. On October 13, 1935, they established the Statutes of the Section d’Apprentissage Agricole du Secrétariat Central d’Initiative Rurale pour la Région du prunier d’Ente dit prunier d’Agen13. These were the two decisive events in the founding of the MFRs: a conversation between the parish priest and a father concerned about the formation of his son; and a meeting between three fathers of future students. The pioneers could not imagine that after many years, their goals and principles would inspire hundreds of MFRs and would even spread around the world. If over the years people have adapted and improved the basic formula, it is because these two founding events were based on the following principles: responsibility and commitment of the families, apedagogy adapted to the needs of the community, and an integral formation capable of contributing to local development and achieving active participation from the community members.

The First Year

The parents decided to open the new “course” on November 21, 1935, after the planting season had ended. On this day, the four students arrived at the parish house of Sérignac-Péboudou accompanied by their parents in a vehicle that transported their luggage, personal effects, and food. The young ones, leaving their homes for the first time, initiated the good practice of writing to their parents. Through these letters we know what transpired that first day14. In the letters we find both fun and moving moments, of which we will cite only one. In the afternoon, the parish priest visited the town, partially destroyed after the First World War, 12 See note 9. For a better understanding of the previous incidents in Sérignac-Péboudou (The Sillon and SCIR Movement), also the biographical notes about Padre Granereau, Marc Sangnier, Jean Peyrat and Arsène Couvreur, see Chartier (1986: 43-62). 13 “Agricultural Education Section of SCIR, for the plum farming region of Ente, called plum of Agen”. 14 Kept in the archives of UNMFREO (Union Nationale des Maisons Familiares Rurales d’Éducation et d’Orientation, meaning The National Union of French MFR). The reproduced passage can be found in Chartier (1986: 79).


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with his four students. They visited the church, the town hall and some old houses that would soon be in ruins. “After eating, the priest told us: Have you seen the ruins? This is what we see in our fields, and it also depicts an image of our body and soul. We need to raise those ruins… not just you alone, but with the help of other people. This is a great undertaking that requires courage”. And Lucien Callewaert, who wrote about this, added: “because of this, there is a need to act immediately, bravely. You know, father and mother, that I am set to act on this without delay”. It is evident that the priest was able to inspire the four young students to work on a great project: transform rural life and revive a pride in work in the farmers of tomorrow. The weeks in the parish house went well. The young ones worked and studied with satisfaction. In the middle of each week, they would organize farm and orchard visits. “I wanted to help them form an opinion”, said the priest (Granereau, 1969). In this way, the the new pedagogy was strengthened by experience. “My second week confirms the positive impressions of the first, as well as the truth about the new formula of a better education for the peasantry, by alternating cycles between time with the educator and the time with the family15”. In the passing of these weeks, there were times for work and for recreation. This kind of discipline was happily accepted. Good manners were not set aside: the young ones made their beds, and washed their hands before meals. With regards to the religious formation requested by parents and children, the priest performed his usual ministerial tasks with a natural ease. We can imagine in summary that it was not a overly strict kind of teaching imparted in the parish house. And most of all, the initial objectives were achieved, which consisted in being more than a new agricultural school, but rather providing an integral formation to these young farmers. That formation rested on “intense moments” during the stay in the parish house, which permitted a deepening in technical areas and in the general and human formation plan. The farmers, for their part, joined the education program during the farm stay periods, converting themselves in “teachers” of their own children. Thus the alternating cycle completed itself between the two periods of formation. Jean Peyrat, for example, invited the four youngsters to help in the plum harvest. These were the beginnings of the formation imparted in the CEFFAs, with the active collaboration of teachers and families.

15 These lines -personal recollections of Father Granereau- were written 34 years hence. But the expression alternating cycle describes in a novel way the pedagogic discovery of 1935 (Granereau, 1969).


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By the end of the first six months, the project seemed to be a success. Inspired and motivated by the SCIR, the parents decided to have a closing ceremony for the year on May 10, 1936. Many invitations were given out, bearing the signature of the SCIR and Jean Peyrat. Some 50 people came to the ceremony and met with the families of the four original students. The program started with a Mass, and afterwards came a presentation about the “Pilot Project of the SCIR Rural School”. This was followed by a lengthy discussion, then a family meal, and concluded with an examination of students proctored by a teacher in charge of the Purpan high school's correspondence courses. The tests lasted for two hours but the youngsters took it calmly, and this impressed the farmers attending. The proctor congratulated the young students and after computing their grades and the examination scores, decided to give them awards. He gave a bronze medal to the best student, in the name of the Farmers’ Society of France. The work of SCIR was necessary to stir the interest of the Ministry of Agriculture in this pioneering effort in Sérignac-Péboudou. This fostered relations between the MFR schools and different countries' educational authorities. This relationship is always necessary for at least two reasons: the recognition of titles granted by the schools, and in many cases the indispensable economic support lent by the state to the CEFFA16. Next came a speech about the necessity of integral formation for future farmer and leaders, which was imperative for a strong professional agricultural organization that could add value to the region's main products, its plums. In this way, the concern of the pioneers, which was the formation of the youth, naturally resulted in the development of agriculture in the larger region.

The First Monitor17, the Legal Status and the Commitment of the Families

This ceremony closed the first year of schooling, and in effect, excited all the participants and convinced them that this educational method perfectly addressed the needs of their community. The success of the first year and the closing ceremony encouraged many

16 It is sad to note that, though many countries recognize and approve of the CEFFA, the schools are often unable to obtain economic support from the relevant ministries (Ministries of Agriculture in France and Paraguay; Education in Argentina, Peru and Spain; Employment in Portugal and Honduras, for example...). Such support is difficult to achieve outside of Europe. This issue will be discussed further in Chapter 3. 17 This is the original name for designating the teacher in the Alternating System. About its role, see Chapter 2. We can mention in advance that this means an atypical teacher -called monitor in a lot of countries or tutor in the Philippines- who needs to convert himself into someone who gives life to the alternating cycle formation and community development, and accompanies the student -each student- in his or her itinerary of formation and socio-professional insertion. In this book, we will use the word tutor to name the teachers of the Alternating Cycle Pedagogical System (as explained in note 2).


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families to entrust their children to the new “Peasant School”. About 15 to 20 students were prepared to take the course, but the priest alone couldn't do the work of teaching all of them. Hence the parents decided to hire a full-time tutor. They selected Jean Cambon, son of a farmer, who had recently graduated from Purpan School and had been teaching in a state-owned agricultural school. Another important decision for the second year was the school's legal status. Those truly in charge of this young rural school were the SCIR. They had set up a section for education, and now they had to create an organization to ensure its funding and assume other responsibilities. Furthermore, the Secretariat was in Paris. All these factors compelled the school's advocates to organize a rural section of SCIR to take charge of the project and to prepare with the Ministry of Agriculture the necessary measures to ensure the long-term survival of this novel educational model. On August 23, 1936, about ten people aside from the pioneers held a meeting. After a lengthy discussion, they agreed to create a rural section for the plum-cultivating region of Agen. They set up a pilot group with Jean Peyrat as President. They wrote a letter to the Ministry of Agriculture so that the Rural School initiative would be approved as a mode of compulsory education. In that same meeting, they likewise agreed to create a point of sale: “planting plums is good -uttered one of the participants- but, what are we going to do with the plums?” They were unsure about whether to establish a union, Granereau’s point of view, or a cooperative, a proposal of the farmers. They chose the latter option. They then agreed to have another meeting for the official founding of the cooperative. This important meeting took place in March 20, 1937. The group of parents discussed the cooperative, but most importantly they made a momentous decision: to transfer the classes of Sérignac-Péboudou to the province’s capital, Lauzun, which would allow the model to reach more people. At the same time, they decided to create a rural school for girls. The pioneering parents discussed the logistics and the future of the “Maison d’Apprentissage Agricole” (meaning house of agricultural learning). For the first time, the name maison appeared, which means home, instead of school. It was a further step toward the final name of “Maison Familiale”. More than just a name, it pointed to the primary role of the parents. This change of headquarters required the purchase of a building and its furnishings, which implied a need for funding. To carry this out, the members of the rural division and the students’ parents were gathered together in a General Assembly in April 25, 1937. This was


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also the day of the examination for the second year students, now fifteen instead of the initial four. If the first meeting of the year was dominated by information and updates, the second one was one of action and decision. Those present talked about the move they had decided upon, and the property that they needed to buy. The parents rejected an offer from the parish to purchase the buidling, and decided to take charge of the matter themselves. The Archdioceses of the province of Lauzun asked the parents where they would find the money. Clavier replied: “the institution has its own resources18” (Chartier, 1986). Granereau trusted and supported the parents’ decision. The next day the search for the property began with the help of a legal representative, the town mayor. Amazed by the experience of Sérignac-Péboudou and despite his political convictions, which wouldn't normally dispose him to this type of education, the mayor effectively helped in the search. With his assistance, the parents were able to find a big structure, an old public school. After seeing it, the officers resolved that it was perfect for their purposes. Its value was 30,000 French francs. Our protagonists were in serious trouble: they had to pay, organize, and equip themselves with a solid juridical structure. Hence the parents were again summoned to a General Assembly on July 25, 1937. They reviewed and completed the statues that had been proposed the previous year, so that the Association could have all the necessary legal powers. The parents elected Jean Peyrat as President. After its approval, the Association took the name of “SCIR Rural Department for the cultivation of Agen plums”. Legally, it was a Labor Union according to the law of March 21, 1884. Later, on August 31, 1941, it became an Association, the “MFR Association of Lauzun”, in accordance with the Law of 1901. In this way, they were able to avoid being merged with the corporate organization of Vichy, which had decreed an umbrella union organization in this period of agitations in France during the Second World War. All the CEFFA Associations worldwide that would follow afterwards –some of them with other juridical forms according to established laws and the circumstances of each country – would safeguard this independence and autonomy. The total cost (purchase of the building, operating expenses, repairs, furniture...) reached 50,000 francs. The group decided to gett a loan for this amount with a 4% interest, and requested a collective guarantee for the loan value from those who had agreed to make the purchase. This commitment from nine people was worth more than a million francs. The

18 Clavier was the brother of one of the first three pioneering families.


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issue was thus resolved. Each one was conscientious of his personal responsibilities. The loan was obtained through the help of members of the Association with a little assistance by the Crédit Agricole, a bank of France. They collected all the necessary funding and Father Granereau declined all responsibilities in this aspect, which was then assumed by the members of the Section Council and the bank. This assumption of all material and financial responsibilities on the part of the parents became crucial in Lauzun, and beyond Lauzun, in all of the future CEFFA. This signified that education was in the hands of the families. The members of the Association reaffirmed their commitment at the opening ceremony of the MFR of Lauzun and declared (Granereau, 1969; Chartier, 1986)19: “the financial organization of our Maison Familiale and its activities begin under our total responsibility, now and in the future”. This was the first time that the name “Maison Familiale”, (Family Home) appeared. The accountability for the school’s material needs, assumed by the parent-farmers, developed as a key element that brought more global repercussions for the MFR. Preparations for the second year would advance the essential principles of the MFR: responsibility and independence of the parents, the alternating cycle pedagogy with the new tutor, and the organization’s involvement in community development. In the course of the 1936-1937 sessions, everything went as expected in the youths' formation. The presence of Jean Cambon permitted a move towards a more complete pedagogy, and the enrollment in correspondence courses was dropped. As for the officers, they further pursued projects of cooperation with the Rural School. With regards to the cooperative, a lengthy discussion took place to know what statute to adopt: the government project with financial support and an assurance of a possible loan, which would entail a certain dependence on the State, or the statute of the dairy cooperatives of the Alps, this way giving total freedom. This latter form was the one finally adopted, in order to assure the Independence of the officers. The cooperative would not primarily attend to the ambitious objectives of its officers, but would favor the development of future MFRs.

19 To the name of “Maison Familiale” (1937), the title “d’Apprentissage Rural” was added in 1945. In 1968, to make clear that the MFR education system was firmly in accordance with French laws, the title “d’Éducation et d’Orientation” was added (remaining as “MFREO”, or simply “MFR”).


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THE MAISON FAMILIALE RURALE (MFR) OF LAUZUN

The first authentic MFR opened its doors on November 17, 1937 in Lauzun, but it had been born during the General Assembly of July 25 the previous year in Sérignac-Péboudou. It was called “Maison Familiale des Cours Professionnels Agricoles”, or simply “Maison Familiale Rurale of Lauzun” and followed the framework of the Education Law of 1929 (Le Berre, 1999). It had all the necessary elements to truly designate an MFR:

- A locally established Association led by the parents;

- A distinct pedagogy that alternates formation between the education centers, the family, the farm, the community...;

- A concern for community development;

- An integrated approach to education that does not limit itself to the technical and professional aspects of training.

In effect, grouped in a labor-type Association, the parents of the Lauzun MFR students designated an Administrative Council20. In the General Assemblies of the Association, the families and other members decide questions of management major lines of action. Since the beginning of the MFR, there has been a constant interest in involving the parents in the formation of their children. On December 26, 1937, everyone was invited to participate in a meeting that analyzed the first weeks of their School’s operation. At the same time there were debates about the appropriateness of the education to the needs of the community. There was a particular stress put on the best way to coordinate the technical courses of the MFR with practical work on the farm, as well as the best way of making the parents the true leaders of the alternating cycle periods21. This has since been one of the greatest concerns of all CEFFA Associations: to create a favorable climate of “meetings” between people to facilitate the involvement of the School with community life.

20 The Administrative Council (in French, Conseil d’Administration), composed mainly of the families linked to the school, has total responsibility in all the aspects regarding the educative establishment (educative, legal, financial, moral…). It has diverse names according to countries and the type of legislation applicable to the chosen juridical figure of the Association (in Guatemala, Junta Directiva; in Brazil, Diretoria; in Peru, Consejo Directivo; in Uruguay, Comisión Directiva; in Spain and Colombia, Comité Gestor; in Argentina, Grupo Gestor in the CFR and Consejo in the EFA; in the Philippines, “Management Council”...). In general, we refer to this as “Management Council” or simply “Council”, and its members as “administrators”. 21 The name used in France for these people in charge of the students during the time spent in the socio-professional period is maîtres de stage (we will translate it as Alternating Cycle Coordinator). It expresses the direct participations that professionals -or the parents themselves- should assume during the period where the student is in the real world. In these moments the maître de stage that constitutes an authentic guide that accompanies the training process and socio-professional insertion of the youth.


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The alternating cycle educational system constitutes the great characteristic of the project that was first established Sérignac-Péboudou and later in Lauzun, starting with the rhythm of three weeks on the farm and one week in the School. This cycle can change according to the needs of the community, the recommendations of the Council and team of tutors, the place, and the type of formation being given, the students’ age, and of course the country’s laws on education. But the rhythm of the alternating cycle in a particular place is not the same as alternating cycle itself, which possesses some indispensable principles and basic elements. In effect, it seeks to attain a quality of formation where the youth can fully participate in the typical activities of his socio-professional life. To attain a real alternating cycle, the rhythm should at least ensure, more time for real-world learning than classroom learning. To ensure the students’ general formation during the time in the School, it is best to have small groups living in dormitories, normally situated within the same structure that accommodates the classrooms. When the MFR started in Lauzun, although there were already 40 students, only 15 at a time would stay in the school (the rest would be on their family farms). Group living was practiced from the start to facilitate formation, and to help the youth to affirm themselves as part of a group. In the same way that the parents are formed as part of the Association, the students learn responsibility as they organize daily life in the residence. This facilitates life-long learning in society and insertion in the professional world. And so on one hand, the youth transforms himself from a person being formed to the author of his own formation (Gimonet, 1998; UNESCO, 1999). On the other hand, the regional and social environments are not only the places for application of what is learned, but they are the main sources of motivation and acquisition of knowledge. In this way, the socio-professional world and the Association of local actors are at the very heart of the process of formation through alternating cycles (Chartier, 1997). Encouraging the youth and the Parents’ Association is the team of tutors. With the transformation of the SCIR regional division to an autonomous organization, the Council members suggested the changes necessary to ensure formation of the youth during their stay in the School. The Director-Educator was Father Granereau. A new tutor, Patrick Laurent, temporarily substituted Jean Cambon. He was in change of agro-technical formation. A cook completed the team, and was in charge of maintaining and coordinating students, together with the tutor, to achieve order and cleanliness in different areas of the School.


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On November 30, the MFR Association of Lauzun organized its first community activity: a Symposium for Rural Women. For many months they had been seriously considering an MFR for girls. To begin with, they created an educational program which was attended by thirty girls, one day every month. It was still far from the “ideal MFR” but it was a start, Most of all, together with the MFR for boys, it represented an essential contact with the rural community. A Symposium on the use of fertilizers followed, with the cooperation of a community expert and the tutor, Laurent. Some twenty farmers from the area participated. From the beginning, the MFRs have sought solutions to community problems and looked to improve their regions. This is an example of a commitment to rural community development that may vary according to the needs of the times, the region, and the vitality of the Association, but that must always be present in an MFR. The MFR officers did not want their project be the only one of its kind. To share their experience, they began to publish a small newsletter: “La Maison Familiale”. It was at once a medium of information, and a communication link between the students’ families and all those interested in the project. In Sérignac-Péboudou and eventually in Lauzun, a handful of simple farmers whose sons would become future farmers, agreed to seek solutions to the education problems in their community. To carry out their duties, administrators require a learning process that is only productive if the concrete responsibilities that each one assumes are real and can be adapted to the actual situation. But the creation of the first MFR would not have been possible with just some parents discussing what education would be most convenient for their children. It also required that the families be obliged to assume complete responsibility for the school's management, and to go beyond what they envisioned at the beginning (they had to personally take on a bank loan). The responsibilities assumed by the parents were simple, limited, concrete. They could be assumed by people without much preparation, but with an overwhelming common sense. By taking up these simple duties however, the parents were trained to undertake more complex tasks. They were capable of diving into the complex world of education and teaching, in order to understand that the best system would be to alternate time between practical and theoretical learning in two settings, the real world and the School.


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Influenced by their parents and their tutors, the youth in the process of formation also took note that they were part of this rural community that was afflicted by difficulties, but that could also be promising if they were to take an active role in it. They felt a deep motivation to revive the place where they lived. The necessity to learn and become competent in their work constantly lingered in their minds. There was an attractive project that they could implement together with their families, the tutors, and other people and institutions in the community... Already in Lauzun we see this the fundamental quality, that is the basis of the creation of the first MFR and all the others that would come after. On December 19, 1938, three of the first four students were requested by the director of the Agricultural Services of the region of Lot-et-Garonne (where Sérignac-Péboudou and Lauzun are located) for an official examination of the Brevet d’Apprentissage Agricole. It was the first time that this examination was given, because the Law of 1929 relating to education had never been applied. And it was now applied thanks to Couvreur’s networking with the Ministry of Agriculture. Thereafter, this examination was administered in almost all the regions of France22. The theoretical and practical examinations of the three students were long and thorough, and the examiners were skeptical about their preparation. But the three received the official title granted by the French Ministry of Agriculture: the Diploma of Brevet d’Apprentissage et d’Aptitude Professionnelle Agricole.

THE PROGRESS OF THE MOVEMENT

Thanks to the MFR newsletter, which reached a circulation of 3,000, to the work of MFR administrators, to the SCIR, thereal juridical support for the proliferation of this initiative (Chartier, 1986), and in particular, thanks to Father Granereau, who enthusiastically traveled half of France visiting numerous education authorities, politicians and clergy, the project in Lauzun became extensively known. In 1938, other projects began to take form in various other Departments. But the Second World War that ensued in 1939 became an obstacle to their realization. In 1940, two new MFRs were established: one in Vétraz-Monthoux, in the region of Haute Savoie; and one for girls in Lauzun.

22 In France, there is a single “State Examination” for any given education level, whatever formation was received (public/private, regular/distance education/correspondence, traditional/in alternating cycle modality). What is remarkable is that, with far fewer classroom hours, our protagonists achieved better results compared to students from traditional schools. The only requirement to achieve such results is that the pedagogic practice of alternating cycle be well-designed (relevant formation plans, careful use of the right pedagogic instruments, real involvement of the families, committed tutors, correct planning of the students’ practica in the socio-professional world...).


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This latter school, which started with 35 students on November 17, 1940, finally satisfied a long-standing dream of the MFR officers. A 1938 Decree declared the teaching of agricultural subjects to students of age 14 to 17 years a minimum of 120 hours each year. Because of this, the prior presence of female students one day for each month was converted to two days for each month in the school year 1938/39. This circumstance became the determining factor for the Lauzun management to decide on September 1, 1940 to start the MFR for girls. Madame Lhoste became the first Director23. The promising initial development of the MFRs (in 1941, in addition to the boys' MFR, a girls' MFR was also founded in Vétraz-Monthoux) persuaded the MFR officers to organize themselves once more and take into account the need to preserve the quality of the education system that they had created. After February 1941, Father Granereau began to rely on the collaboration of Pierre Couvreur, Arsène’s son, who decided to permanently reside in Lauzun.

The “National Union” and the Center for Pedagogy

On September 14, 1941, Peyrat and Clavier received in the Lauzun MFR the delegates from the different regions of France (at that time only two: Rhône-Alpes and Aquitaine). Father Granereau expounded on the general situation and explained the Lauzun system with the Parents’ Association, the role of the Tutor, the Director-Educator... It seemed necessary to establish a “National Union” considering the perspective of growth (in 1944 there would be 50 MFRs in France, some of them are in the occupied region) and because it is necessary to create new MFRs. If Lauzun is almost alone, it will probably disappear (Granereau, 1969). A first draft of the Union statutes was presented and approved. The first Council of National Administration was created, with Peyrat as President. Albert Chappuis and Francois Verdonnet represented Saboya. As a consequence of the Nazi occupation of the north of France, they agreed to put the head office in Lauzun. During this meeting, the concern on educating the educators was discussed for the first time. Likewise, the Council members clearly reaffirmed their willingness to fully undertake the responsibilities entrusted to them. Thus the accounts presented by Granereau were not accepted, and a control commission was proposed to oversee their assessment; the prerogatives of the parents continued to advance. In the second meeting of the National

23 For some years in France there was a model of maintaining two gender-separated MFR schools under one Association, but in 1945, the idea was abandoned. Each MFR would have its own Association.


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Council, which took place in Vichy, the capital of unoccupied France, they decided on these first important resolutions:

- establish a fixed budget;

- prepare for the amendment of the statutes: it seemed necessary to abandon the previous type of Association for the benefit of an associative statue, under the Law of 190124;

- designate Chappuis as Secretary General, France-Pierre Couvreur as Delegate for Media Relations, Cambon as Lauzun MFR Director (a priest in a nearby parish would complete the role of head educator);

- assign the creation of the first teachers' schools to Granereau. This first Council established a comprehensive organization with a clearly defined list of responsibilities of the members. Couvreur took charge of the promotion of new MFRs in unoccupied France. The formation of the tutors would result in an initial group of qualified staff between 1942 and 1945. In 1941, the first School for the formation of female tutors was opened in Malause (Tarn-et-Garonne) with seven students. The following year, 1942, they were able to procure a rent-to-own property as a venue for the formation of tutors in Pierrelatte (Drôme). The School started with six students but grew to 17 during the school year25. The teaching of teachers was carried, from the beginning, in alternating cycles and in service. The officers of the National Union, especially Granereau with the support of the SCIR, were able to obtain financial assistance from the Ministry of Employment. This assistance continued for several years. The MFR has, since the beginning, had a very good

24 In 1941, individual unions were prohibited. With the unification of all unions, the MFRs were restricted in their activities. This served as the trigger to adopt status as an association under the protection of the Law of 1901, which has prevailed in the MFRs until the present day. 25 In 1948, the CNP (Centre Nationale Pédagogique, National Pedagogic Center) was transferred to Pontcharra-sur-Turdine (Rhône-Alpes), a more centrally-located and accessible place. The buildings were large but not very functional. In 1962, the head office was permanently installed in Chaingy, after passing briefly through Rosny, very near Orleans and some 120 km. from Paris, in two properties newly constructed by the UNMFREO. The CNP has since the beginning been of great importance to the pedagogic formation of almost all the the staff of of the MFRs. Once more we see the active participation of the MFR officers to start an initiative that will ensure a serious, unique pedagogic formation. The pedagogic formation was very important, as it is the nucleus of formation “in alternating cycle, by alternating cycle, and for alternating cycle” (Puig, 2003). The CNP maintains research collaboration agreements with the Universities of Tours, Clermont-Ferrand, Lille, and Orleans. In the year 2000, the Center had 22 full-time professors and 5 professors from French Universities, aside from 60 French and foreign part-time experts. Under the supervision of the UNMFREO certified by the ANFRA (Associaion Nationale pour la Formation et la Recherche pour l’Alternance), they enjoy complete autonomy. Their main functions are: a) the initial pedagogic formation of the MFR teachers; b) the continuing formation of these teachers; c) research about the alternating cycle system; d) the production of teaching materials and modules (UNMFREO also has its own printing press in Maurecourt, near Paris); e) the availability to all tutors of references about education; f) international cooperation with other countries.


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relationship with the officers of the French Ministry of Employment, which today promotes the system of alternating cycle in its official courses of formation. Before entering the course in the National Center for Pedagogy, teachers were administered a professional test touching on agricultural, technical, and practical subjects. The low success rate convinced the Center of the need for a new mission: to guarantee a good technical formation. This double mission of strengthening teaching ability and technical background overloaded the Center of Formation of future tutors. The need became clear for two different centers: one for technical formation and the other for pedagogy. In 1943 Gustave Thibon26, writer, philosopher, and farmer, substituted Peyrat as head of the Union. Marcel Couvreur, Arsène’s son and brother of France-Pierre, took over the function of Director General from 1943 to 1945 while still maintaining the position of Secretary General of the SCIR. Granereau became the National Chaplain. In 1944 there were already 50 MFRs in France. This first expansion occurred in a country divided by a war that made relationships difficult between the unoccupied and the occupied zones. The MFR directors were not alien to the passions and ideologies sparked by the social and political situation at that time. In 1944, Couvreur, through his involvement in the Resistance, participated in the liberation of the Ministry of Agriculture. The new Minister after the liberation, Tanguy Prigent, sought refuge in the houses of some MFR officers. From 1947, the MFR benefited from official recognition and subsidies from the Ministry of Agriculture. But along with this, in the years 1944 and 1945 the MFRs experienced their first crisis: what Nové-Josserand called the crisis of growth (Nové-Josserand, 1997; García-Marirrodriga, 2002). In 1945, there were already 67 MFRs in 23 Regions, a National Union, a chaplain, a newsletter, informational documents, and a school for tutors. And it was necessary to attend to all these fronts.

G. Thibon & F. Nové-Josserand

The MFR officers found themselves overwhelmed by the importance of their movement and the consequences of its rapid growth. The financial situation, the organizational structure, its 26 Born in 1903 in Saint-Marcel d’Ardèche, he had an adventurous youth that took him to England, Italy, and North Africa. But it was the First World War that made a deep impact on him. He abandoned his previous inclination towards vengeful patriotism and became a true democrat. A Catholic philosopher, he published some twenty works that center on themes like faith and the power of technology. His most popular work is perhaps “L’Ignorance étoilée”. He has gone down in history as the “Peasant Philosopher”. He died in 2001 in the same place where he was born.


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representation, the juridical aspects and pedagogical issues, were often considered from different points of view. The threat of division became real. Some considered the action of the priests very important; others felt that the Ministry of Agriculture was too involved. It seemed opportune to establish a line of conduct to unite everyone. This led the National Union President, Gustave Thibon, to clarify during the third General Assembly (1945) that the MFRs belong neither to the State nor the Church, but families27: “In our movement, it has been necessary to resist two temptations: on the one hand, we needed the State, but on the other, we didn't want to become a governmental movement. The MFRs should not be under the absolute control of the State, should not simply become an administrative cog. But it is necessary to have the State's help and oversight. On the other hand, because our fundamental nature comes from the family and is a prolongation of the family, although the majority of the families who entrust their children to our institution are Catholics, it is clear that this movement cannot turn into a movement controlled by the Church. Although the movement can use government support, it can and should be backed and inspired by religion. But it should not be absorbed by the State nor the Church. It is the family who in the last instance should assume the lead role. We must remain strongly committed to this family and professional formula. Because if not, we would lose all our original, unique character: we would no longer be a rural school”. This situation drove the President and the Union’s council members, including Granereau, to a general resignation in November 1945. This would facilitate an intense reorganization. A Special General Assembly was held with all existing MFRs in attendance. This Assembly was vital to the MFRs. They all met in Paris, where the head office was transferred from Lauzun, on November 24, 1945. There for the first time appeared a very important figure for the development of the MFRs and the rest of the world. He represented the 2 MFR schools of Rhône-Alpes: Florent Nové-Josserand28.

27 Cited by Nové-Josserand (1987) and Chartier (1986). Thibon’s speech was taken from the first number of “Le Lien” (1945), internal journal edited by UNMFREO. 28 A farmer born in Saint Romain de Popey in 1911, son of and a father to farmers. His sons were students in the MFR. A product of education in JAC (Jeunesse Agricole Catholique), Nové-Josserand has dedicated a good part of his life to activities of farming federations, to the protection of farming and the men and women of the rural communities, and to support for their professional organizations. He was a founder and vice-president of the FNSEA. Member of the Economic and Social Committee from 1954 to 1974. President of the Chamber of Agriculture of Rhône-Alpes in 1970. In the MFRs, he became President of the UNMFREO from 1945 to 1968. He was also one of the founders and first President of the AIMFR (1975), of the SIMFR (1980) and of the Foundation of Worldwide MFRs (1987). He died in 2009.


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Along with him, some 30 regional representatives also took part in the Assembly. The atmosphere was not very enthusiastic, and the Union’s situation worried everyone (Its President was not present, which was a major obstacle). Nevertheless, there were already close to 70 MFRs, which had been operating normally thanks to the hard work of the parents and neighbors in each Association. The only solution that was quickly conceived was to totally reorganize the National Union. Granereau attended this General Assembly and was very conscientious of the new directions and changes necessary for the effective operation of the National Union in service of the MFRs. To leave the schools in isolation was to let them die and above all to compromise the principles that had initially motivated the founders. The discussion arrived at a consensus on the need to broaden the pedagogical system and the internal organisation to make it acceptable to all and direct the movement towards a more extensive collaboration with family and professional organizations. It was also necessary to elect a solid and competent group of administrators. They had to be credible, and determined to effectively perform their duties of supervision and representation of the MFR. And at the helm of this group, a President. Many of the attendees recommended Nové-Josserand. He himself relates what happened (Nové-Josserand, 1987). Although the quote is long, it is worth repeating in full: “My first reaction was: this is not possible, my responsibilities in the federation and the professional agricultural organizations already take up too much of my time. I also had my family, the farm, and the consequences of a new responsibility. My family and my farm, demanded my presence after a long absence due to war and prison, and we were not wealthy... It was natural that my vision of the future, my still limited experience, the will to face my responsibilities upon accepting them, would oblige me to say no. But the people here insisted. My mind told me to reject the proposal, but my Christian ideals and my rural responsibilities pushed me in the other direction. We discussed some problems of the MFRs, the principles and the conditions that could secure their future, the contribution they could make to the formation of young future farmers and the development of farming and rural communities. “My indecision was such that the members of the General Assembly, including Father Granereau, were prepared to respond to the heavy demands provided that I accept the position. I gave two suggestions before the formal acceptance. Both were implicit from our profound discussions during the day. First: that the Council members, that is, the parents, should be in charge of all the levels of the institution. Second: the immediate signing up of a


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qualified collaborator to secure the management of the National Union under the responsibility of an elected Assembly. Even today I remember the warm and unanimous welcome of these two proposals. They had the effect of dispelling worries and inspiring confidence and faith in the future of the MFRs. We had not only finally found a President, but also the principles and means for the operation and development of the Union now looked clearer. Personally, I did not do anything more than follow the logical conclusions the group had arrived at during the General Assembly. In terms of teamwork, it was definitively adopted in all levels of the organization. This would be the “quid” of my family and professional life: Teamwork that neither excludes the organization nor the democratically elected authority. “Here was the role of responsibility that had requested of me. But why did I finally accept it? I was convinced since before then that the bravery of people was the most important element for an organization’s progress in society. The professional task that I had assumed shortly before then had imparted this conviction. Competence and bravery in people is I think the number one problem for the advancement of our agriculture. The reason I finally said yes was mainly out of this concern. To contribute to the formation of people was an indispensable prelude to the effectiveness of the professional organization. The MFRs were and could continue to be a response to this most important necessity, because this method of formation was the doorway for a great number of young sons and daughters of farmers and rural dwellers. Its pedagogy was realistic and allowed a great number of them to obtain an authentic formation in life and for life. But to achieve this, we needed the means. And my response to the demands at hand put at our disposal one of the most important of those means.”

Under the presidency of Nové-Josserand, the new Council met again on December 20, 1945, in Paris. Their first resolutions were (Chartier, 1986):

- That each MFR relies on an Association of families, which is the unquestioned responsible party for the school.

- The formation is carried out through alternating periods in school and on the farm, with a variable cycle according to the circumstances and needs of the region.

- The youth will be assembled into small groups, having a minimum of 12 persons in each group for a viable formation.

- The families can have recourse to a Catholic priest or a Protestant pastor for the education of the youth whose parents would like to ensure a religious formation for their children. A religious leader can by no means become the MFR Director.


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This clear position is the determining factor during the framing of a professional formation for the youth in alternating cycle within the MFRs. The schools that do not comply with these conditions can no longer be a member of the National Union as they are no longer MFRs. We have seen how in the sequence of these numerous events that motivated the first MFR, the parents constantly and stubbornly sought to assume their own responsibilities. They also desired to give more independence to the MFRs, which was not easy. They needed much will-power and skills to know how to go forward. They wanted to make the MFRs the parents' affair. In the course of two years of experience in Sérignac-Péboudou, in the organization of Lauzun, and in the National Union, Granereau and the SCIR pressed on with force and played a predominant and essential role in the development of the MFR movement. In effect, such an important and complex task, where the ultimate success would depend on various elements, could not have been carried out only by the parents. The value of Father Granereau, Couvreur, Peyrat and their colleagues is unquestionable, and the CEFFAs worldwide, beginning with the MFRs of France, owe them a great recognition. But this was just one step, the first. The parents’ objectives were very precise: the fulfillment of their duties and the independence of the organization. They were all practicing Catholics, but felt the priest should only act in his role of educator. They were authentic democrats, but above all they were also parents, peasant, dwellers in a community, a province. They thought that the MFR should remain open to all with only one condition: to be united in family values. Everyone should fell at home, whatever his personal convictions. All this was dealt with in long discussions in the General Assembly. They needed to determine, define, and adopt the objectives, the principles, the methods. And so they did. The objectives: education of youth to prepare them for the future. A holistic formation that included general instruction, education, and personal development. The principles: at the core of the MFRs is the family. For this reason, all initiatives and responsibilities rest on the parents of alumni, present or future. The methods: the alternating cycle system that had already proven successful and that bound together experience, theory, and professional practice. Likewise, there was a need to modify the organization and specify its functioning. In the first place, the relationships among the MFRs were one of the keys to their success, and it was necessary to rely on a National Union and possibly on other intermediate structures. Each of these organizations would be placed under the care of Committees (office and Administration Council), made up in large part by parents. This condition did not close the door to other people (community officials, farmers, professionals) dedicated to local


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development through the MFR. These committees were responsible for the smooth operations of the education center. The elected President assured representation in the Council and the necessary networking. Consequently, each Administration Council would decide on contracting schemes, the formation of directors and tutors, preparation of budgets and equipment, fund-sourcing and networking29. Regarding the formation plan, the MFR should contribute, in collaboration with families, to the integral formation of the youth. Because of this they should likewise take on religious formation. The formation imparted was not relativist, but it was pluralist. Religious orientation was the decision of the parents. It was therefore the responsibility of the Council to direct themselves to the Church hierarchy to obtain, if so desired, the participation of a chaplain. This situation did away with the position of a National Chaplain, which was previously occupied by Father Granereau. This decision was not a matter of secularism, of having anti-religious ideals or of relativism. It was simply a recognition of the rightful place of the family in the subject of education. The missions of the State and the Church were also given their recognition, but considered secondary to the relationship with the family. The members of the General Assembly favorably viewed a role for the State and the Church(es). This was why the National Union officers were asked to immediately establish contacts with competent services in the Ministry of Agriculture. They similarly needed to request a meeting with the Catholic hierarchy (as most of the families were Catholics) to guarantee that they would be able to collaborate effectively with them30.

29 This is the initial role of the Council found at the center of the alternating cycle model. Different circumstances during the historical development of the CEFFAs in different countries and under different legislations have not always permitted to arrive at a total (ideal) display of the potentials of the Council such and how it is described here. 30 After the termination of the position of National Chaplain, the Union immediately started to work on the procedures to look for a different mode of relations with the French Episcopate. This would have to respond to the twofold concern of the families: to hold on to their full responsibilities, while assuring a solid religious education for the parents who so desired for their children. The administrative documents were submitted to Monsignor Courbe, who was then the secretary of the Episcopate, who gladly accepted the petition of the MFR officers. In the beginning, at the request of the UNMFREO, Father Gaudilliere became a delegate with the title of Ecclesiastic Counselor. This new Counselor received a twofold mission: one the one hand, to watch over the relationships between the Archbishops and the priests in charge of the religious formation in the MFRs; on the other hand, to prepare, together with the Episcopal Rural Commission and the UNMFREO Council, a kind of “friendly regulation”. This became the subject of extensive study and consultations. They signed a document called Modus Vivendi in 1954 and used it on an experimental basis. It was slightly modified in 1958 and was from then on taken as definitive. In the Considerandos (Considerations), the document says that the Episcopal Commission of the rural communities is attentive to the protection of the familial and Christian character of the MFR, desirous of seeing this character recognized, and that education is inseparable, as the MFR is the extension of the family (Nové-Josserand, 1987).


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The new National Union headed by Nové-Josserand was able to see clearly that it should be: effective thanks to the courage of the people, their practicality, to the authority that they had acquired, and to the dynamism of services; useful, but allowing the Councils of each MFR to take initiatives and do their duties; flexible, not very rigid, so that they could respond quickly to necessities as well as opportunities. For all these reasons, just as the President suggested, they needed a highly-qualified, full-time General Director who would work professionally with the Union: André Lefebvre was the first. The MFRs were able to deal with their crisis well. They took decisions that would definitively change their future, together with fundamental intercessions from Thibon and Nové-Josserand. They safeguarded their freedom and independence. And on this depended their eventual expansion and fusion. In January of 1946, the members of the new Council met in Paris to analyze the difficulties of some MFRs. These were the result of a lack of competence of school directors and the insufficient dynamism of the Association, which had not yet fully assumed its responsibilities. Together with this, the more active MFRs were able to overcome their financial difficulties because they had dynamic Associations. Some had already acquired enough autonomy to be able to exist with the support of families, and the Ministry of Agriculture’s contribution of 12 francs for each student, which they received from 1947 onward31. The board members took on the functioning of the National Union. There was a desire to touch on the general organization for rural education in collaboration with families and professional groups. They invited the individual MFRs to direct themselves to the relevant regional representatives of the State: agriculture, family, national education, prefecture, federations, cooperatives, rural banks, savings banks... From 1945 the National Union tackled the process of starting an authentic pedagogy of the MFR, in such a way that, from 1946, they began talking naturally about the alternating cycle pedagogy. None of what the National Union had done had changed the method adopted by the first MFR (alternate periods of time between the teaching center, the family, the farm, between community life, parochial, professional, and association life; a small group of students to facilitate close supervision of everyone in the class, especially those who are weakest; associated formation: general instruction and education, personal development, and professional theory and practice; responsible intervention of the Association in the management of the school and in community development).

31 Budget line item from the Ministry of Agriculture, whose application to the MFR started under Minister Prigent.


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The First “Professors” of Alternating Cycle

But to achieve total effectiveness, it was necessary to put these elements in motion and accompany them with adequate pedagogical documents. This was the work undertaken by the first professors of the MFR between the years 1946 and 1950. There was afterwards a period of development and a key date, that of the Law of 1960. This law was preceded by some years, since 1955, approximately, by discussions in French government circles about the numerous legal projects relative to teaching and rural professional formation, as well as the Decree of 1959 (not executed until 1967) that extended compulsory education in France until the age of 16.

Because of their respect for their context, these unique teachers did not ask for help from the great specialists in the science of education. Rather they did fieldwork in the different MFRs and in the Formation Center of Pierrelatte, observing, investigating, and experimenting. They had established some clear-cut objectives. On one hand, the principles and methods of the latest General Assembly of the National Union on November of 1945; on the other, the desire to respond to the needs and the strengths of the youth and their families.

It is important to point out here the important role certain people had in this field: André Duffaure, who would become in later years the Executive Director of the UNMFREO, and Jean Robert, a University professor, pedagogic Counselor and MFR enthusiast. Between 1946 and 1950, their work became the basis of a new educational concept. Thanks to their non-conformist spirit, Duffaure turned on its head the traditional program of agriculture teaching that he himself had undergone, including the study of animal and vegetable production in the first year curriculum, and leaving for later the study of the physical environment, the soil, and climate (Duffaure & Robert, 1955). Another less visible but perhaps more important revolution was to encourage the students to pose questions to their family, to the practicum coordinators, to their neighbors and friends, and to the tutors. The experimental method took form and was finally solidified with the introduction of the Cahiers de l’exploitation familiale32 in 1948. In 1955, André Duffaure and Jean Robert released the first publication about the alternating cycle as it was understood in the MFR. Roger Cousinet presented the alternating cycle system at the University of Sorbonne, Paris.

32 These are the “Family Enterprise Notebook”, also called, “Notebook for Real-World Learning”.


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Thanks to the cahiers (family enterprise notebooks), to the formation plan, to the works of observation, analysis, reflection, and comparison carried out by the students and their parents, the alternating cycle went from a method of part-time formation to truly convert itself in une formation continue dans une discontinuité d’activités (a continuous formation in a discontinuity of activities), according to the proposal of Edgar Pisani33. At this point there appeared the first part-time collaborators of the National Union34: André Duffaure (1946), René Clair (1948) and Antoinette de la Bassetière (1951). In the national sphere it was necessary to establish more numerous and effective relationships with the Ministries (Agriculture, Employment, Education) and family and professional organizations. At the same time it was important to continue the development of the MFR, secure the operations of the teachers' schools35 and expand and improve the hiring of future tutors. The National Union had to respond to the demands of the creation of new MFRs and continue being vigilant in protecting the role of the families. In how many organizations called “familial” is the parents’ role only symbolic? Developing the families' responsibilities has always been a critical task of the UNMFREO, of the AIMFR, and of the different National Unions all over the world. Moreover, in the 1960s, as a result of the maturity of the movement in France, collaborations began to extend the model to Africa. The results were not as good as expected in the Continent of Hope (Chartier, 1997)36. Then came Italy and Spain, and almost simultaneously, Brazil and Argentina, until the MFR model was present in 40 countries in five continents that have CEFFAs today, as we will see in Chapter 3.

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FAMILY MOVEMENTS FOR RURAL FORMATION (AIMFR)

The International Association of Family Movements for Rural Formation (AIMFR), represents different institutions promoting the alternating cycle modality schools for youth in rural communities. These schools (reaching almost 1,300 in 40 countries in Africa, the Americas, 33 In 1964, this Minister of Agriculture talked about alternating cycle as “a full, continuous formation in a discontinuity of activities”. 34 We refer to the French National Union (UNMFREO, Union Nationale des Maisons Familiales d’Éducation et d’Orientation). 35 In Crolles d’Isère (Rhône-Alpes), where the first national tutor formation session was held in 1946. 36 Nevertheless, the New World is the future of the CEFFA (Puig, 2003). At this time has more than 50% of the total number of CEFFAs worldwide.


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Asia, Europe, and Oceania)37 involve more than 150,000 rural families in local development processes. The AIMFR was founded in Dakar (Senegal) in 1975, as an organization with an educational and familial character for all countries worldwide, without discrimination of race or ideology, according to article 1 of its Statutes (AIMFR, 1975). Since the beginning, it has been convinced that development and rural progress is realized when youth and adults, families and professionals, are capable of changing their outlook together after analyzing the situation of their respective communities by means of exchanging experiences (SIMFR, 2001). The CEFFA principles are (AIMFR, 1975): - Alternating cycle education that permits an interconnected formation. - The participation of the families in the management and daily operations of each CEFFA,

and by extension, its central role in rural development. - The personal and collective advancement of the community through integral education, to

propel social and cultural awareness by means of continuing formation. - The foundation of an authentic Association.

Dakar, 1975: the Birth of AIMFR

Florent Nové-Josserand, one of the main movers, personally narrated the circumstances that brought about the first phases of its creation (Nové-Josserand, 1987): “in 1968, I left the Presidency of the National Union in France. This responsibility had lasted for 23 years, but upon resigning, I did not intend to forget about the MFRs. Although I had to attend to other responsibilities in the agricultural organizations and especially in the representations to Brussels, some of my colleagues and collaborators proposed that I work for the promotion of the National Union’s activities internationally. This sector had much importance. 'You have the experience and the relationships,' they said. Why would I reject the proposal? But I had not thought that by accepting this task, one day it would have another aspect, which would bring on the creation of an International Association for the MFRs. “I embarked on various journeys, especially to Africa. I wanted to see the MFRs in the jungle, get to know the youth, their families, and the situation of those regions. What a discovery! I also got a lesson in humility! I discovered the wealth of these countries. They were really poor countries, but they had hospitable communities, united to the family; their were

37 See Chapter 3.


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differences within the families, but people were respectful to the elderly, to the youth, and to everything in life. These were lessons for me, coming from a so-called developed country! This allowed me to understand, respect, act…A little later, Latin America would be for me yet another world full of different countries, and where everything seemed to be from another planet. Countries full of promise, but also with many difficulties. “Everywhere I go I discover MFRs with their Councils where the parents take the lead role, their small groups of happy students, their dedicated tutors. Everywhere is the same simplicity, but also order, method. They always has the same family and human atmosphere. It is understood in these countries that the MFRs, forming the youth in their communities and giving responsibilities to the parents, linking them to the formation of their children, is a special means of achieving development.” After the meetings in Royan (France, 1969), Brenes (Spain, 1971), Verona (Italy, 1972)38, Lyon (France, 1972)39, Valladolid (Spain, 1973)40 and Bologna (Italy, 1974)41, the foundations of the future AIMFR had been laid. During the first quarter of 1975, MFR delegates coming from different national and regional organizations of about 20 countries assembled for a Congress. More than 80 delegates, many of them with friends and invitees, represented 19 countries (seven from Africa, seven from Latin America, five from Europe, plus representatives from the overseas departments and territories of France). The Congress took place in Dakar42 (Senegal), between the 12th and 16th of May.

38 The creation of the “Committee of the European Union of MFRs”, was the first seed planted that would eventually become the REMFR, Résseau Européen des Maisons Familiales Rurales (the European Network of CEFFAs). 39 The “Committee on European Coordination and Relations” was put in place. They created a permanent secretariat that would have its headquarters in UNMFREO, with a representative from each country. De la Bassetière bécame the Permanent Secretary. 40 It was decided to transform this committee to an International Association not limited only to Europe. A draft of their Statutes was also written. 41 This meeting formally constituted the first International Committee, formed by the President: F. Nové-Josserand (France); Permanent Secretary: A. de la Bassetière (France); Advisers: M. Pignagnoli (Italy), A. Caekelbergh (Belgium), M. Cristino, and F. González de Canales (Spain). The Committee’s role was defined by the following objectives: prepare the list of organizations of MFRs worldwide and establish relations with the majority of them; plan and realize the first General Assembly, proposing the place and date; develop an action plan and budget projections for the Association (Nové-Josserand, 1987). 42 The VII General Assembly of the AIMFR, took place within the International Congress that was held in Brussels in November 2000. “Brussels was not selected out of accident. Brussels is today the neural center of Europe and from here we have an occasion to make our worldwide Project known to the leaders of this Old Continent, our activities, our contribution and responsibility for the common good and the development of the rural communities. The Maison Familiale was born in Europe, in France, and its International Association in Africa, in Senegal, 25


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The Congress was a monumental event for the institution and a determinant of its future. For the first time, the CEFFAs all over the world had gathered together. The Senegalese schools received an important impetus. The first plenary sessions of the Congress were dedicated to an authentic conference about the CEFFA. Also present were representatives from OIT, UNESCO, and FAO, who actively participated in the debates. Habib Guerfal, Vice-President of the International Union of Family Organizations, was also there to confirm the familial character of the institution and the centers. France, through André Duffaure, Director of UNMFREO, made a long contribution to the updating of CEFFA pedagogy, and made a synthesis of the discussions. Duffaure developed the paper “The MFR, a factor for the development of rural communities”, a very eloquent title to explain to many personalities of international organizations and most importantly, before the majority of CEFFA representatives, that promoting development had been their vocation since the beginning. During the Congress, the Association Internationale des Maisons Familiales Rurales (AIMFR) was formally established43. Special care was taken in the precise and meticulous drafting of the Statutes, of the purpose of the Association, and the definition of some practical, realistic rules for its functioning. The first Association Council was likewise elected

44. The Assembly had a triple duty: to favor a great harmony among all structures of the local, regional, national, and international organization; guarantee a great unity of the CEFFAs and the respect of the fundamental principles and methods; respect the autonomy and flexibility in the operations of the centers, that they might adapt themselves to the situations, needs and potentials of the families, the youth, and the local surroundings. Thanks to this new international structure, the institution reinforced its organization for the benefit of all CEFFAs worldwide; assured an official representation before international and multinational organizations; and was able to coordinate the whole.

years ago. And today we want to show, in the continent of origin of the Maisons Familiales and center of international politics, the validity and extent of this work and the will to put it at the disposition of whoever is needy in the rest of the countries in the world” (Speech of Juan Cano during the AIMFR 2000 Congress, in SIMFR, 2001). 43 By unanimous decision of the 6th General Assembly of the AIMFR, held in Guaraparí, Brazil (1996), the AIMFR was renamed “Association Internationale des Mouvements Familiaux de Formation Rurale”, keeping the former abbreviation. In this way the character of “movement for rural development” of the CEFFA was clarified. 44 President: F. Nové-Josserand (Francia); African Delegates: M. Ossouma (Gabón), J. Bogam (Camerún), Y. M’Bodj (Senegal); American Delegates: J. Pereda (Argentina), M. Zuliani (Brazil), B. Zeledón (Nicaragua); European Delegates: J. Herreros (Spain), C. Pignagnoli (Italy), F. Anquetil (France); Board Members: F. Diedhiou (Senegal), A. Caekelbergh (Belgium), A. Duffaure (France). See AIMFR (1975).


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Philosophy, Objectives and Instruments of the AIMFR

At the end of 1986, 24 organizations from 19 countries joined AIMFR, which represented more than 750 CEFFAs. The annual dues of the Association were fixed by the General Assembly45 of 1987 according to three levels, to take into account the financial possibilities of each of its members: 80 French Francs for the CEFFAs of Europe, 50 for Latin America and 30 for Africa. Afterwards, successive Assemblies have gradually revised the dues and the modalities of inscription: as a National CEFFA Union or as a regional organization, as an individual CEFFA, or as an institution to support and develop rural communities and CEFFAs. The objectives of the AIMFR are (AIMFR, 1975 and 2010): To foster and promote the development of CEFFAs worldwide; b) To represent the interests of the CEFFAs before supranational and international organizations and to establish relations with them46; c) To disseminate through media, especially in the rural, professional and familial contexts, the principles of the CEFFAs defined in its Statutes, and to monitor their proper implementation; d) To assure the relations and exchanges of experiences and educational material among the CEFFAs worldwide; e) To create some common services for the smooth operations of the Associations, especially a central service for information and educational research.

45 The General Assembly of the AIMFR is celebrated every four years, according to its Statutes (art. 12). After the first assembly in Dakar, Senegal (1975), the rest took place in: Guadalajara, Spain, 1978; Island of Guadaloupe, 1982 (was foreseen for Argentina, but this was canceled due to the conflict in Malvinas); Annecy, France, 1987 (coinciding with the 50th Anniversary of the French MFRs); Seville, Spain, 1992; Guaraparí, Brazil, 1996; Brussels, Belgium, 2000, where the 25th Anniversary of the International Congress was celebrated and where rural youth worldwide took center stage, and Puerto Iguazú-Foz do Iguaçu, Argentina-Brazil, 2005. The Council, organ for the executive government of the AIMFR, is formed by the President, elected by the Council between some of their members (according to the new Statutes approved in 2010), a maximum of 8 delegates per continent, and a maximum of 8 “qualified” members. The Council holds meetings whenever necessary, a minimum of once a year. Whenever possible they meet each time in a distinct continent. After the last change of Statutes (AIMFR, 2010) the Director Comitee (the President, the Vice-presidents, the Secretarys, and the Treasurer) meet on line several times a year. The current Council, elected in the General Assembly held in Lima (Peru) in 2010, consists of: Octacilio Echenagusía, Uruguay (President); José Milani, Brasil, Nolberta Saquec, Guatemala, and Xavier Michelin, France (Vice-presidents); Pedro Puig, Belgium (Secretary General); Roberto Tuzinkievich, Argentina (Treasurer); Roberto García-Marirrodriga, Spain (Deputy Secretary General); and as Voting members, Nicky Gemperle (Philippines), David Baumann (Peru), Paolo Sanguanini and Salomé Ngaba (Cameroon), André Campeau (Canada), Serge Cheval and François Subrin (France), Romano Volpato (Italy), Roberto Bradley and Gerardo Bacalini (Argentina), Felipe González de Canales, Gabriel Tirapu and Joaquín Torregrosa (Spain), Francisco da Cruz (Mozambique), Juan María Cabrera (Uruguay), Idalgizo Monequi, António Baroni and Antónia das Graças (Brazil). 46 Currently, the AIMFR has a Statute of Consultative Character in the FAO (and is a member of the initiative Education for Rural People) and in the Economic and Social Committee of United Nations (ECOSOC), a Participative Statute in the Council of Europe, as well as having informal relations with the European Union, the World Bank, the UNDP, the ILO (with punctual colaborations with CINTERFOR-Uruguay) and UNESCO (with some punctual Agreements with UNESCO-Guatemala Office).


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The AIMFR is based on a spirit of service to its partners. It scrupulously respects the legitimate authority of the States (although it asserts before them what it considers just for rural development and the CEFFAs), the diversity of religions, races, political and social options of each one. A fundamental point of the Association is not to involve itself in what is not its proper mission. The only condition of its competence is the respect of the person and the family. Thanks to the AIMFR, the CEFFAs bear a great unity, a common conception about the principles of the Alternating Cycle Pedagogy and its application, with an eye toward promoting the development of the rural communities they pertain to. In 1980, the AIMFR approved in Lomé (Togo) the creation of an especific organization that acts as an NGO for Development through pedagogical collaboration, exchange of experiences, and technical and financial support for the CEFFAs worldwide (Solidarité Internationale des MFR, SIMFR). This decision was a consecuence of the General Assembly held in Guadalajara (Spain) in 1978 where to put in motion a solidarity action was decided. SIMFR was established in Brussels in 1981 as an autonomous organization because the aims of AIMFR did not permit the economic support addressed to projects, and because of the opportunities provided by Brussels (SIMFR is a non-stock, non-profit organization under Belgian law). Anyway, for assuring the unity and cohesion between AIMFR & SIMFR, it was decided that the administration of was managed by some members of AIMFR Council. In 1996, changed its name to International Solidarity of Family Mouvements for Rural Formation (SIMFR). It mantains its headquarters in Brussels and its President, Aimé F. Caekelbergh, is always related to AIMFR (he was the Vice-president of the AIMFR until the last General Assembly held in 2010). The function of SIMFR is to help in the development of CEFFAs all over the world, in terms of the formation of tutors and directors, and the technical and pedagogical assistance for new or budding CEFFAs. It is not about a simple support given by the rich to the poor, nor is it a type of condescension from the strong to the weak. The objective is to create a permanent exchange. In effect, every school has its own strengths and can be of benefit for the others. Currently, SIMFR directly or indirectly supports CEFFAs in the following countries: Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Ivory Coast, Burundi, Cameroon, Mozambique, and the Philippines. A further step was the creation of the Fondation des Maisons Familiales Rurales dans le Monde47 in 1987, an initiative led by the French MFRs and very much connected to the

47 Foundation of Worldwide MFRs.


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AIMFR, though remaining independent. Its objective is to support, most of all financial, the CEFFAs in developing countries. Moreover, it tries to sensitize the youth of the French MFRs to procure funds to pair MFRs or MFR groups in the North with the CEFFAs of the South. The President and the Secretary General of AIMFR are always members of the Foundation’s Council. Since the AIMFR Congress held in Brussels in November 2000, closer collaboration has been established between the International Association, the SIMFR, and the Foundation, which have comes to act as two instruments of the AIMFR.

FROM A LOCAL INITIATIVE TO THE WORLDWIDE EXPANSION OF THE MOVEMENT

The pioneers of the first MFR agreed to look for solutions to the problem of lack of adaptation of the scholastic system to the rural reality. They were men and women who did not hesitate to become catalysts in their region to ensure a better future for their community and their family. All the actors implicated in the beginning of the initative, a rural parish priest, an institution (the SCIR), and some heads of families dedicated to farming, had a spirit of re-establishing rural values beyond that which is purely technical and material. They were concerned with the development of the person through the acquisition of professional competence in collaboration with others from a perspective of collective development achieved by means of democratic principles. If each one worked by himself, he would not accomplish anything. Working with others propelled the start of a journey. With the rural people’s common sense and without teaching experience,although eventually counting on educators and university scholars to enhance the methodology, they were capable of introducing themselves to the complex world of education to find the most adequate “formula”: to alternate time between experiential, theoretical, and practical learning in two different situations: the real world and the school. As a synthesis of this initial period, we can say that there was a simultaneous development of the specific formation of tutors and the start up of new CEFFAs, as well as the establishment of a basis to unify the specific pedagogy around a National Union and a Center for Pedagogy. At the same time, the educational instruments were refined for the alternating cycle methodology, the need for a general formation together with the technical specific formation was made clear, and the unchangeable, essential pillars were set for CEFFAs all over the world and at all times. This did not impede the necessary adaptations and modifications, but they were not to affect the substantial nucleus: a responsible


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Association with the family in a leading role, implementation of the alternating cycle pedagogy, integral and personalized formation of each youth with his or her life project, and a commitment to community development. The MFRs have accomplished a mission for rural formation in France since the 1940s and likewise all over the world, by becoming the pioneers in the Alternating Cycle Pedagogy as it is understood in the CEFFAs. It is fair to recognize the value of the work and the dedication of the pioneers (especially Granereau and Peyrat), of the second generation (especially Nové-Josserand, Duffaure, and Chartier), and above all, of the families comprising the Associations, and of the tutors. In a country with such a long tradition of professional rural formation and with many educational offerings, public as well as private, the continued prominence of the MFRs in France and their impact on rural development is remarkable. The characteristics of the first MFR, held in common by all CEFFAs worldwide since then, are underlain by certain widely-accepted principles of development: ! The need to link the youth to their community to convert them into real

protagonists of sustainable development, because the local surroundings area key factor for development.

! The importance given to innovations and projects that emerge from the valuing of local resources (which overlaps with the current main lines of certain development programs in the European rural setting; for example, the Community Initiative known as Leader).

! The importance of taking advantage of the observations and experiences of oneself and of others (observation-action), together with the theoretical framework of scientific and technical knowledge acquired in school (reflection), which allow for improvement and progress in personal, familial, and territorial aspects, in other words, development (new action).

! The need for an integral formation so learners may assume responsibility in all fields of life, especially the promotion of one’s own territory, not alone but in collaboration with others (social dimension).

The current situation, with almost 1,300 CEFFAs in 40 countries with widely varying cultural, socioeconomic, and geographical contexts, as we shall see in Chapter 3, affirms that all establishments and CEFFA associations, have a common denominator and very diverse numerator. The system is highly adaptable and vital, as shown by these 70 years of history.


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But today as yesterday, in any country in the world, two foundations continue to be the key to the creation and development of the CEFFAs: Association and Alternating Cycle. Alternating cycle defines the educational concept associated with the CEFFA and its methodology. The Association provides each school with its purpose and juridical status. These two foundations differentiate the CEFFAs from other establishments and confers on them a dynamic of progression and of development for people and communities, more than a simple educational institution. The close relationship between Alternating cycle and Association brings a CEFFA closer to the ideal. However, the weaker the connection between the two, the more the CEFFA will resemble a traditional school. We can also affirm that these two well-established foundations are what has permitted the movement to expand all over the world. A CEFFA is an educational project led by a local association that sustains the activities of formation. And alternating cycle is therefore a component of a system of formation that contributes to development in a concrete geographical, cultural, and socio-professional context, and aims for the formation of youth and adults, as well as their professional qualification and insertion. The legislative and administrative difficulties related to the different organizations directly involved with the CEFFA (Ministries of Education, Agriculture, Employment...) in different countries can cause a very serious impediment to the continuing satisfactory development of the pedagogy of alternating cycle or the growth in the number and quality of CEFFAs. Nevertheless, the struggle to defend these pedagogic principles and certain “irrenounceable” characteristics is essential in order to maintain the distinctiveness that the CEFFAs offer. The example of countries like France is very enriching, because the MFRs never ceased in their struggle until they achieved the fundamental concessions from the legal framework currently in force. This would not have been possible without social support “from the base” and local Associations that were strong, responsible, and committed. Since the beginning, the CEFFAs in different countries have faced some common problems (above all the lack of understanding regarding the necessity for a specific rural formation, and the legal impediments in recognizing its unorthodox pedagogy) and should simultaneously act on various aspects: ! Associational: to safeguard the freedom of action, and local autonomy and

responsibility, with a special role for the family. It is important to create formulas that are


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radically democratic and participative, and that facilitate meetings between people capable of integrating the school with local daily life. The most important thing, more than the legal status chosen in each country, is to have a space for discussion about the formation of youth and rural development. However, the legal status is important as it confers power, rights, and duties, and legal, financial, and moral responsibilities to those who are involved in the association.

! Educational: to create a vital web of relationships in the school environment, as a basis of the educational work, integrating general formation with technical and professional formation, which allows youth to become active members of a group and to immerse themselves in the community. Education is offered to all youth, boys and girls, with different approaches regarding the separation of the sexes. Tutors and administrators must debate and cooperate to formulate educational and other projects.

! Organizational: to work as a team without ignoring legitimate authority. Responsibility and independence are given to the Administrative Council of the Association, and its autonomy is respected. This familial and professional formula is key to the preservation of the CEFFA's specific and original character.

! Administrative: to guarantee a relationship with the competent educational authorities (always necessary for the recognition of titles and diplomas and for funding), and to collaborate with them despite the obstacles they often put in place given the common perception of alternating cycle as a “second-rate instruction” due to its lower number of classroom hours.

! Cooperative: to network with a National Union, and with Regional Federations whenever necessary, understood as a service provider to the member CEFFAs, which ensures the unity of pedagogical criteria, and offers strength before public authorities (a CEFFA in isolation will probably cease to exist).

! Promotional: the Association is above all a free space that strengthens commitment among its members, and educates them through active participation. The opportunity to share educational authority develops the civic capability of each of the stakeholders, especially the families.

! Territorial: in its service and commitment to local community development, also to the urban community as an alternative for youth coming from traditional systems, is always present. The members of the Association, due to their diverse geographic backgrounds, integrate the CEFFA in a territory and converts it into the prime actor in that territory's development, because the CEFFA responds in a relevant way to local demands.


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CHAPTER 2

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CEFFA48

DEFINITION, ENDS, AND MEANS OF THE CEFFA

It is difficult to define in a concrete and simple way a complex institution such as the CEFFA movement, and at the same time capture all the possibilities it represents for the communities where CEFFAs are located. We propose the following definition: an Association of families, people, and institutions, that seeks to solve common problems of local development and advancement through formative activities, focused on youth but also including adults, using the Alternating Cycle teaching model (Puig, 2003 & 2006).

In this definition there are some key words that allow us to better understand the reality of the institutional movement: Association, common problems, development, formation.

The Association

We can define an Association as a grouping of people or institutions that, using their own resources, come together as a team to obtain temporary or long-term ends (cultural, economic, scientific, etc.), overcoming individual interests and creating synergies. In the case of the CEFFA, these people, mainly the families, have their own social, cultural, and work-related wealth of knowledge & traditions, and they gather together to set a defined goal: the education and formation of their children, leading to the building of a better future. They know that they cannot do it alone, individually; but together, overcoming all kinds of difficulties and obstacles, they can achieve these sought-after goals. The people associate themselves to work together on activities which resolve some of their more or less pressing needs. The difficulties and problems are what bring the people together, so the seeking of solutions together should guarantee a good chance of finding the

48 This Chapter written by Pedro Puig-Calvó, based on Puig, 2003 & 2006. Some ideas were also taken from García-Marirrodriga (2002).


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best answer to their problems. If unity does not exist in the definition of the problem, or at least of its general aspects, it will be hard to find solutions in common and valid for all group members. The people and institutions that initiated the first CEFFA projects had a common problem: economic crisis in the rural community, the exodus of the youth, few options for an adequate formation and education. In chapter 1 we met a priest, Father Granereau, son of small-scale farmers and concerned about his fellow rural-dwellers’ spiritual, social, economic, and professional needs. We also met a young, competent farmer, Jean Peyrat, a competent professional who accepted responsibilities in the professional and social life of his community. He was concerned about the necessity of educating his son, and realized that the existing education formulas were not appropriate. Finally, we learned of SCIR49, an institution that had among its priorities the adaptation of the primary- and higher-level agricultural instruction to the needs of the community and its dwellers.

Formation

The terms education, formation, instruction, teaching, and learning are often used interchangeably. They all have common elements, but they can also be distinguished from each other. In fact, there exist many studies on this matter, by many different authors, from Antiquity until today. In the present work we use the term education50 in contrast to the terms teaching, learning or instruction, to insist on going beyond the idea of simple transmission of knowledge or technical skills. Formation is the set of measures, procedures, methods, activities, and actions that have as objectives the acquisition of the practical capacities, knowledge, and attitudes needed to find work in a certain profession. We will define Formation then as an act in which, through the development, stimulation, and motivation of a person's capacities, abilities, and attitudes, he builds his own future and that of his society. Education is the set of activities that has as their objective to contribute knowledge and to develop a sense of values and the understanding of the general application of principles, as opposed to the acquisition of practical capacities and necessary knowledge restricted to a

49 As we indicated earlier, the initial juridical formula of the MFR Association was the Union which, in order to avoid later political manipulations (a politicized Union), was transformed into an Association by virtue of Law 1901. 50 For the definition of these concepts, see Various Authors (2003).


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certain sector of professional activity. Education essentially has for its objectives to capacitate youth and adults with skills, in language and mathematics, among other things, that are indispensable for communicating and acquiring knowledge in daily life, so as to facilitate the understanding of the laws that govern science, nature, society, ideas, and culture. At times, the words education and teaching are used indistinctively. The latter term has a more limited sense, referring to the activities developed within the academic system. As for instruction, there are variouse interpretations: the transmission of theoretical and practical authoritative information; knowledge acquired through studies undertaken in academic centers; part of a coordinated action that aims to teach and to execute knowledge, mental ability, and technique. We run into problems, however, when we observe that a given word in a given language has different meanings between cultures. Despite the fact that everyone can presumably agree on the necessity of formation, reality shows something to the contrary. Simply viewing the proportion of investments in education as compared to the GNP of different countries, and comparing them with other destinations for public money, we can make some clear conclusions. It is not only a problem of the politicians, but also of businessmen, for example. Professionals stress the need for formation, but then operate with other criteria in their businesses. Likewise families are not sufficiently conscious of the need for formation, often seeing it as a problem coming from outside the family. A recent survey of a rural town in Brazil gives a good example (UNEFAB, 1999). To the following question: “What would you do if you had money?” the most popular answers were: “buy a parabolic antenna for the TV”, and “buy a car”. This has also been verified in marginal communities of the big cities of the so-called developed countries. This is to say that in no way was the matter of “education and formation of children” seen as a responsibility that parents should assume, but rather as something that the State should put in place and resolve. Therefore, to see the importance of formation in development is not easy. But those groups or people that decide to make long-term investments in formation show results that are difficult to evaluate, but that indicate a very solid and durable impact on people. In the CEFFAs, through the System of Alternating Cycle, development is the fruit of reflection, analysis, and the shared observation of the environment on the part of the youth and his family. In this way, the formative action connects with adults through their children, and influences all the surroundings. At times it is possible to fall into the misled belief that youth, because they have no capacity to take immediate decisions nor the potential to act


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directly to become independent entrepreneurs, cannot be the main agents of the development process. Such a belief would lead us into the temptation of neglecting their formation, and focusing on adult education. This is an option which is interesting but not exclusive. However, it is less effective because the adults do not have the same capacity, openness, attitudes, and aptitudes that the younger generations have and from which they can ‘awaken’ in their surroundings. The long-term impact would be evidently different if we focused on adult education to the exclusion of youth. When we set the goal of integral formation for people in the CEFFAs, mainly for adolescents and young people, the following results are sought: 1. The possibility to obtain an Official Title, a higher level of studies, learning through

another manner. 2. Preparation for real life employment (through students' own family business, the creation

or improvement of their own business, finding paid work as a salaried employee, or a combination of various alternatives); this is to say, their inclusion in the socio-professional world.

3. Instilling of human values, dedicated to personal and collective development, with a capacity for social commitments in the local setting.

In any country, regardless of race, religion, culture, and economic situations, where we directly solicit from the families of students their expectations on the formation of their children, and their reason for selecting CEFFAs, their response is unanimous: “we want our child to become a somebody”. This affirmation, upon deeper analysis, drives us quickly to make two conclusions. Intrinsically, in the majority of cases, rural dwellers have a negative depiction of their local reality, showing low self-esteem. Extrinsically, they want their children to get out of this situation and see formation as a means for progress. In other words, the families say: “I want my child succeed more in life than I have” (to have: the economic angle); “I want her to obtain a degree” (to know: the intellectual angle); “I want my children to become good people” (to be: family, community, citizenship). This is the meaning of the phrase “to become a somebody”.


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Development

The concept of development51 entails movement, growth, positive evolution, advancement, and progress. It is not very concrete, and there are differences in the manner of understanding and of applying it. There are many ways to work on and collaborate in development. Rural Development is in fashion because territorial balance, ecology, the world’s food supply, and free commerce are everyone’s concern, and as such the concept of Rural Development is in the speeches of all politicians, union members, sociologists, NGOs… The solutions they present can be short-, medium-, or long-term. Fast, spectacular, and costly solutions such as large-scale infrastructure (roads, electricity, health) do not pertain to a level over which normal people have any control. There are other ways of action of a lesser caliber but still of importance, which can alleviate immediate needs (like community organization or structures for the commercialization of locally-produced goods, for example). These can be classified as tangible actions. It can be difficult to understand that long-term actions can be more effective than those which are short-term, where results are immediate. To promote community development actions through formation of youth is to consider them as the main actors, as the motors and constructors of the future. It is difficult for adults to accept this, but common sense and continued reflection has convinced us that it is possible to achieve this understanding.

The Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle

Based on the ideas developed by Jean-Claude Gimonet (1988, 2008), we can affirm that Formation in Alternating Cycle cannot and should not be reduced to a series of simple binary relations such as: theory/practice, school/business, professional work/academic formation, formation/employment, experiential knowledge/theoretical knowledge. The reality is much more complex, and if we truly want to understand Alternating Cycle in a deeper manner, it is important to define its components and interactions, organizing them within a systematic perspective. In this way, going beyond the scheme of a simple pedagogical method, we can think in terms of setting up an educational system. In the CEFFAs, the Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle permits each young person to live successive periods in the world of adults and of work, and periods in the Center of Formation

51 In Chapter 4 we will discuss more deeply the concept of development as well as its relations with Alternating Cycle.


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(CEFFA). The education offered, the formation, is centered on life, on the daily realities (family, social, professional) lived by the youth in contact with adults: parents, Alternating Cycle coordinators, professionals. J. Legroux (1979) explains how this Pedagogy has been an object of various interpretations. Some see in it a revolutionary solution, others a system of degrated instruction. The missions and functions of Alternating Cycle can be studied from different perspectives, given that different situations come into play: that of the local surroundings and that of the CEFFA. Alternating Cycle allows different people to intervene: teachers, professionals, families, the youth in formation, the Alternating Cycle Coordinators, the experts... Involved we find everyone that composes the society, and thus the educational system. If the objective of the CEFFA is the promotion and development of the rural community, the CEFFA Associations seek through their work that: - The Schools are not ends in themselves (and neither is Alternating Cycle), but

rather a means for personal and collective development. - Thanks to Alternating Cycle, it is clear that students learn within the scholastic center, but

also through their experience and contacts with the surroundings. Both elements of formation are complementary instruments for the person’s learning.

- The CEFFA participates in the development of the community, since it is a part of the community. A School located concretely in a particular zone, with a “human size”, which develops in youth both knowledge of and commitment to their environment (family, community, social, cultural, and economic activities), is converted into a “School for Life”, that helps form the personality of the youth and capacitates him to act.

- The families and the professionals of the region are involved in the formation of the youth, and all must reflect and analyze the reality and problems that bring about a search for solutions. This is to say, the local community is involved in the management and activities of the CEFFA, and the CEFFA is involved in the activities of the community.

The “Four Pillars” of the CEFFA

We can say that the general institutional objective of the CEFFA is to achieve the promotion and development of people and their social environment, in the short, medium, and long term, through integral formation activities of adolescents, but also of youth and adults. Therefore, the ends of the CEFFA Movement are based on two main axes:


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! Integral Formation for people. It is not simply a question of giving professional formation courses using adequate methodologies. It is rather an integral vision wherein the person is formed in all aspects, technical, professional, intellectual, social, human, ethical, spiritual.

! Community Development. United with the previous axis is both a consequence and a necessity. If the local region does not progress or develop, but the youth who live in this environment are given an education, they are simply obliged to leave the local environment (Duffaure, 1985). The CEFFA transforms the youth and adults in formation into agents of their own development and that of the community where they live.

The means that the CEFFAs use to achieve these ends are: ! Alternating Cycle. The answer to an inadequate academic system is a relevant

pedagogical methodology, that transcends existing educational modes and trends, and responds to the constant necessity of adapting to the challenges of society, families, and youth. This is to say that it is an experience-based Integrative Alternating Cycle between the school and the socio-professional world, having time periods in both contexts, and involving all parties concerned by the formation.

! The Local Association. Mainly composed of families, together with other people who agree with its principles. Members are the managers of this project, and agents of their own development.

We can affirm that the Four Pillars of the CEFFA are at the core of the International Movement for education and development of the CEFFAs, and they are the CEFFA's “irrefutable characteristics”. To be considered a CEFFA, an educational institution must have these four characteristics, precise aims that are pursued through precise means. The aims or objectives are: the development of persons in their community through an integral education and formation, and the development of the community through the creation of a reliable social fabric. The means are a pedagogical system capable of sufficiently responding to the needs of the families and the local community, the Alternating Cycle, managed by a group of families-in-charge and other local actors which come together as an Association (García-Marirrodriga & De los Ríos, 2005). To conclude, it is interesting to present Scheme 1 where the four pillars of the CEFFA are represented. None of them is exclusive to the CEFFA Movement. There exist other


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educational institutions which aim for the integral formation of the youth. There are currently schools of all levels that claim to apply the Alternating Cycle (Puig, 2006; García-Marirrodriga, 2009; García-Marirrodriga & Durand, 2009), and we have examples of Formation in Alternating Cycle centuries ago (the formation of medieval apprentices, for example). The Associations and Cooperatives established to create schools are no longer new; and community development is what many public or private institutions have been aiming for. In the case of the CEFFA, it is the interaction among its components that give the school its own sense and identity. All of the components are indispensable and interrelated, as shown by the double arrows in the diagram.

SCHEME 1. The “Four Pillars of the CEFFA”. Taken from Puig, 2006

THE MAIN STAKEHOLDERS OF THE CEFFA

We have established the following order among the agents of the CEFFA, following a logic of responsibilities that leads to its principal beneficiaries, the youth.

The Families, Responsible for the Education of their children and the operations of the CEFFA

OBJECTIVES

MEANS

INTEGRAL FORMATION

A PERSONAL LIFE PROJECT

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

PROCESSES CREATING A SOCIAL FABRIC

ALTERNATING CYCLE

A RELEVANT PEDAGOGICAL METHODOLOGY

ASSOCIATION

FAMILIES AND OTHER LOCAL PEOPLE


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Each CEFFA has an Association as an organizational base52, a certain number of people who come together to achieve a common objective. In the CEFFA Movement, there exist varied cultures with very diverse characteristics. There is the pioneering country of France, where associative culture is strongly rooted. CEFFAs are present in African countries where local traditions define the influence of the tribes, which are considered as great families, with much influence given to elders and tribal leaders. The associative form that the West sometimes imposes in its collaborations with Africa is just that, a form, because the content continues to be different, local, traditional. There are also the diverse indigenous cultures of Latin America and their traditions of communal work, in which the elected rural leaders represent the local populace, and where the recent history of military dictatorships has created certain fears of formalizing groups. This diversity of associative realities is a wealth of forms that converge in the CEFFA movement in an undeniable point: the right for parents to choose the type of education they want for their children53. Aside from what we would call “foundational rights”, international experience has confirmed the importance of a certain aspect: associations where the families always have the majority in the Administration Council, without impeding collaboration with other persons like rural professionals (including Alternating Cycle Coordinators), alumni, local institutions. But it is also clear that the “power” to make decisions should always stay in the hands of the families and not with teachers, promoters, or the State54. Whoever is the initial promoter of the CEFFA, it is very important and necessary that the families assume their responsibilities right from the start. At times the rush to get things done can prevent effective decision-making, producing clumsy results that are not viable in the long term. It is frequently said that the parents are the first educators, and whenever there are problems in school or incidence of juvenile delinquency, it is usually attributed to a lack of support or guidance from the family. However, when families need to carry out a specific

52 The legal formula is not the most important point (although there is a need to have a strong and recognized juridical structure). In some countries, the Philippines for example, a “cooperative” type could be a more adequate structure. What is important is that the families have a space for democratic dialogue and open discussion about the future of education of the youth and development of their communities (García-Marirrodriga, 2002). 53 Cf., for example, UN. 1948. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, art. 26. New York; EU. 1984. “Resolution on the education rights of the European Parliament”, no. 9. Strassburg. Within the movement of the CEFFA, there is a case made for the right of parents to choose the education they desire for their children, in Lilli (2006). 54 To reinforce the understanding of this essential aspect, it is good to review some inscriptions in Chapter 1 where it was made clear that, from the beginning of the CEFFA, the families have an irreplaceable lead role.


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task, when they have an explicit role in the schools, there emerges a series of problems which complicates in many cases, the synergy between professors and parents. Teachers are afraid of those who intervene in their territory; parents, grouped or not as an Association of Mothers and Fathers of the students, are only summoned for some specific occasions such as when the school organizes parties and programs or extracurricular activities, whenever they need resources, or when there are behavioral problems. Few are the schools that rely on the families in creating a Formation Plan, and in the management of the Center’s project. In any age or situation in life, we all seek refuge in the intimate confines of the family. Even those persons who have suffered from family problems seek to form the ideal family, and those that leave their families create new approximations of family that give them security, affection and confidence. The family is a place of recognition for who one is and not what one has. Nevertheless, there are times that families do not want to participate for fear of not knowing how to do things well, or because they believe that it is the teachers (or the State) who must resolve the problems related to education. This is observed particularly with rural families of developing countries, although not exclusively; likewise, in developed nations and in urban communities, there are also problems in achieving real family participation. The topic of family commitment deserves explicit treatment in the CEFFA Movement. As in any institution or open collective movement, be it a cooperative, union, federation, or association, the level of commitment is not the same among all members, since the initial motivations that brought them to the group are varied, and once inside, members bring a diversity of situations, interests, and motivations. As a consequence of what we could call the diverse levels of involvement of members in the institutions, the group may progress by taking on new responsibilities, develop an attitude of stagnation or passivity, and in some cases we even see a regression from the current situation. It depends on the expectations created in the beginning, and the way members' own interests or initial motivations have developed. In a general way, we can classify people into three groups according to the different levels of participation and involvement with an institutions. From lesser to greater levels of commitments, we could group them as (Puig, 2006): 1. Users or Consumers: utilize offered services without participation in decision-making.

They view matters as an outsider, receiving a service that they or others have paid for, but which is external to them. Normally these people do not attend meetings, Assemblies,


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etc. or do so irregularly, they only join in order to benefit from the services offered, to which they would otherwise not have access.

2. Sympathizers or Adherents: using the services that an institution offers, they participate with relative frequency in organized activities. If they are requested for a specific matter, they do not refuse, but their commitment does not reach the level of assuming personal responsibilities in the service of the group.

3. Militants or Committed: aside from using directly or indirectly those services that the institution offers, they also feel responsible for the institution's present and future well-being. They assume personal responsibilities and commitments on juridical, legal, and economic matters, in decision-making, and in the actions that these matters imply.

In any stage of its maturity, the activities of a CEFFA imply a progressive development of actions and, as a consequence, the majority of people that are incorporated in the institution are the parents of the students, in addition to the initial Promoter Group. There are also professionals (Alternating Cycle Coordinators or collaborators in the youths' formation) that get to know the objectives and aims of the Association, and in the future become part of it. It is thus important to identify the sources and means for advancing through levels of commitment, from “consumers” to “militancy”. The assessment of the qualities and contributions of each member, of offering personal recognition from the group, are thus key ways to improve commitment. The group will surely never obtain a 100% commitment from all members, but the Association should try to achieve the maximum commitment possible. To do this it is necessary to utilize the most appropriate strategies for each situation, to “learn by doing”. In any case, an alliance is necessary among all agents of development and the CEFFA. To reach this goal the families must truly participate and direct the aims, means, and activities necessary to the mission of the formation centers.

The Educators and the Educational Structure

To begin with, we think it is important to affirm that the student learns more from what he sees, than from what he hears (F. Otero, 1994). This is to say that the most important form of transmitting knowledge, values, and attitudes from the Tutor (educator) to the student, should be his own life’s personal example. In the formation imparted in the CEFFA, everyone involved is an educator; not only the “Teachers”, but also the other staff, the secretaries, the kitchen personnel, maintenance workers, etc. Everyone accomplishes a different but


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important function. In effect, the life of the small group, coexistence with others, interpersonal relations, should be an educational process shared by all55. Taking a reflection from Nové-Josserand56, “the second value (of the MFR) is the educational role of the Tutors. Aside from the parents, the Tutors are the educators. It is very important because we cannot consider them as simply salaried employees, but rather as collaborators who participate in the formation and in the education of our children. They collaborate with us to fully develop the Alternating Cycle, involving periods in the family and in the community. The selection and the formation of Tutors is a substantial problem for the MFR. They need to share our convictions, our vision in order to mold the personality of our children”. We can affirm that the educators of the CEFFAs, due to their responsibility to animate the ensemble of elements and persons who intervene in the process, should realize some specific functions and missions. Therefore they also require a specific formation, different from that of the teacher in other systems. To perform their functions well, they need a favorable educational context that permits the proper psychological and affective conditions, with a climate that facilitates education and learning (quality of life). That is to say, the Residen ce, the arrangement of the classrooms, the guidance of students' free time, etc. There must be an appropriate educational apparatus, a truly operative organization and management of formation and education (Puig, 2006). This adequate structure can only be achieved thanks to the small group of students. If we want the CEFFA to help people to become capable of “being, doing, and having”, we must possess the right elements. In the schools that apply classical methodologies, the Teachers transmit the official “text” according to the Program of Studies of the Ministry, and the text normally comes in the form of a book. In the CEFFAs teachers must use initially and above all the “context”, that is to say, the reality affecting the student. This requires knowing well the personal, family, social, and economic reality of each student. The necessary conditions are not the same for the two teaching systems, because they seek different aims. The goals of the CEFFA cannot be realized without an appropriate structure, not only in terms of physical

55Jean-Claude Gimonet talks about the “educators” of the CEFFA in a broad sense and of “Educational Teams”. Within these we will situate the “Group of Animation”, composed in part by the “Pedagogical Team” (Gimonet, 1979). The Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle in the CEFFA implies an “Educational Group” composed of the union of three “co-formators” or principal partners of the formation: the parents and/or the Alternating Cycle Coordinators, the students themselves, and the “Animation Group”, where the Tutors of the “Pedagogical Team” should be the principal animators (García-Marirrodriga, 2002). 56 Interview conducted by P. Puig to F. Nové-Josserand (December 1997). In Chapter 1, we discussed the tasks that the parents entrusted to Father Granereau and to Jean Cambon, the first Tutor. Also because the way in which they immediately took into account the importance of the Formation of Tutors.


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installations (spaces), but also with regards to the internal organization of the Center (times, moments). The place of formation is the School, but also the family, the farm, the enterprise and all that constitutes the environment, the workshop of life. For that, the first protagonists of the MFR of Lauzun did not resort to an existing school of renown. They preferred a new formula, more adapted to their particular needs. A School where the most important book was “the book of life“, where the educator was most of all an animator, a guide that would help the youth develop his personality. This role of the Tutor was very different from the traditional Teacher and would require, in consequence, a formation adapted to the new Pedagogy (Nové-Josserand, 1987). A personalized formation that seeks to respond fittingly to the different realities of the youth, requires a precise context that needs: flexibility of schedules, adequate educational spaces, participation of the families and local professionals, and Tutors with a specific formation to accomplish their mission. Definitely, without an adequate educational structure, it is difficult to reach the objectives sought. To teach how to do, to allow to do, to accompany, to serve as a guide... The formation of the student takes place through their own lives, their experiences, and the key is freedom. When we act freely, we are developing our personal life project and our personality, and nobody can meddle on this. The parents and teachers can decide what to propose and how, but the ultimate decision corresponds to the student. The teachers (in our case the Tutors) are the necessary guide in the process of education, but in the sense of “companions”, of adults who help and accompany the adolescent during their formation in the CEFFA (Legroux, 1979)57. The function of the Tutor (Gimonet, 1979; García-Marirrodriga, 2002; UNMFREO, 1998) has to be considered in the global context of the CEFFA, although his task is bound to the set of actions geared towards the formation of the youth. The Tutor is more than a teacher in the traditional sense of the term. It is she who, through her specific work as animator and formator, associates herself with the collective responsibility of governing and animating the whole project of the CEFFA. This co-responsibility sets up some concrete demands and skills that converts this profession into a committed and demanding task, but enormously attractive, enriching, and of undoubtable social value. Working in and for a project of this nature demands an

57 In the CEFFA, the term “Mentor” is preferred (from the Latin monitor, -oris), in the sense of guiding another person in his process of learning.


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acceptance of the principles and aims that define it. An acceptance that implies identification, personal responsibility, and active collaboration. In a word, commitment with:

• The organization and coordination of the activities of formation; • The facilitation in the discovery of theoretical knowledge;

• The channeling of relationships in all aspects. Because of this, in trying to define the task of a Tutor, it seems more convenient to apeak of an Animator more than a Teacher, since we are in the presence of a new educating function:

- Animator of families in their educational task.

- Animator of the formative process of the youth.

- Animator of participation at the heart of the Association. This role requires some special qualities or aptitudes in relation to its diverse aspects: - Personal: maturity and balance to understand the situations and local and personal

problems, and to help to resolve them in an objective manner; vision of the future; optimism; moral rectitude; adequate sense of authority; commitment to rural promotion and development.

- In relation to people and to the group: capacity to work in a team, to dialogue and to listen constantly; constructive use of ideas and opinions; mutual respect and tolerance; capacity for adaptation; experience in working with adolescents; facility for social relations and creativity to seek novel means that favor personal work and the development of people and the community. The relations that the Tutor maintains allow to: enter fully in the reality of life of the parents, speak the same language, understand their experiences and the reasons that motivate them, maintain a permanent and dynamic contact with the whole social environment.

- In relation to the community: deep knowledge that requires a personal option to live and work in and for the rural community (García-Marirrodriga, 2002). The Tutor establishes a permanent and dynamic contact with all the rural community to make the best use of Alternating Cycle, to permit the expansion of the CEFFA, to open it to its role in territorial development.

- In relation to work: professional competence, which implies a technical-professional formation that is continuously updated and the mastery of the techniques of teamwork. Even if the Tutor is a specialist in a given theme, he should convert himself into a


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generalist58. The associated formation implies an action of permanent union between technical experience and general development.

Regarding this final aspect, we may say that the Tutor has some assignments similar to any other Teacher: give classes following the directives demanded by each country's educational legislation. This legislation, aside from mandating official subject matter, imposes some requirement on the titles and diplomas that the Tutors should possess. In all countries, the minimum level of required education for teachers is constantly rising, but this does not mean that more diplomas for the teacher automatically converts into better learning on the part of the student. The critical contribution of Duffaure59 gives us something to reflect on: “Is a teacher armed with superior diplomas the best person to teach in the MFR? One should ask: Does he know the community well, since he'll have to work there? ; Does he speak in simple, understandable language?; Does he desire to impart general more than professional formation?”

From these statements we can emphasize the following aspects: the necessity of knowing the community, the necessity of using simple and understandable language, and teaching aptitude, are all elements that entail a great load of responsibility for a Tutor. And they are acquired, not naturally present. Therefore, to become a Tutor, it is not enough to earn the required diploma, but rather to have aptitudes and capacities in the aspects previously mentioned. From here comes the importance of the Specific Formation of the Tutors. All this entails a responsibility at the time of choosing Tutors. It is correct that there are demands imposed by the respective Ministries; but it is most important to look for people who have a “vocation” for this job. In other words, the competence of a Tutor is in harmonizing the different tasks necessary for the formation of the youth, the responsibility of families, teamwork, and the development and advancement of the Association. The work of a Tutor does not start or end at a concrete hour because it is not limited to personal contact with students or class time. Everything the Tutor does has a formative value and it is measured in terms of educational criteria: the Tutor teacher from the moment she enters the CEFFA, and up to the time she leaves. The polyvalence of a Mentor is not so

58 This goes to say that moreover, there cannot be a “specialist” only in family visits or only in the search for new students for the CEFFA, or only in the counseling and guidance of students’ projects. Every one should have the capacity to do everything, although some may be more dedicated than others to certain assignments. The capacity for adaptation and the desire to learn with the group of students and Tutors is one of the criteria for selection (García-Marirrodriga, 2002). 59 Interview conducted by P. Puig to A. Duffaure (December 1996).


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much in his competence to give classes on different subjects, but in his capacity to associate and combine (harmonize) his areas of work in an integrated and coherent whole. These concrete areas will be explained in the proceeding paragraphs.

The Animation of Youth Formation

The Tutor is not a teacher who imparts knowledge; she is a guide who accompanies and counsels, an Animator of the formative process of each of his students, whom she accompanies on their road of learning, towards the ultimate goal of their insertion in the world of work and the community. The Tutor is not solely an “instructor”, a formator, a teacher. His role of listening, of dialogue with the youth, of relating with families, with the Alternating Cycle coordinators…is essential. For this reason, in the CEFFA we always refer to the global role of the Tutor, which is founded on the reality lived in Alternating Cycle. The basic attitude of the Tutor is to lead the youth to explore their community. Hence the Tutor should be capable to provoke students' interest, guide their questions, create a healthy atmosphere for dialogue with their parents, with the Alternating Cycle Coordinators, and with the different agents of rural development. The Tutor helps students receive and process information, to express themselves (written or orally). The Tutor must allow confrontations that allow students to figure out general conclusions, reasons, questions; to use concrete facts to arrive at rapid answers. The Tutor is an educator who helps each youth to become conscious by sharing what he sees. He leads each student to individual development, helping them to affirm their personality in all occasions that are present in the CEFFA or in the community, whether this affirmation comes through the work asked from students or through the tensions manifested in the group. The Tutor also helps students to work in a team. The Tutor definitively converts herself into a faithful friend who guides the intellectual aspects (organization of study schedule in the Alternating Cycle; support with difficult subjects; knowledge of students' capacities so as to draw out their strong points and overcome the weak points; assistance in the formation of academic and study habits) professional aspects (Project for Professional Personal Orientation and subsequently, of specialization; motivation towards work; content of the Alternating Cycle; behavior in the work environment); human (concrete demands in the acquisition of human and social virtues such as sincerity, fortitude, courage, generosity, diligence, solidarity, justice, etc., in a climate of freedom and personal responsibility).


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The most important aptitude that a Tutor needs to develop the task of animation is the capacity to lead a group of adolescents, both at the individual level (which implies an awareness and understanding of the characteristics of this age group), and at the collective level (considering the importance of group dynamics for adolescents), according to Gimonet (1979)60. In relation to the adolescent, the Tutor will need: to consider the youth as an adult, while accepting his adolescent behavior; to cultivate a mature and coherent personality, worthy of the youth’s confidence; to strike a balance between the freedom and the structure of the group, dominating the situation so as not to fall into either authoritarianism or anarchy. All these qualities are gradually acquired with experience and the specific formation of the Tutors in the Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle, a primordial mission of national and regional structures61. The Tutor favors a climate of confidence among the youth, their parents, and the Alternating Cycle Coordinators. For this reason, he is also an animator of the dialogue between the family and the student as the parents, the primary educators, (and/or the Alternating Cycle coordinator) assume a primary role in the formation of the youth during her time in the local setting. There are various concrete instruments to stimulate family participation and responsibility: the “Family Visits”, the “Journal of Communication between Parents and Tutors”, the “Family Work Groups” in the sessions that they periodically have in the CEFFA. The Tutor, more than just a teacher who works in or for an Educational Center, is someone who, through his specific work as an educator, associates himself to the responsibility of those who govern and animate the project of a CEFFA. Hence we may speak of a CEFFA as a project for eEducational Project and promotion of the rural community led by people of this community. Becoming a Tutor requires certain aptitudes for knowledge and recognition of the community and of its agents, taking into account that the Alternating Cycle marks a clear difference between the formation imparted in the CEFFA as compared to that of a traditional school. Chartier's reflection62 can help us understand the profile of a Tutor: “a Formation in

60 The relationships inside the team of tutors was the Doctoral Research of Professor Gimonet. 61 The Centre Nationale Pédagogique of Chaingy, with the supervision of a national organization for the Formation and Research on Alternating Cycle (ANFRA) and with autonomous operations related to the UNMFREO, assures this formation in the MFR of France, as we have already seen in Chapter 1. In the countries with the most dynamic growth of the CEFFA (Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Guatemala), the Formation of Tutors is a subject of maximum importance and is sufficiently institutionalized. In others (Spain, Portugal, Mozambique, Philippines…), it is much more fragile. Sadly, in some countries, such a special preparation for Tutors hardly exists (Puig, 2006). This subject matter will be better explained in Chapter 3. 62 Interview conducted by P. Puig to D. Chartier (December, 1996).


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Alternating Cycle is not a formation in disjointed activities. A Tutor who doesn't know what the youth is doing during his time in the real-world environment is not doing his job correctly. This was the first reflection from the beginning. To ignore the youth leads him to a part time formation. Are we offering a formation on a full time or part time basis? If we are doing it on a full time basis, we must establish close ties between the environment that the youth learns in and the MFR. If we work on formation on a part time basis, we totally ignore what the youth is living”. When we define Alternating Cycle as continuity of formation in a discontinuity of activities, we want to say that formation occurs in all the different spaces and times. If there is no interaction between the different settings, it is only a part-time formation. If the Tutor does not know the youth, their families, their way of life, he is breaking the unity of the formation. Of course a the student can fill in, making the necessary bridges between life and school, with the help of the family and Alternating Cycle coordinators, but this would be an enormous waste of effort if the agents of formation don't all work together. In summary, we can say that the CEFFA Tutor's duty as Animator is a consequence of her generalist character. According to García-Marirrodriga (2002), the Tutor must also possess a competence connected to “knowing how to be” (the attitude in the relationship of help) more than merely “knowing”, “knowing how to do” (procedures, methods, techniques) and of “knowing how to learn how to do” (to favor autonomous learning).

Belonging to a Pedagogical Team

The Tutor does not work in isolation, but with others in the core of a team, of a group of people in charge of advancing a set of tasks entrusted to them by the Council (the governing arm of the Association with a global responsibility towards the CEFFA). Teamwork is central to the CEFFA due to its reduced dimension, its the global conception of formation that seeks the general development of the student in interaction with his community, and due to the Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle of periods in the socio-professional environment and the classroom. It is impossible to adequately begin, follow-up, and evaluate the Formation Plan without teamwork in which everyone contributes (Gimonet, 1979). To work with a group, to form part of a team, is to share with others a common task, and therefore to assume responsibility for the entire task (not just the individual tasks assigned to each one). Teamwork also means that each person contributes ideas and experiences that can enrich the work of everyone else, thus making the effort a common project. This


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demands from the Tutors a harmonious, coordinated vision of his work, that will be favored in part by active participation in regular work meetings63. The meetings certainly must take place, but this will not be enough for a real interpersonal communication, which implies close relationships, without which the exchange of information runs the risk of being excessively formal. Socio-affective relations (being together, exchanges, understanding, security) and operational relations (cooperation, shared work, complementary interventions), will become essential elements for each Tutor, given that, as for any human being, these relationships directly influence the Tutor's work attitudes. One may say that Alternating Cycle obligates teamwork, and at the same time, is a place for regulation of affective and relational processes between the Tutors, and with the rest of the agents of the youths' formation. There is no doubt that this entails difficulties. Some come from the interior of the Team itself, and can be of a psychological nature (attempts to conform to the model of a traditional Teacher, ideological divisions between team members), or related to authority and the hierarchy within the Team, or connected to the pedagogical act (different preferences on the part of the students toward some Tutors versus others). Other difficulties are of an institutional nature, and have to do with the material and administrative conditions of the work, or with parent attitudes that do not end in understanding the global duty of the Mentor of a CEFFA. When the functioning of the Team is perturbed or altered for internal or external circumstances, personal conflicts are generated that have direct repercussions on the progress of the CEFFA. Hence the Teams shall not be too large (between 4 and 10 persons) nor homogeneous (in regard to the formation of the Tutors, in order to favor complementarity). In the bigger CEFFAs, it is advisable to divide Tutors into sub-teams that allow two things: to know the students personally in their social, familial, professional environment, and to maintain a working agility so as to rapidly adapt to the student and to the realities of the environment (Puig, 2006).

63 Normally there are two meetings of the Team of Tutors of the CEFFA; one is on Monday at the first hour and the other on Friday afternoon or on Saturday morning. In the first, not more than 45 minutes, the general planning for the week is laid out and the assignment of responsibilities is reviewed. In the second, longer meeting, they plan: the Family and Enterprise Visits (Alternating Cycle Coordinators); meetings with families and officers in the School; evaluations; external relations; the technical assignments and the objectives of general formation; adaptations and changes to the Formation Plan, and follow-up to the Study Plans... In one word, all the aspects of the Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle.


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The animation of the Socio-professional environment

The basic requirement for this new task of animation is the profound knowledge of forms of doing, saying, and being of the members of the rural community. We have already said that being a Tutor of a CEFFA supposes a personal decision to live and worke in and for the rural community (García-Marirrodriga, 2002). The Tutor is a crucial element to foster the development of the Association, as well as the integration and participation of many people in the formation that is offered. It is clear that the ultimate responsibility belongs to the Council, but the Tutor, through his work of formation, has to stir up the necessary attitudes so that people will assume real responsibility for the project. The CEFFA is not an isolated Association, but rather it is normally integrated into other wider networks that share the same aims and means. Therefore the Tutor, aside from knowing the whole reality of his institution, should acquire the necessary formation to work within an associative movement, which is something dynamic and varied. The educational interaction existing among school, environment, family, Tutor, and Alternating Cycle coordinators, demands reciprocity in the interventions of all agents. This complexity is the wealth of the CEFFA; if this does not exist, the CEFFAs would be converted into schools like any other. The Tutor has to be capable of inspiring the teaching vocation of parents and those in charge of Alternating Cycle during the students' stay in the socio-professional environment. Therefore, the Tutor is an educator of adults, aside from being an educator of youth. When she is with adults, they are learning to teach. The personal relationship of the Tutor with adults, the joint construction of formation projects, fosters dialogue, mutual knowledge, confidence, security. If the person who receives the youth is an Alternating Cycle coordinator apart from the family, he should strive to maintain an educative atmosphere, not only a professional one, that favors dialogue. And as the Tutor is preoccupied with the promotion and development of the community, he has to integrate himself (which is easiest if he comes from the area) and complicate his life, making himself available to contribute his part to local development (presence in the associations, unions, agricultural organizations...) and the promotion of the CEFFA's Association. Everything that has been said until here supports the necessity of formation for the Tutor. The Tutor “is born”, which is to say that he should have a certain vocation for formation and promotion of the rural community, but at the same time “he is made”, meaning that the Tutor needs an initial and continuing training to carry out his mission well (Puig, 2003).


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One could rightly think that the duty of the Tutor is difficult. The management of time is key in order to “arrive at everything”, this is to say, of having time for the students, the Association and the Council, the families, the very educational establishment, the Alternating Cycle coordinator, the community professionals... We propose five elements to take into account within the time expenditure of the Mentor and the assigned percentages to each one of them, elaborated beginning with a survey (Puig & García-Marirrodriga, 2003):

o Personal guidance for the students, visits to families and Alternating Cycle coordinators: 15%

o Animation and guidance of group educational activities, outside class hours: 15% o External relations with the partners (allies or active collaborators) of formation and

with local professionals and community institutions: 10% o Educative and formative activities in the classrooms with the groups of students

(class hours): 40% o Personal formation, preparation and organization of personal and collective

activities: 20% This distribution of tasks is neither exact nor exhaustive. It only seeks to be a proposal to present the complementary activities that the Tutor should develop in the carrying out of his duty. We can emphasize that the last two points are common to teachers of any traditional school, while the three first points are are specific to the CEFFAs, although not exclusive to them. The able execution of these last three factors is crucial for the uniqueness of the CEFFA system. In the case of the CEFFA's Director, the assigned percentage to the time of classes shouldn't exceed 25%. The time dedicated to animation of activities with students outside class hours can also be reduced to 5%. This 20% of time gained can be spent in equal parts on: a) promotion of the Association and the community (external relations); b) personal conversations with the Tutors (teaching of teachers). The hierarchy of values and the priorities in organizing work are the decisions of the Council, and it is the mission of the Director to maintain, together with the team of Tutors, compliance with the objectives of the families, the objectives of the official government standards, and the application of the proper methodological characteristics of Alternating Cycle.


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SCHEME 2. Profile of competencies of the CEFFA Tutor. Based on scheme from UNMFREO, 1998

This task is complex and is constantly evolving. It is necessary to reconcile all the factors and manage all available resources. The Tutor, as we have clearly stated, cannot be a direct employee of the Ministry of Education. The Association must be able to carry out the selection, contracting, formation, and guidance of the Tutors, while the competent public authority pays their salaries. Scheme 2 summarizes in graphic form the necessary competencies of a Tutor. Equally, the following (Scheme 3) will do the same for the Director of a CEFFA. A special kind of Tutor is the Director of the CEFFA: ultimately in charge of the Educational Team, leader of the Animation Team, and constant reference for the Pedagogical Team (García-Marirrodriga, 2002). Definitively, the ideal profile for a Director

PROFILE OF COMPETENCIES OF A CEFFA TUTOR

TECHNICAL

HUMAN RELATIONS

LEADERSHIP CREATIVITY

Integral global vision for the CEFFA Teamwork with all agents of formation Prioritize the institutional objectives of the Association Responsibility, thoroughness Personal organization

CAPACITY FOR ORGANIZATION

Group animation: youths, teams, families, officers... Involve families Involve community members Appreciation of cultural aspects Involvement with local institutions

COMMUNICATION SKILLS

Personal authority Creativity, openness, dynamism Continued formation and improvement Understanding and synergy Principles and human values Adhesion to and integration with the values of the CEFFA Movement

PERSONAL APTITUDES

Pedagogy: teaching, application of instruments for Alternating Cycle… Knowledge, professional experience Innovation, research Dialogue, availability Guidance of the students’ projects

PEDAGOGICAL AND EDUCATIONAL APTITUDES


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is that of a leader64. But above all, he is a Tutor, for which all that we have said about the Tutors applies to the Director too. In any case, aside from an appropriate level of professional experience, the following capacities are important for the Director:

o Management of human resources: relations with the team of collaborators (instructor, staff, and Council), with the families and students, with the enterprises and the socioeconomic community, with local institutions.

o Organization and leadership: natural authority (not authoritarianism) that must be earned from the team through the Director's personal prestige in professional and human aspects, capacity to share authority and responsibility (delegation), availability for dialogue.

o Management of economic resources: elaboration and follow-up on the budget with the Council, ability to search for and secure new resources.

The Director receives her authority and her power from the Association, therefore, she should clearly know that she is working in an associative context, and must render accounts of her activities directly to the President of the Association. The Director work regularly with the President with him. The President, and the Council in general , will furthermore have an important function of “checks and balances” that is fundamental to achieve an optimum balance of operations in the the relations between the Council and the Pedagogical Team (Kliksberg, 2004). In effect, the Director should not be the exclusive authority, indispensable to everything else, the chief who commands and controls, the patron (in the sense of an employer), or someone outside the team. The Director will carry out three principal objectives: ! The formation, animation, and education of the students of the CEFFA: with identical

functions to those of the Tutors, and the necessary qualifications according to the pertinent legislation.

! The animation of the Association: in harmony with the President for the follow-up of decisions, the participation in institutional activities, work sessions with families, and the distribution of competencies in the Team.

! The general management of the Educational Center: organization and animation of the personnel within the Center, safeguards the juridical, financial and administrative aspects, according to the Council's directions. Among the Director's responsibilities are respect for

64 To understand the leadership that we are talking about, it is recommended to consult: Ferreiro & Alcázar, 2002.


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the Association statutes and for the ultimate responsibility of families. This is to say, the Director whould assure compliance with the four pillars of the CEFFA Movement. It is important to point out that, though the Director works with a group and delegates the execution of concrete tasks, the final responsibility will still be hers.

SCHEME 3. Profile of competencies of the CEFFA Director. Based on scheme in UNMFREO, 1998

Finally, residence in the learning center has been a feature of the unique educational structure of the CEFFA since the beginning of the movement, . As a consequence, another important position in the CEFFA is a service person dedicated to the preparation of meals and general cleaning. In some cases the CEFFA requires the collaboration of a secretary or

Organization of work and distribution of tasks Prioritize actions and objectives Thoroughness in adminstrative and financial management Appropriate use of available resources Coordination with the Council of the Association

Management and Organization Skills

Application and follow-up of the Formation Plan and the Educational Project of the CEFFA Application of the Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle: teaching methods, instruments... Development of the educational aspects of youth guidance and their Life Projects

Pedagogical and Educational Aptitudes

TECHNICAL

Animation of the pedagogic team: delegate, motivate… Promotion of persons: youths, team, families … Animation of the Association and the Council Application of the decisions of the Council with the necessary actions

Leadership Skills

Spirit of initiative, innovation and excellence, to improve the quality of services given Communication with entities and persons; institutional image Involvement of all collaborators in institutional projects Capacity to adapt to change

Personal aptitudes

HUMAN RELATIONS

MANAGEMENT CREATIVITY

PROFILE OF COMPETENCIES OF A CEFFA DIRECTOR


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administrative assistant, or someone to run the Center of Documentation and Information (CDI)65, a gardener, etc.

The duty of these auxiliary positions goes beyond preparing meals, writing official letters, or painting walls. This is written in the Educational Project of the Center. The CEFFAs hold special values that each center should articulate in the form of objectives elaborated by all the agents of formation and approved by the Administration Council. Definitively, the auxiliary staff works at the core of an Educational Team under the responsibility of the Director.

Local Businesses and Alternating Cycle Coordinators

The CEFFAs and the professional organizations of the community are not isolated elements. We might say that the need one another, that they mutually complement each other. If we want to carry out our task well, it is necessary that an educational interaction exists between the socio-professional world and the school. Formation in Alternating Cycle represents one of the possible answers to the necessity of creating strong and effective bonds between education and the world of work (OCDE, 1994a). It is important to have an adequate intervention of professionals in the CEFFA. The ideal would be that all the knowledge that can be transmitted to a student by a professional of a defined sector, should not be transmitted by the Tutor. The Tutor should prepare the professionals' interventions and subsequently analyze them and re-elaborate them with the students, and beginning with this contribution of the socio-professional reality, work on specific and general academic subjects. On the other hand, the Tutors should have all possible professional relations, attending meetings, symposia, seminars, etc., aside from participating in all the students' study visits and tours, whenever he can. Integration and isolation are the opposing extremes in regard to the relations with the social, economic, professional, and cultural environment that surrounds the CEFFA, but neither of these is acceptable to our reality. These CEFFAs that respond to a reality of local formation, do not need to integrate themselves because they emerge from the very environment, or better yet, they are themselves the environment. What can happen is that, for diverse reasons, the CEFFA isolates itself, enclosing itself within its walls. This would be a grave

65 The CDI is more than a library. It is a Center for didactic resources and information where, together with a collection of books, there are technical, cultural, and news journals, with which students and Tutors carry out constant research work for the good practice of Alternating Cycle.


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error if we are striving to obtain the aims of the CEFFA, which are promotion and development through formation, as we have seen in this chapter. There exists a real development of the rural community when it is possible for youth to stay there with a quality and dignity of life superior to that of the parents, without the necessity to migrate elsewhere (Puig, 2003). This will mean that the youth can exercise a profession in their own territory that will allow them to satisfy their needs in a manner appropriate to the local culture, without losing their roots. In the present society, where knowledge is critical to wellbeing, there is no dignified work without school. This idea is reinforced when in Latin America, and also in other regions, it is a custom to name the person by his university title: Professor, Engineer, Doctor, etc. This is to say, the title comes first before the name of the person, which is very significant. But knowledge is not only intellectual or emotional. It is spiritual too; young people are without doubt in search of the meaning of things, too. The parents become Alternating Cycle coordinators if the student’s period in the socio-professional world is carried out in his own farm or family business. If it is carried out in another enterprise, we are talking about an Alternating Cycle Coordinator as the person who guides the youth during the socio-professional period (Briffaud, 1987)66. To guide someone entails sensitivity, a demanding nature, ability, delicateness, understanding, and most of all a closeness to to the other. If he who guides is an adult and the one guided is the youth, there are professional, pedagogical, and educational requirements in the action. The Alternating Cycle coordinator is the teacher of the student in the community. He is, most of all, one who will work with the youth. For this, the quality of the pedagogical relation will determine the interest and effectiveness of the period. As with the parents, the adherence of the Alternating Cycle coordinator to a common educational project with the institution of Formation requires frequent meetings, exchanges, and conversations with the other agents of formation (Gimonet, 1984). With the parents, the Alternating Cycle coordinators are converted into co-educators of the youth (Nové-Josserand, 1997). The objective the Alternating Cycle coordinator should aspire to is the technical and practical formation of the youth. This latter aspect will be acquired through contact with the adult, with his knowhow, with the relations that arise in the work world (with the manager, the co-workers, the suppliers, the customers, other businesses), and the list of duties that come with work. Added to the pedagogical functions of the Alternating Cycle

66 In some countries “Time of probation” is named to the socio-professional period of Alternating Cycle spent in an Enterprise different from that of the family (case of Argentina, for example).


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coordinator is the task of providing the youth with some conditions of welcome, of hospitality, and of work, a set of high-quality relations. In this sense, the Alternating Cycle can be defined as a relational complex where the manner of pedagogical work develops a network of relationships in which each one of the agents should find his role and comply with it (Gimonet, 1984). Definitively, the Alternating Cycle coordinator has a triple commitment, similar although not identical to that of the parents, which requires a series of meetings with the Center officers to evaluate if his attitude coincides with the expectations of the CEFFA67:

- Receive the youth in a favorable environment68 (that is, to receive a student in formation), in common agreement with the parents and Tutors, to: expose the youth to the business, integrate him in the world of work, and take an interest in work and scholarly activities.

- Form the youth in the enterprise: dedicate time to respond to questions, help her in her studies, favor her sense of observation and analysis, transmit in the youth the culture and the to knowhow of the business.

- Become a partenaire (active collaborator) of the CEFFA Association: preoccupying themselves to know the main areas of formation that are desired, maintaining a constructive dialogue with the Pedagogical Team, participating in the activities of organized formation (meetings, evaluations, work sessions), promoting territorial development. There is no true accompaniment without a real commitment to the project of the CEFFA Association.

Both parents and Alternating Cycle coordinators benefit from their teaching functions toward the youth, because the adults are given the occasion to obtain a perspective on their own profession that will bring them to “formalize” their work and their to knowhow, and an occasion for their own personal and professional enrichment by listening to the questions and critiques formed by the youth. This, without any doubt, turns the Families and Alternating Cycle coordinators into agents of their own personal development and territorial development. And these are even enhanced more with the enrichment from

67 The Alternating Cycle Coordinators are the partenaires of the MFR, of the Tutors, of the environment, and of the parents. They are associated with the families and share the same objectives as the parents: that the youth acquire professional competencies, develop their personality and foster their human qualities (Nové-Josserand, 1997). 68 It is evident that the young person, on arriving at a new environment, especially if it is his first contact with the world of work outside the family, suffers an affective shock that should be counter-acted by a climate of security, understanding, and reception (Gimonet, 1984).


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meetings with all the agents in the CEFFA, where they have an exchange of viewpoints and experiences among themselves and the Tutors. Together with the parents and Alternating Cycle coordinators, the professional relations, the enterprise, the other youth and adults of the social and cultural environment, conform the network of partenaires or active collaborators with the formation in the CEFFA, whose approach is to learn to learn from life, using the classroom, the general surroundings, and the complex sum of contributions from all those involved in the formation, to find explanations to the questions that arise from life itslef. Formation in rural schools can be carried out in very diverse modes, but the social and professional world should be an integral element. To compare to a productivist model of farming, the teaching equivalent would be an exclusive focus on technical formation, with all results connected to economic aspects69. The phrase used in France by the Union of Young Farmers (“it is better have a neighbor in town than to gain 200 extra hectares of land”) is very meaningful: without neighbors, there are no children, nor schools, nor health services, nor an environment for leisure; without neighbors, a town will surely die. On the other extreme, the future farmer cannot live anchored in the past century, nor as a museum artifact for the inhabitants of large cities. He would be in an idyllic conception held by some people today, who think that we should farm as our ancestors did, without considering the current situation of the markets. We mustn't reject the value of the past or of modernity, but we cannot play with people, with their future, making the school an exclusive place for social and political agendas, without giving solutions, or proposing theoretical or nonviable solutions, or limit ourselves to criticizing the situation without taking into account the global context. In many countries in Latin America, all rural inhabitants are officially classed as farm “producers.” It can currently be affirmed that the nourishment of humanity is assured with the technologies within our reach, but at the same time we can observe certain phenomena of destruction, misery, and hunger in many places of our planet, with an unwise use and distribution of available resources. So although production may be assured, the future of rural people is not, whose methods and means are not competitive with new technologies (transgenic seeds, hormones, ultramodern mechanization, etc.). In many cases, the only

69 It is interesting to study the Farm School situation in the communist countries of Eastern Europe, and the National Five-Year Plan connected to Professional Formation. In the opposite case, there are schools that form foremen for the large enterprises in the capitalist countries.


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opportunity for rural people is migration to the cities, hence swelling the urban outskirts with so-called “slums, new towns, miserable villages, new settlements”…, or to wander around the world like nomads (NPA: no permanent address). The result of this exclusively productivist and materialist vision, which is not concerned with humanity, is provoking a new, problematic situation in the rural community70. Our concept of Rurality71 is not limited to the aspect of production, but should entail a process that continues with the transformation of products, their commercialization, the broad sector providing services to rural people (health professionals, construction, mechanics…). As we can appreciate, the possibilities of employment, activities, and work in the rural community are suffering changes that bring us to the need for a diversity of professions and the possibilities of industrial occupation. Such non-agricultural opportunities are increased with the incorporation of women into the workforce, as well as the professional incorporation of youth, who cannot stay dependent on their parents or their parents' land until it is divided among siblings, as this often doesn't happen until the death of the parents. Without being exhaustive, we present a list of different aspects that will generate positions for “rural” work in the near future: - For large landholdings: production at low cost. - For small extensions: very specialized productions. - Food industries: large, medium and small-scale, the majority family-owned. - Commercialization of food products. - Part-time farming: shared with other nearby work. - Elaboration of artisan products: food or others. - Services to local community: construction, mechanical, carpentry... - Services to persons: health, children, elderly... - Services in the commercial sector, hotel management and tourism. The evolution of employment on a worldwide basis is suffering a displacement from the production sector to the service sector. The statistics of any country demonstrate this tendency, and it is observed that in so-called developed countries the active farming

70 For more on the questions related with hunger and rural poverty, and solutions that should put humanity at the center, see, for example, García-Marirrodriga, 2002 and 2009; Trueba, 2002. 71 See Chapter 4 for an extensive study on the significance of the “New Rurality” and its relationship with Alternating Cycle.


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population is approximately 5%. Because of this, the CEFFAs are already offering a wide array of rural professions72 of the type listed above.

The Youth in Formation

One of the most important missions of the CEFFA is education. It is the motive that drives families to bring their children to the Centers and to trust in the Tutors and the local Association. More than full heads, the goal is well-made heads, meaning minds that are well-structured (Morin, 1999a). In the CEFFAs, more than professional formation or the transmission of knowledge, what is important is to help form students with personality, skills to adapt to change and to turn themselves into actors in the social, cultural, political, economic and professional life of their countries. In the present day, with media that arrive everywhere in the planet, our youth have a necessity for reference points where they can support themselves. There is so much data, but there are also difficulties to analyze and interpret it well. Youth create new languages within their own languages, they discover the shorcomings of their idols (actors, athletes, singers...). But perhaps what is most important is that they do not generally receive those values necessary for a healthy society: diligence, effort, solidarity, loyalty, commitment. As a consequence, what is reinforced is individualism, egoism, fear towards others and towards strangers, lack of respect. The time they spend in the CEFFA will become determining in the building of their personality, since pre-adolescents and adolescents are in a key period to guide their lives, to construct a project for their personal and professional life. It is thus clear that the family should be a point of reference, in spite of the fragile situation brought about by current politics. But whatever the family situation, it is the primary reference that the youth counts on, and must be the point of departure for the educators. Adolescence is a transitory period of life that allows people to pass from infancy and achieve adulthood. It has a different duration according to cultures, climate, and other factors, but what is certain is that in the more developed countries the Obligatory School Period is increasing, and thus the age at which the youth is incorporated into the world of work, the world of adults. The acquisition of autonomy is delayed more and more. But this period that is seen and/or lived as a “crisis”, is equally loaded with good occasions that allow the youth to discover and construct the foundations of his life, to forge his personality.

72 See Chapter 3, where this theme is more extensively developed.


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At times, there are attempts to divide adolescence into stages or progressive periods, but it is evident that each person is different and these periods intertwine easily. There are moments where biological changes strongly influence the person’s affective and psychological make-up. Through growth and acquisition of new skills, this is a period of activity, of a necessity for activities that motivate and permit experimentation with the youth's capacities and potentials. Young people likewise need to be valued and listened to in order to challenge his convictions and go on forming his thinking. Conflicts should be avoided that might make the adolescent feel contempt of his opinions and points of view. Teens try to project themselves in different ways, through their dreams or illusions, and have to be guided without abruptness in the building of their future. In the end arrives a period of autonomy where the young person already knows herself and distances herself from dependence or posturing, in order to achieve her place in this world. The diversity of pedagogical activities will permit young people to assume progressive responsibilities. The instruments and activities of the Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle will facilitate the process of personality building. We will discuss some instruments and activities that have particular relevance73: ! The Tutorial: instrument for the structuring of personal work in school and in the socio-

professional world. That is, personalized guidance of each of the youth based on his own personal and professional project.

! The Search Plan74, together with its respective instruments: Group Synthesis, Study Visits, professional input, Technical Cubjects, etc., that imbue a logic to the general and technical formation.

! The Alternating Cycle, which permits periods of differentiated and complementary learning between the professional world and the school, allowing the Tutor to use reality to give sense and meaning to learning within the framework of an appropriate Formation Plan.

! Life in the Residence: if the team of Mentors leads them well, a set schedule, extra-curricular activities, living together, and group life are great sources of training in social and democratic life, and allow the youth to experience occasions of work, dialogue, recreation, guided study, artistic and cultural formation, etc.

73 To further elaborate in these aspects, see Puig (2006). 74 Also called, according to countries, Plan of Study, Guide for Research and Reflection, Study Guide, Research Plan, Paksa in the Philippines...


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With regards to this last point, we would like to insist that a characteristic of the CEFFAs is that they can use all activities as “formative moments”. In this way, a Tutor is practicing his function of formation while he gives a class, but also in the free time given to students in the residence, in an informal conversation, in the organization of cleaning the students’ rooms, in the dining room. And often times the occasional incoherence in the behavior of a Tutor or an ugly gesture of the cook or administrative personnel can damage the climate of living together in a CEFFA, which seeks to be like a family. In this climate of living together, we find that the group of students is a “co-teaching element”, as is the residence. The small group has always been recognized as a necessary element to achieve the objectives of integral development of its beneficiaries. In this sense, according to González de Canales (1973), the CEFFA is not really a school, but a scholarly mini-society of a group of students in educational cohabitation with a team of animation. And as in any free society, one learns to be responsible through the autonomous exercise of his own creativity. A structure of this type requires a suitable form of personalization of the student: we must avoid both groupthink and the phantom of social passivity that is the product of ignorance. The formative role assigned to the group is evident in the educational structure of Alternating Cycle, but it is also important in the sphere of classroom teaching. More than in other systems, in the System of Alternating Cycle there is an educational cooperation at the core of the class (“inter-formation”). In effect, each person is a bearer of lived experiences, of knowhow, of some practical acquisitions and even theories (“auto-formation” through “eco-formation” or formation by things, by the environment), as say Pineau (2002a & 2009). This personal experience, what is transmissible by each person, constitutes a mediation of relationships between himself and the other members of the group, on the one hand, and between him and the Tutors, on the other hand (Gimonet, 1979). Because, aside from the fact that students learn from one another (“hetero-formation” or formation through other persons), the Tutors also learn from them. The differences among the students constitute the wealth of the school, the primary material with which everybody works, reflects, and learns (González de Canales, 1973). The cohabitation of the youth in the group during their stay in the residence of the CEFFA is a real opening towards life in society (Nové-Josserand, 1997). The experiences outside of the specific learning activities permit favorable occasions of opening to others, team spirit, friendship, exchange, solidarity, essentially the acquisition of relationships, of virtues, and of group cohesion. This philosophy of focusing on the group corresponds well to the psychology


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of adolescents, because in the group the youth achieves self-esteem and he is valued. This constitutes a social form that can compensate to some extent the situation of inferiority in which the adolescent is normally placed, and allows him to acquire social experiences. The adolescent feels secure, known, and cared for, not as an anonymous number in a mass. With small groups, it is easier to accept self restraint and respect for differences. Likewise to learn to live in society and act freely, but with personal responsibility. The small group favors a more personalized manner of teaching where each one, even the most timid, can affirm her personality (Briffaud, 1987)75.

THE NECESSITY OF FORMATION AND THE GUIDANCE OF DEVELOPMENT AGENTS

The formation of Families76

In the educational context of a CEFFA, the families are the basic element. Not only because their participation guarantees better operations of the CEFFA, or because they help to make the pedagogical formula of Alternating Cycle become more effective. It is a matter of a higher condition: the responsibility of the parents in the education of their children, with all the implied participation, protagonism, and real responsibility in the operations of the educational center. In synthesis, it is fitting to say that the associative structure and the pedagogical structure guarantee an essential principle of the CEFFA gathered together in its Statutes: the

75 The CEFFA are Residential Centers that favor the reception and lodging of students during the periods in the school. The need is obvious (aside from formative reasons) for a more or less simple residential structure, never in a level excessively superior to the family residence of the students, to receive youth that often come from afar and that, normally, have a heavier load of classes and educational activities than a traditional school, so as to comply to the official government objectives for total class hours. The residence facilitates class attendance for many students, which might otherwise not be possible, due to the difficulty and cost of daily trips to and from their homes. But the residence is not only a simple solution to the problem of distance and commuting. It is an important educational element: students organize themselves to carry out household duties (cleaning, order, repairs, help in the kitchen) and are responsible in the organization of activities of free time, but also those of the school. A student body size on a human scale facilitates living together, the relations of proximity, and the formation and education of the youth, who learns to respect others, to get to know them, to value differences, to tolerate diversity, to work and have fun in a group, to respect the rules of human relations. The youth begins to become autonomous, to live together with other youth and adults, not in a brusque manner of the “military” type, but in a progressive manner, alternating the periods in his own family and community, with others in the Educational Center and with the Alternating Cycle Coordinator. Anyway, the residence is not a pillar of this pedagogical system (García-Marirrodriga, 2002): there are existing CEFFA without residence in several countries 76 As reference, we have taken the Statutes, Rules of the Interior Government, Acts of meetings and Asemblies, etc., of the EFA Quintanes and UNEFA (Spain) and of SIMFR (Belgium). The authors of this book have worked in these three institutions.


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responsibility that the families demand in the education of their children. The families are not mere collaborators of the teachers in the educational task, nor users of the Center where they send their children, but rather with their participation and support they help sustain an educational structure that guarantees a formation for youth according to the real needs and characteristics of the community where they live and work. The importance of the role of the families is shown in the words of Chartier77, who reveals that when the CEFFA transfers authority to another institution, the CEFFA disappears: “in 1945, some MFRs, mostly for girls, wanted to hand over their administration to the National Ministry of Education for Technical Instruction. Two of three years later, these MFRs closed because the parents, the families, had abandoned their responsibilities”. Whether for financial difficulties or another type, if the families commit the error of handing over their responsibilities to other entities, authorities, teachers, or public administration, the result has always been the same in all cases: closure78. The common objective of the families is their desire to contribute in an effective manner to the education of their children, to help them build a better future, in vital aspects: being (as a human person), knowing (knowledge) and doing (capacities). As a consequence, this is what makes the families stick together, what gives them place in the constitution of the Association and its development. Because of this, the contents of a work plan for families must respond to different aspects related to the Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle, family education, effective use and orientation of the contents of formation in the Family and School Periods, current technical and economic themes... The differences between CEFFAs and other types of Educational Centers, are manifested once more in the pedagogical practice, as Duffaure indicates79: “the study of the community and the Plan of Studies have induced remarkable possibilities: they have set the parents and the Alternating Cycle coordinators into action to respond to the questions posed. Not only to become Internship Tutors, but also as testimonies of experience, of life. At the same time, we discovered that this work to be carried out within the family, in the town, in the territory, would have a major advantage: to make the community dwellers responsible. Said in another way: the parents, the Alternating Cycle coordinators were not simply responsible for an MFR, but

77 Interview conducted by P. Puig to D. Chartier (diciembre 1996). In this same line, see also: Lilli, 2006; Puig. 2006; García-Marirrodriga, 2002; Nové-Josserand, 1997. 78 Similar examples exist in other countries and continents. 79 Interview conducted by P. Puig to A. Duffaure (December 1996).


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they were transformed as people responsible for the future of their own territory, because they were integrated with the school to carry out the formation entrusted to them”. Technical, educational, pedagogical, developmental themes. These give rise to the different content areas for the Program of group work. The development of a Program for families working in groups, organized by grade levels, by geographical zones, etc., requires a system of participative work, and demands a rhythm and pattern of frequent meetings. A methodological proposal that includes the aspects previously stated could be the following80:

a. Presentation of the Session’s Work Plan.

This is done by the President of a member of the Administrative Council and has an approximate duration of 10-15 minutes.

b. Evaluation of the period elapsed in the socio-professional environment and programming of the next period of Alternating Cycle.

This is a time in the Session where the families should actively participate through work in small groups. After the group work, there will be a general session for all the participants to discuss essential ideas. The evaluation of the past Alternating Cycle period can be done using a work guide that has been previously sent to the families. The programming of the period of Alternating Cycle can also be done with a work guide that summarizes education objectives for that period. Logically this part of the session will be coordinated with the CEFFA Director, and/or the Tutor in charge of that work group, together with other Tutors. They will take advantage of this time to inform the parents of the last period spent in the education center. The approximate duration is 60 minutes.

c. Consideration of questions about the Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle and the CEFFA Association.

80 This guide is inspired by the experiences of the Spanish EFAs between the years 1970 and 1995, approximately (the so-called GTF: Grupos de Trabajo de Familias – Family Work Groups). But it also includes later experiences in other countries like Brazil and Argentina. More on experiences in Argentina can be found in Lilli, 2006. Also in Argentina, APEFA has an experience with a great impact: Parent-trainers who form others to understand the functions and responsibilities in the EFA.


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During the entire Work Program, they will study the themes related to the Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle so that the families will better understand their respective roles in the different pedagogical tools and activities. The exposition of the theme will be short and simple, facilitating the participation and discussion of everyone in the group. In some cases, it will be very useful to carry out a practical case with the participants (for example, a Search Plan). According to the theme, this session can be coordinated by the Director, a Tutor, the President and/or members of the Administration Council. The duration will be approximately 45 minutes (it may be more if they develop a case study).

d. Questions related to the educational function of the family: Family Orientation. During the Work Program, there will be a study of specific themes about adolescence, family relations, feelings. There should be a Work Plan covering the entire time spent in the CEFFA by each group's children. It is advisable to use active methodologies, case studies, etc. Invited experts can come for these concrete themes, but they need to do a simple and adequate exposition for those attending, facilitating the participation and discussion of the group. According to the themes treated, these session can be coordinated by the Director, a Tutor, the President, and/or members of the Administration Council. The approximate duration will be 45 minutes (it may be more if they develop a workable case with them).

e. Study of the current technical, social or economic realities in the region. Within the Work Program are foreseen different topics of technical, sociological, or economic interest, etc. Each group of families should make a program and a set of themes according to their necessities and characteristics. This programming, in some cases, can be common to various groups, and other farmers and families in the area interested in the theme can participate even if they are not parents of students In some cases, there can be specific themes of major interest for the mothers. These themes should be coordinated with qualified local experts, members of the Association, or other collaborators. The approximate duration will be 45 minutes. Summary of the proposed methodologies and content:

Time Themes Methodology Person in charge

15 ‘ Presentation Exposition President or Council

60 ‘ ! Evaluation and preparation of the next alternating cycles

Teamwork Exposition Director and/or Tutors


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! Report on living in the CEFFA

45 ‘ ! The Pedagogy of Alternating

Cycle ! The Association of CEFFA

Promotion

Exposition, Colloquium, Group work

Director and/or Tutors President &/or members

of the Council

45’ ! Questions related to the

educational function of the family. Family orientation

Exposition, Colloquium, Group work

Collaborators, Council Members, Director or

Tutors 45’ ! Current technical, social or

economic aspects of the region Exposition, Colloquium

Technician, Expert or Collaborator

TABLE 1. Methodology for Family Work Groups. Own elaboration.

The Formation of the Administration Councils of the Associations

In the countries that enjoy peace, freedom, and democracy, there is a wide range of associative possibilities that offer answers to local necessities. If we analyze the places where the CEFFAs exist in Europe, there are two obvious realities. Of the four countries, two suffered from political dictatorship until the 70s (Spain and Portugal) and the other two underwent a process of important reconstruction after the Second World War (France and Italy). In Latin America, the democracies are more recent and all countries where there are CEFFA have suffered dictatorships. In Africa, the reality is a far cry from peace and stability. The wars, endogenous cultural elements, local traditions and political organization, are difficulties that lamentably have obstructed until now a true work of association in the CEFFAs. The best experience that we know today is that developed in France by the Institute of Formation of Rural Leaders (IFOCAP81), which has benefited many French rural leaders. Recently, the experience of IFOCAP has served as a work base to develop in Brazil82 the course of Formation of Leader of Rural Organizations (FLOR), thanks to the collaboration of the Director, Bruno Gsell, and an excellent educator, Jean-Louis Ichard. The basic ideas, some of which were equally expressed in the foundational ideas of IFOCAP, are: 1. Learning by doing: permits the exchange of experiences between the leaders, their

empirical knowledge. This knowing by action should be combined with intellectual theoretical knowing, with wider knowledge than their own experiences, in order to

81 IFOCAP: Institut de Formation des Cadres Paysans. Was created in December 1959 by officers of the Professional Farming Organizations, to which were joined University Professors, high functionaries of the Public Administration, and other competent people. It is an autonomous Association governed by the 1901 Law of Associations. It is recognized by the Ministry of Agriculture of France as an activity for collective promotion. 82 After 2008, they initiated similar experiences in Peru and Guatemala.


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increase their skills for analyzing the situations surrounding them. This formation always starts from experience so as to foster better and more authentic reflections.

2. An integral formation of the human person in all his or her dimensions. Considering that it is people who create and manage the structures to promote society's common good, a prearranged scheme does not exist, nor a final recipe that is prefabricated or determinist: only freedom and responsibility.

3. A humanist philosophical, sociological, and anthropological vision of people, that opposes a purely liberal conception where the accent is placed on the rights of the individual forgetting social justice, mutual obligations, and solidarity. The vision is equally opposed to any collectivist organization of society that treats people as things or manipulates them from the outside.

Taking into account the necessary pedagogical aspects, the modules of each formation session will have a theme of studies. For example: the national and international economic context, the new facets of rurality, commerce and the transformation of farm products, etc. And through these generative themes, some other, transversal aspects should be worked on: a. Expression and communication: speaking in public, preparing articles for the press,

presenting on radio and television, writing speeches, interpreting information and classifying it...

b. Work organization: organizing assemblies, congresses, seminars; work relations between administrators...

c. Personal development and human resources: human relations, personal and organizational time management, planning of tasks and activities, conflict management…

d. Group management: organizing and leading a meeting, managing a team, planning and follow-up with a project, foreseeing changes...

e. Policy analysis: economic, commercial, business...

The planning, contents, and people involved in such training, should have sufficient knowledge of each area. This type of formation should allow the directors of the Association and other local professional organizations to understand current political, economic, and social challenges so that they can become agents in their local, regional and national realities. If the movement of the CEFFAs in each nation proposes a formation of this or a similar style for the officers, it will be a guarantee, a great institutional support in order not to fall into past errors, which we can summarize in four great aspects:


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1. That the authorities do not respect the right of the families in the education of their children with appropriate alternative proposals like the CEFFAs.

2. That the CEFFA Association converts into an Association of Parents of Students in the service of the school and its teachers, abandoning any project for local development.

3. That the management of the Center is not in the hands of the families, but in those of the initial promoters or the educators.

4. That the formation does not respond to the needs of the youth, but is simply converted into a transmission of knowledge of the official government curriculum.

The Initial and Continued Pedagogical Formation of the Tutors

At this point we must highlight the importance that the CEFFA direct the formation in methodological, didactic, and spiritual aspects, and that the said formation is under their direct institutional responsibility, although they count on the collaboration of others. The contents of the Formation of Tutors should not limit itself to an action of formation and certification in pedagogical aptitudes. As Duffaure says83: “one day we realized that there was not just pedagogy, but also research, studies, evaluations of the MFR… All that led us to create the National Center for Pedagogy”. This confirms our opinion that the Tutors need an Institutional Pedagogical Formation that responds to the needs and the evolutions specified by the mission and the function of the CEFFA.

Being a Tutor in a CEFFA is a profession inherently different from that of the traditional teacher, as we have seen in this chapter. Because of this, the specific formation of CEFFA Tutors should respond to their needs, and apply the same pedagogical system of Alternating Cycle that is used for the youth and for the members of the Administration Council. In the first place we talk about a Formation in Service; while they are practicing their profession in a real situation, within a team, in a determined context. The formation should respond to different situations. Among them, at the beginning of professional practice, that of being alone in a classroom full of students. There, the Tutor will legitimately repeat what he lived as a student. Therefore, once that reality is experienced, he should receive a formation that takes his own experience as a starting point, about relations in the classroom with students in the Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle. Starting with direct experience is a principle widely repeated in the pedagogical practice of the CEFFAs. Hence, active learning of the Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle is carried out in the very place of work, in a real situation. At

83 Interview conducted by P. Puig to A. Duffaure (December 1996).


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the same time, the Tutor should not only compare with the practice of her companions, but base her actions on external theoretical contributions. That is, compare, explain, reason, theorize. Sharing of practice does not mean hiding difficulties, but openly discussing about the reality that is being experienced, in order to base the formation on realities, which does not mean that the formation becomes an analysis of practices in each CEFFA, to know if the school “adapts to the norm”. It is about knowing “where one is” to construct based on real facts, without falling into a fascination for the narration of emotional anecdotes.

There is a need to bring out problems so as to work on them profoundly. Referring to the Formation of Educators, the contribution of Perrenoud (2001) is interesting. He tells us that if the educator must transmit a specific content, he should not enclose himself in reading topics or summarize questions that do not bring any new construction. The art is in starting from experience, in order to come out from it and progressively move away from the wall of lamentations or reciprocal sympathy, to construct concepts or knowledge from the situations and practices contributed. It is therefore about facilitating the Tutor's skills of self-formation, hetero-formation, and eco-formation, through an active formation, through a reflexive practice that offers conceptual and theoretical contributions that help the Tutor to construct projects and develop initiatives in a more methodical form (Pineau, 2002b). Because of this, a personalized guidance is indispensable in the formation, more than a transmission of models or schemes. In this way, in the case of the CEFFA, the Tutors have a personal tutor in their CEFFA, along with guidance from the National Pedagogical Team and Pedagogical Delegates. Together with the President, Director, and Team, there should be a solid support for Tutors. This collaboration and cooperation of the people from the Tutor's own Education Center indirectly complies with other important functions. Reflection on their own practices in order to understand them leads Tutors to set up innovations and improvements in their activity. At the same time, if their commitment is real, this will allow them to lessen the natural resistance that arises from any change. This aspect is important because the new competences acquired by the Tutor in the Initial and Continued Formation will certainly create a conflict in other Tutors that never received the formation or that received it long ago. Any innovation will become a motive of criticisms.


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The consequence would be that the only result of the formation is simple information without the possibility of application in the CEFFA. Thus, the formation should be at the same time personal and collective. That is, a cooperation in formation. At the same time there must be actions of collective formation with everyone in the Team of Educators in a CEFFA, or of Work Groups composed by Tutors of different Centers that work in the same areas or of Directors that have problems in common. The synergy of the practical studies and individual and collective competencies will facilitate what Perrenoud (2001) calls “real incidence of interdependence and systemic effects on formation”. This systemic vision of formation should be present at all times and actions of formation of Tutors, be it initial or continued. The relation and nteraction among the topics, among people, the polyvalence requested from the Tutor, together with the rich complementary heterogeneity of the Team, the socioeconomic situation, the characteristics of the youth, etc., should be taken into account in the formation of Tutors. We do not forget that the formation sough in the CEFFA has to be global, integral, complete and for life, not specific and for a specialized technical practice. The following table can summarize the differences between a CEFFA Tutor and a traditional teacher. This can be expanded upon and should only be taken as a visual instrument that facilitates the understanding of the differences. Likewise, one needs to consider that there is no such thing as an absolutely pure example of a Tutor or a traditional teacher, because people cannot be classified in this manner. Nevertheless, it is important to lay out clearly what is sought in the formation of Tutors, in order to be coherent with institutional aims and means.

Professor Tutor Standard Formation Personalized Formation Based on official programme Based on real needs and experience Teaching centered Learning centered Homogeneity sought in the group Heterogeneity that is valued and used Group as an obstacle Group as a resource Strict planning Flexible planning Transmits his knowledge Guides the process of self-formation

TABLE 2. Differences between the traditional teacher and the CEFFA Tutor. Based on

Perrenaud, 2001


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Starting with the Presentation Documents of formation in the National Center for Pedagogy of the MFR of France, as well as the Formation Plan of the CEFFAs of Brazil, Guatemala, Argentina y Peru, we will briefly present the most important aspect of this issue.

The Initial Pedagogical Formation of Tutors

A formation “in, by, and for” Alternating Cycle, that starts with a phase of professional initiation of an approximate duration of 10 months (an academic year). Initially a Tutor that will receive the formation should commit himself for at least two years more to continue his pedagogical formation. The first year tends to have learning sessions in the area: Department, Province, State. The second year is organized with attendance at at least one of the possible National Sessions. All are coordinated by the CNP (Centro Nacional Pedagógico – National Pedagogical Center) or EPN (Equipo Pedagógico Nacional – National Pedagogical Team). The objectives: develop the necessary aptitudes to exercise the function of a Tutor in a System of Alternating Cycle. That is, making of the Formation Plans, conducting activities and subjects of formation, relations with the community and professionals, with the partenaires (active collaborators) of formation, educational activities with the youth and the adults, educational-pedagogical group work, and animation of associative structures. The Contents: we can emphasize six great interactive axes. 1. Institutional Context: associative structure and life. Organization. 2. People in formation: psychological characteristics, sociology of adolescents, adults,

group life... 3. Community of Life, Social Community: the family (values and educational roles), the

Professional Community (basis of Alternating Cycle), the relations with the partenaires of formation.

4. Formation in General Pedagogy (Educational trends and systems, processes of learning, methods, techniques and pedagogical instruments) and in the Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle (Guides of Study, Common Syntheses, Formation Plans, organization of sequences, Didactic Notebooks, Technical Files...).

5. Education: educational trends, educational life of the center, animation of groups, educational relations (authority, discipline, attitudes).

6. Teachers: statutes and roles (education, teaching, animation...), work in educational team.


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The Modalities of Formation. The Initial Pedagogical Formation presupposes five Modalities of action: 1. Professional experience within a Pedagogical Team. 2. Sessions of formation distributed during the entire time. 3. Personal research and development of pedagogical activity that gives place to a Project

of Pedagogical Research. 4. Guidance by an Expert Tutor during Tutor formation, under the responsibilities of the

Director of the CEFFA and the Regional Pedagogical Delegate. 5. Periodic Evaluations.

The Permanent Formation of Tutors

Carried out in the following modalities, coordinated by the CNP or EPN, and employing whenever needed the collaboration of persons, entities, and Universities.

1. Thematic national sessions and/or modules. 2. Regional or local sessions and/or modules. 3. Work groups for the elaboration of didactic material. 4. Study and research groups for the elaboration of pedagogical material. 5. University Formation.

The Formation of Directors

Once the Initial Formation is implemented, and after having some years of professional experience, if we exempt the beginnings of the CEFFA in any country, three cases normally present themselves: Tutors that assume the function of Director and did not have previous formation for that function; Tutors who are willing to become Directors in the future and are disposed to a preliminary formation for this task; Permanent Formation of Directors. There currently exist two notable experiences. The first is a Modular Formation with Areas of Knowledge that is developed in three years with trimestral sessions. Its Areas of formation can be the following:

1. Administrative Management of Centers; 2. Economic-Financial Management; 3. Human Resources;


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4. Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle; 5. Education and Psychology; 6. Institutional and Associative; 7. Politics of Rural Development.

This experience was partially applied in Spain in the 80s-90s. Currently it is being tried in Brazil (Minas Gerais) and in Peru. We put as an example the work scheme elaborated recently by the CEFFA directors of Minas Gerais to organize the first of the three formation years:

No. Administration, Economy, Finance Human Resources

Alternating Cycle and Education

Institutional and Associational

1

! Accounting ! Decentralized

management ! Educational

Legislation

! Working environment

! Planning ! Time

Management

! Experiences about the Search Plan…

! Formation Plan ! Pedagogical

Formation

! Political pedagogical project

! Marketing and communication

! Formation of families

! Agents of the CEFFA system

2

! Basic bureaucracy: Educational Legislation

! Short-term and long-term planning

! Associational legislation

! Leaders ! Division of work ! Formation

! Formation in the Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle

! Guidance in the activities of the Formation Plan

! Didactics in the Pedagogy of Alternating Cycle

! Articulation of partenaires

! Formation of Administrative Councils

3

! Resource Management

! Development of Budget

! School Secretariat

! Organization of time and space

! Transdiciplinarity ! Diversification of

professions ! Practice and activities

of return/rewards

! Legalization of Alternating Cycle schools

! Recognition, philanthropy, and social utility

! Principles of the CEFFA

TABLE 3. Example of organization of formation of CEFFA Directors (year I). Based on work

by the Pedagogical Team of Minas Gerais (Brazil) Below, a scheme is shown of a second proposal, which comes out of the institutional environment to coordinate with permanent university formation. It is taken from an experience developed with the collaboration of the University of France, for the CEFFA Directors who have at least five years of professional experience and will take a two year leave from their functions as Directors. In this case the coordination, organization and co-


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animation are carried out on a national level directly from the leadership of the National Union (UNMFREO) and not from the CNP.

Post Graduate

FORMATION OF DIRECTORS Direction and Management of Enterprises for Social Economy Duration

Session Themes 2 years 0 Initial Evaluation: “Interview” 10 h

1st Management of Human Resource: “An Association for People” 40 h 2nd “The economic and social environment in the enterprise” (24h) y

“Macroeconomic Aspects” (16 h)

40 h 3rd “Financial and Economic Management of the enterprise” 40 h 4th Human Resource Management: “Leadership and Planning” 40 h 5th “Project Management” (24 h) and “New Technologies of Communication”

(16 h)

40 h 6th Marketing and Communication: “The CEFFA in the context of national

education”

40 h 7th “The CEFFA Director: in charge of education and formation” 40 h 8th “Administrative functions” (legal, labor, etc.) 40 h 9th “Financial and Economic Management of the enterprises” 40 h 10th “The Director as initiator of projects: creativity” 40 h 11th Session for synthesis. Defense of a Research Paper 40 h

TOTAL

900 hours 450 classroom hours 450 research hours

TABLE 4. Example of formation organization of CEFFA directors in France. Based on work

by UNMFREO (France)

University Formation for the CEFFA Educators84

University formation is given to those teachers who have shown professional expertise. It favors the acquisition of competencies in the management of more complicated problems, with a superior scientific level. It is a University Formation through Alternating Cycle that allows the students (experienced adults) to discuss themes of their professional areas with the scientific methodology required according to the level. It demands at least five years of experience in the areas of formation, social action and community development. Currently there have been developed or are being developed actions of formation with the following universities: François Rabelais, Tours (France), Nova de Lisboa (Portugal), Internacional de Cataluña (Spain), Católica de Brasília (Brazil), Austral, Buenos Aires

84 For a detailed explanation of these types of course, one can consult: Lerbet (1981); Pineau, (1989, 2002a & 2002b); García-Marirrodriga & Durand, (2009). Pineau (2009) and García-Marirrodriga & Durand (2009) disemminate information with the experiences of the Masters course implemented in Brazil by the UNEFAB with the Universities of Tours and Nova de Lisboa and the support of SIMFR; and with the experiences of the Licensure implemented in Argentina by the Marzano Foundation with the Austral University and the support of SIMFR, and of the International University of Catalonia, respectively.


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(Argentina) and Istmo (Guatemala). The levels imparted are: Special Titles, Teaching degrees, Masters and Doctorates.


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CHAPTER 3

THE VITALITY OF THE CEFFA MOVEMENT85

Common denominator and diversity of situations: Here is one of the fundamental elements of the Movement of the CEFFAs that form part of the International Association of Family Movements for Rural Formation (AIMFR)86. In a situation as diverse as our planet’s, and likewise considering the reality of globalization where the need for humanization stands out, we see people from more than 40 countries, able to give each other mutual support, within their means, in order to continue developing their activities for the common good and in favor of youth and the families of the rural communities where the CEFFAs are found. Which is the common denominator of this Association? The answer is given in the previous chapter: the “Four Pillars” of the CEFFAs. They are the common denominator of all those involved in this movement, with their diverse cultures and religions, with very different political and social situations, both in developed as well as developing countries. The obvious contrasts, the different social, economic, professional realities, could be the diverse numerator, where diversity of situations can be respected and fostered. This heterogeneity is not a difficulty, but exactly the contrary. The richness that these differences contribute to the movement is enormous, much larger than the difficulty that diversity can also sometimes entail. To cite only a few aspects, we can refer to the promotion of the woman, the right of families to decide the most appropriate education for their children, lessons in citizenship, local promotion and development, the fostering of democracy, the values of living together and peace, the freedom to choose educational systems… The importance of the AIMFR, with its means and objectives, with the strength given by a network that federates, that unites, has helped not only in the beginning of the movement, but guarantees its continuity.

85 This Chapter was written by Puig, based on Puig, 2003 & 2006. 86 See Chapter 1.


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PRESENT SITUATION OF THE WORLDWIDE CEFFAs

The data that we offer in this book was updated in 2013 and refers to the more than 1,300 CEFFAs existing worldwide at that time87. With these data, we can offer a panorama of the current situation of the CEFFA by continents. We start with Europe, where the movement began. The proximity and the level of development of European countries make for more reliable data.

The CEFFAs in Europe

In the case of Europe, the data have been directly obtained from each country. Some aspects to be taken into account in the summary that we offer, are the following: the number of Spanish CFR, including those that are imparting formation to adults and activities for community development; in Italy, two SFR give formation to the youth and also adults, and courses of permanent formation. As was previously indicated, France is clearly at the helm88, which shows that there are some reasons that hindered adequate development and continuity in other countries. The following Table shows the number of CEFFA in each country and percentage of CEFFA in each country compared to the total number in Europe:

Country Year Started CEFFA Name Number of CEFFA France 1935-37 460 MFR Maison Familiale Rurale 460 91 %

CFR Colegio Familiar Rural 15 Spain 1967 43 EFA Centro de Promoción Rural

Escuela Familiar Agraria 28 8 %

Italy 1961 3 SFR Scuola Famiglia Rurale 3 0,7 % Portugal 1985 1 CEA Casa Escola Agrícola 1 0,3 %

TOTAL 507

TABLE 5. Data of the CEFFA in Europe. Own elaboration based on AIMFR data

87 These data come from the countries themselves and from AIMFR and were updated in 2013. The total number of CEFFA depends on NUFED considered as CEFFA for the case of Guatemala. For that reason and for considering that in an alive movement such as CEFFA movement there are birthdays but also deaths, is always very difficult to have an exact number. Furthermore, there are CEFFA networks in several countries which not belong to AIMFR even if other networks belong to. Finally there are countries with CEFFA not represented in AIMFR because they do not belong formally to AIMFR. 88 Included within the French CEFFAs are those situated in the Overseas Departments (DOM) and Territories (TOM). That is, in some islands of Central America (Guadalupe, Martinique), Africa (Mauricio, Reunion) and Oceania (French Polynesia, New Caledonia).


85

The European primacy has remained with France from the movement's origins, due in part to some particularly suitable characteristics. For example, the major role of the Ministry of Agriculture, not of Education, in assuming important jurisdictions of rural education, not exclusively limiting itself to professional farming formation. In the subsequent presentations of ages and specialties that we will expound in this same chapter, an interesting fact will be confirmed: a better understanding and sensibility of the necessities of formation on the part of those administrations that are close to local reality. The great challenge of the Ministries of Education (save for rare exceptions) is the lack of sensibility towards Alternating Cycle. This has caused misunderstandings and makes the development of the system harder. It can be noticed that there are CEFFAs only in countries at the south of Europe89. But in studying the systems of professional formation, we can discover that in the majority of countries there already exist long-standing systems of formation that use a type of Alternating Cycle, as in the case of the Dual System in Germany, the Sandwich method in England, the Centers of Formation in Belgium or Denmark, etc. For the movement of the CEFFAs, the Alternating Cycle is one of the means, one of the “pillars”, but forming part of a larger whole, of a set of elements that define the system. Said in another manner: doing some type of work or practice in an enterprise does not imply a full understanding nor a real use of all the possibilities offered by Alternating Cycle. At the same time, Alternating Cycle has become fashionable at all academic levels after Primary (especially in professional trainings and at the University90).

The CEFFAs in America

In the case of America, the data were obtained from a survey done through networks, personal fieldwork, the data existing in the AIMFR, and also from the final report elaborated in the meeting of the AIMFR Administration Council held in 2013 in Honduras (AIMFR, 2013). As we can seen, there are some countries like Costa Rica, where there are still no known experiences up to now. In the case of Bolivia, two groups of promoters (one near the Peruvian border of Titicaca and another in Santa Cruz de la Sierra) are already planning to pilot the project.

89 Although in the last years there have been demands to begin the CEFFA in Hungary, Poland and Romania. 90 For a deepen comprehension of Alternating Cycle applied to universitary levels, see Pineau et al. (2009) and García-Marirrodriga & Durand (2009).


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Table 6 verifies the almost total diffusion of the CEFFAs in Latin America, but with differences in depth and extension between countries. Likewise, for the first time in history, is the continent with the most number of CEFFA. In the countries with more than 10 CEFFAs, the percentage of CEFFAs is shown in each country with respect to the total number in America.

Country Year Started CEFFA Name Number of

CEFFA 1968 EFA Escuela de la Familia Agrícola 64 1974 CFR Centro de Formación Rural 10

1988 CEPT Centro Educativo para la Producción Total 35

Argentina

s.d.

114

EA Escuela de Alternancia de Jujuy 5

19 %

1968 EFA Escola de la Família Agrícola 145 Brazil 1989 263 CFR Casa Familiar Rural 118

44 %

Canada 1999 3 MFR Maison Familiale Rurale 3 Chile 1976 17 IER Instituto de Educación Rural 18 3 %

Colombia 1992 6 EFA Escuela Familiar Agropecuaria 4

Ecuador 1997 3 CEFFA Centro Familiar de Educación por Alternancia 3

1978 NUFED Núcleo Educativo Familiar de Educación para el Desarrollo91 90

Guatemala 1999

114 ICEFAT Instituto Básico por Cooperativa y Formación para el Trabajo 24

19 %

Honduras 1980 7 CEFEDH Centro Familiar de Educación para el Desarrollo de Honduras 7

Mexico s.d. 2 CEFFAR Centro Familiar de Formación y Educación Rural 2

Nicaragua 1973 3 CEFER Centro Familiar de Educación Rural 7

Panamá 1981 2 CECOPADE Centro Comunal para el Desarrollo 2

Paraguay 1985 3 CAP Centro de Alternancia del Paraguay 3

Peru 2002 43 CRFA Centros Rurales de Formación por Alternancia 37 7 %

Dominican Rep. 1993 7 CEPROR Centro de Educación y Promoción Rural 7

El Salvador 1992 1 CEDEFAR Centro de Desarrollo Familiar Rural 2

1972 UTU Universidad de Trabajo del Uruguay 8 Uruguay 1980 12 EFA Escuela Familiar Agraria 4

2 %

Venezuela 1973 1 EFA Escuela Familiar Agraria 1 TOTAL 601

TABLE 6. Data of the CEFFA in America. Own elaboration based on AIMFR data

91 There exist 90 NUFEDs federated in ASONUFED and 634 authorized by the Ministry of Education (as of May 2013). But according to ASONUFED, we can count a maximum of 90 in total that are in full operation and conform completely to the pillars of the CEFFAs. According to note 87, if we count 634 NUFEDs, the total number of CEFFAs would be higher than 1,300...


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There are four countries that stand out for the number of their CEFFAs, which have a history and development that is very rich and diverse: Argentina, Brazil, Guatemala and Peru. In these last years we would stress three important successes with respect to Alternating Cycle in three of these countries: the academic authorities of Guatemala have commendations on the system that have decided to replicate it on the national level with the creation of more than 600 NUFEDs92; the rapid growth and the positive external evaluations in Peru, that show the CEFFA (there it is called CRFA) as an alternative to the deteriorating quality of education of the country’s rural areas; and recognition of the system by the Brazilian government93.

The CEFFAs in Africa

In the span from 1959 to 2000, the CEFFA started in the African continent with a full assistance from the UNMFREO (from Madagascar to Burkina-Faso). Without going into details about the adaptation of the CEFFAs in diverse social, cultural, and economic contexts where these were introduced, it seems that the rapid diffusion is characterized on one hand by a certain unity in methodological principles, and on the other, by the flexibility of the structural and organizational aspects.

But what have been the achievements of African CEFFAs? Firstly, to form young and adult farmers starting from their existing ways of life. With the help of the Tutors, a neighborhood prepares the formation programs for the youth and recruits them as peasant interns. These young people gradually insert themselves in pathways for development. The actions carried out by the youth occur with participation and counsel from the adults. Thus the activities organized by the CEFFAs generally reach the entire community. An important aspect of the CEFFAs in Africa, as Nové-Josserand (1987) emphasizes, is their contribution to literacy. In the past, the farmers thought about acquiring literacy by studying French. Thanks to the sensitization campaign carried out by the Association officers and the Tutors of the CEFFAs, the farmers have understood the importance of literacy in the local languages. After the first literacy classes in some CEFFAs, the noticed a more welcoming spirit and a receptive attitude.

92 The idea is interesting, but teaching of professors represents a major difficulty: formation, finance, and teaching career. 93 Signature of the different agreements in 2006. Until now we are still waiting for the arrival of a financial agreement more appropriate than the disparity of present financial resources.


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On the other side, the CEFFA have influenced the change of certain habits and local customs. They have modified a number of beliefs and taboos considered as deterrents to development (for example, overcoming the prohibition of eggs to lactating mothers and children). The participation of women has increased in the official economic sector thanks to professional formation. With regards to health, the farmers have understood the causes of sickness that are not connected to mystical considerations or to witchcraft, and have begun to accept scientific medicine for the treatment of many illnesses. As regards rural organization, the most visible impact is the manner in which the rural people organize themselves to resolve social problems. Poor health and infant mortality have decreased thanks to the commencement of group activities like programs for nutrition and sanitation, village pharmacies and day care centers (the formation plans in Africa touch on very vital themes). The formation for administrative management that is imparted in the CEFFAs has allowed the rural people to take conscience of the role that they can play in the management of their environment, of their assets, of their family. From the beginning, one of the priority objectives of the African CEFFAs has been the promotion of women in development activities, the valuing of their responsibility, and the importance conceded to their participation in the activities of formation in the same conditions as men. In the same way, they have been enabled to participate in certain achievements: establishment of cereal mills, making of ovens, use of threshers, hygiene and primary health care (pharmacies, latrines...). Evidently, many of these aspects are also applicable to the CEFFAs of other continents.

On top of formation, the CEFFAs have contributed to the establishment of development activities that have lessened the rural exodus, and permitted local food self-sufficiency. Agricultural machinery has allowed the expansion of cereal cultivation. The stress has been on production of food crops as opposed to cash crops. Various associations have organized cereal banks that function very well and that limit the involvement of merchant middlemen (who buy millet cheap during harvest time, only to sell it at a higher price in difficult times). The cereal banks allow peasants to assure their sustenance throughout the year. Other activities like cattle raising, beekeeping, and banana farming, permit peasants to earn a better living. This has slowed the rural exodus thanks to the creation of self-employment in the villages. The priority given to technical agricultural formation in the African CEFFAs permits farmers to efficiently use agronomic techniques, take advantage of extension, and learn some aspects of economic and social development.


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In the face of all this, some grave problems for the CEFFA in Africa are: there is no officially recognized title (although many governments make available “traditional” educators, thinking that they can collaborate in this way); and, the formation is directed to youth and adults simultaneously (a wide age range, from 18 to 45 years, approximately).

Country Year Started Name Number of

CEFFA Benin 1991 MAFAR Maison d’Apprentissage Familiale Rurale 4

Burkina F. 2000 MFR Maison Familiale Rurale 4 Cameron 1994 EFA École Familiale Agraire 28 15 %

Central African Republic 1966 EFR École Familiale Rurale 14 7 %

Congo, Rep. 1962 CREF Centre Rural d’Éducation et de Formation 11 6 % Congo, R. D. 1990 CPR Centre de Progrès Rural 1 Ivory Coast 1998 EFA École Familiale Agraire 8 Madagascar 1959 MFR Maison Familiale Rurale 4

Mali 1997 MFR Maison Familiale Rurale 5 Marruecos 1998 MFR Maison Familiale Rurale 10 5 %

Mozambique 2003 EFR Escola Familiar Rural 10 5 %

Rwanda 1974 CCDFP Centre Communal de Développement et Formation Permanente 31 16 %

Senegal 1964 MFR Maison Familiale Rurale 28 15 %

Tchad 1965 CFPR Centre de Formation Professionnelle Rurale 10 5 %

Togo 1963 MFR Maison Familiale Rurale 24 12 % TOTAL 192

TABLE 7. Data of the CEFFAs in Africa. Own elaboration based on AIMFR data

It is important to consider commentaries in addition to the official information obtained about the African CEFFA, given the lack of verifiable data in this regard. Of all countries, the authors gained direct access to information from only four of them (Morocco, Mozambique, Cameroon, and Ivory Coast). In these countries, aside from the exactness of data, we can say that they have a certain credibility in their pedagogical practice and in their adaptation to the principles of the CEFFAs. Table 7 shows the African CEFFAs. In the countries with more than 10 CEFFA, there also appears the percentage of CEFFAs in each country compared to the total in all of Africa. In the rest of the countries we have not been able to directly obtain information nor validate what exists in the archives of the international services of the UNMFREO and AIMFR. The understandable difficulties arising from the complex economic and political situations,


90

adverse climatic conditions, the wars, the immense difficulties in communication (mail, fax, telephone, internet), explain this situation.

Another complex element for the obtaining of data is the implication of the local authorities in some cases (that hardly facilitate the adequate information). Outgrowth of the history of the French decolonization, in many cases created networks of CEFFA with economic resources of bilateral support of France to its ex-colonies. The majority of them operated while external resources were forthcoming. But when these inflows ended, the work also finished (Chartier, 1997)94.

The CEFFAs in Asia and Oceanía

With information from Pampamilyang Paaralang Agrikultura, Inc. (PPAI) and DISOP-Philippines for the Philippines (where the FFS started in 1988), and with those from UNMFREO for Vietnam and Armenia, we offer the following data :

Country Name Number of CEFFA Armenia MFR Maison Familiale Rurale 2

Philippines FFS Family Farm School/Family Rural School 12 Vietnam MFR Maison Familiale Rurale 2

TOTAL 16

TABLE 8. Data of the CEFFA in Asia and Oceania. Own elaboration based on AIMFR data

For Asia and Oceania we can affirm that the sphere of existing possibilities is wide and there exists demands from various countries (East Timor, India, Lebanon…).

Future Perspectives: the Expansion of the CEFFAs all over the World

We can verify in the following Table that the 6 countries with the highest number of CEFFAs have close to 80 % of the total worldwide. The country that has the highest number of CEFFAs is France, cradle of the MFR movement, followed by two countries in South America: Brazil and Argentina; then Guatemala and Peru, where the problem of relevant and quality rural education is a real challenge to the educational authorities and for the personal and community development of these countries. The actual data from the following Table also shows us that the major growth in the last years happened in Latin

94 Moreover, it is explained that the MFRs of Algeria, Tunisia, Gabon, and Ethiopia have closed.


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America (Puig, 2003)95, where socio-economic evolution, democratization, and political stability, as well as the directives of national and international assessments, point to the need for relevant formation as a means to overcome poverty (FAO, 1997; BID, 2000a; PNUD, 2001; Echeverri & Rivero, 2002; García-Marirrodriga, 2002; Gasperini & Maguire, 2002; CEPAL, 2002; Kliksberg, 2004).

Highest number of CEFFA Highest growth (new CEFFA 2001/2010)

1. France: 460 1. Guatemala (63)

2. Brazil: 263 2. Brazil (55)

3. Argentina: 114 3. Peru (43)

4. Guatemala:114 4. Argentina (28)

5. Spain: 43 5. France (10)

6. Peru: 43 6. Spain (0)

TABLE 9. Countries with the highest number and growth in CEFFAs (2001-2010). Puig, 2006

and updates from the different countries and AIMFR The data presented in Table 9 deserve the following clarifications: on one hand, the data of Guatemala is only partially considered96. As mentioned previously, the growth in Guatemala, which actually surpassed the quantity of 600 CEFFAs is not completely trustworthy. It has been a forced political creation that has not considered the essential elements that comprise the CEFFAs. If there is a positive evolution of the situation, it would respond to a very urgent need for educational coverage with a relevant system.

In the case of Spain97, there has been no growth in the last five years (although the network of the EFA has started a new school, only dedicated for the moment to the formation of adults). Moreover, one of the networks, the CFRs, are departing from the realm of professional formation for the youth and are being converted into Centers for Rural Development, but we do not yet have sufficient verifiable information on this. Another latest development is that of Dominican Republic, where the growth of centers is the result of a cooperation project. As of this writing, there is no official recognition yet nor confirmed public

95 The data in Africa is not considered in this Table for problems of “credibility” of data, as what has been explained. 96 They will have to analyze the evolution and wait for the response of the new authorities with regard to the high number of NUFED that has been created by the present government and its viability. 97 The Educational Reform in Spain has produced a negative effect with respect to the application of the system of the CEFFA in all its complexity.


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financing, so we do not have sufficient data that would allow us to vouch for the schools' future viability.

SOME COMMON ASPECTS THAT MUST BE CONSIDERED

The Origins and Promotion of the CEFFAs

As for the origins of the movement in different countries, if we take into account the gathered data, all the networks of the CEFFAs that are currently operating initially emerged through the mobilization and the work of farmers, professionals, farming organizations, people and institutions proceeding from Christian social movements or NGOs. A first conclusion is thus that there are a diversity of promoters having the same objective. In many cases, as we have noted, these people or institutions were related directly to movements or social doctrine of the Church, but in no case have the CEFFAs been official schools of the Church. In some occasions they have been considered avant garde, progressivist, or dissident with relation to the classic scheme of official instruction. In any case, we can affirm that this educational movement, without being confessional in any case (usually it's the Association of parents that is the manager), indirectly or directly has its roots in the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. It is not a matter of the Catholic Church directly, but rather of people and/or institutions that apply the social doctrine of the Church (Sillon Movement, JAC, Catholic rural unions, NGOs, priests, clergy, Opus Dei members...) It is clear that the CEFFAs are a parents' venture98, in which families make a real commitment to construct their children's future. But as Metivier (1999) says, from the start there have been good times and great disputes in the relationship of the schools to public and religious authorities. Table 10 shows a summary of the origins of the CEFFAs in some of the countries that actually have a high number of Centers and where the constant factor is people committed to the Movement.

98 Cf. Chapter 1.


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Country Institution Promotion or Initial Support

EFA Professionals, Farmers, and Officers of the Juventud Agrícola Católica (JAC), institutes related to the Catholic Church. Italian and French Cooperation

CFR Professionals, people committed to institutions related to the Catholic Church. Spanish Cooperation

Argentina

CEPT People proceeding from Argentine EFAs, politicians, and farming organizations

EFA People involved in movements and institutions related to the Catholic Church. Belgian and Italian Cooperation. Brazil

CFR Politicians and involved in local movements or institutions. French and Belgian Cooperation

NUFED Politicians and people involved with movements or local institutions. French Cooperation. Ministry of Education

Guatemala ICEFAT Politicians and persons working in local movements or

institutions. Belgian Cooperation

France MFR Farmers, Professionals and Officers of the Jeunesse Agricole Catholic (JAC)

Peru CRFA Politicians and people committed to local movements or institutions. Belgian and Spanish Cooperation.

CFR Professionals, Farmers, and Officers of the Juventud Agrícola Católica (JAC) Spain

EFA Professionals, Farmers, and people involved in institutions related to the Catholic Church

Philippines FFS Professionals, people involved with institutions related to the Catholic Church. Spanish Cooperation

UTU French Cooperation and Ministry of Education Uruguay

EFA People involved with institutions related to the Catholic Church. Spanish Cooperation

Other countries in Central America French Cooperation (UNMFREO), Ministries, and NGOs

Africa French, Portuguese, Belgian, Spanish Cooperation. Professionals, people committed to local movements or institutions...

TABLE 10. Origins and promoting groups of the CEFFA in some countries. Puig, 2006 But similarly according to Métivier (1999), from the origins, the necessary initial collaborations with public and religious authorities have led moments of good relations, but also great disputes.

Recognition and Administrative Oversight

For what is referred to as the ministries of oversight, we look at the following Table (no. 11) that, with the exception of France and its old African colonies where it is the Ministry of


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Agriculture, in the majority of cases, the Ministry of Education is the one that assumes responsibility and facilitates the official recognition of the CEFFAs.

There exist other Ministries that support sporadic actions like Labor, Youth, Social Work, etc. There are advantages and disadvantages in each model. The advantage of being governed by the Ministry of Education is the recognition of studies. This is given especially in the countries of Latin America. Among its major inconveniences is the low importance this Ministry gives to the people of the rural communities: the number of students is small compared to those in big cities. The Ministries of Agriculture and/or Agrarian Reform (when they exist) are more sensitive to the need for relevance and flexibility of formation, as well as the guidance of the youth and their families (because these ministries understand local realities, are closer and more sensitive to rural people). The Ministries of Labor also tend to believe in the system of Alternating Cycle.

Country Ministries99 Recognition

France Ministry of Agriculture, Regional Governments, M. Education and

others Official Titles. Permit access to higher studies

Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Uruguay

Ministry of Education, M. of Labor, M. of Agriculture

Official Titles. The majority permit access to higher studies

Peru, Philippines, Canada Ministry of Education Official Titles. Permit access to higher

studies

Central America Ministry of Education, M. of Labor In the majority of cases it is considered non-formal education. In others, there are official titles that permit access to higher studies

Italy Regional Government Certification. Doesn't permit access to higher studies

Portugal Ministry of Labor Certification. Doesn't permit access to higher studies

Africa No support. Ministry of Agriculture and others

Certifications without access to higher studies and without official recognition in the majority of cases

TABLE 11. Ministries in charge of oversight and recognition of CEFFAs in some countries.

Puig, 2006

Financial and Economic Resources

The funding data from the following Table (no. 12) are averages elaborated from the information we obtained. We cannot say that they are exact, given the frequent variations (not only annually with respect to the academic course, but at times during the academic year, depending on the local political decisions). There are also variations according to the

99 Those in bold letters represent the main Ministry that is directly in charge. The others have precise roles: formation of adults, some specialties or levels of formation, etc.


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levels of formation imparted and the priorities of the respective governments. In terms of finance of the CEFFAs, we would like to point out the following data: 1. It is the Ministry of Education that finances instruction in the majority of countries. The

exception is in France, where this mission corresponds to the Ministry of Agriculture, or in some cases to specific youth or adult employment programs.

2. In countries that do not obtain stable public financing, it is difficult to develop the CEFFA movement, given that the families do not have enough means to maintain the Centers.

3. In the countries where the educators are public functionaries, the possibility of existence of the CEFFA is practically null.

4. In the case of financing from the Ministry of Education by means of direct payment to the teachers, there are some demands made on teachers that on occasions can cause deviations in the pedagogical and associative aspects.

Public F. Families Others Major Financing and Payment System Country % over total

France 70 25 5 Ministry of Agriculture and Regional Governments with payment through the local Associations

Italy 80 10 10 Regional Governments Spain 60 30 10 Regional Governments with direct payment to

educators Portugal 80 15 5 M. of Labor with direct payment to educators

Brazil 75 10 15 Public Administration with payment directly given to the educators

Argentina 85 15 5 Ministry of Education with payment directly given to the educators

Peru 60 10 30 Ministry of Education with payment directly given to the educators

Uruguay 0 70 30 Exclusively Families Philippines 20 15 65 Charitable Institutions and M. of Education

Canada 75 20 5 Ministry of Education with payment directly given to the educators

Central America100 80 5 15 M. of Education, Labor, etc., with payment

directly given to the educators África 5 75 20 Extended families, NGOs

TABLE 12. Sources of funds for the CEFFAs in some countries. Puig, 2006

Normally, the operations of a CEFFA first receives official recognition, and afterwards financing. But this co-financing is not automatic. It depends on the laws of each country,

100 There are great contrasts from one country to another. For example: in Guatemala the mentors occupy the lowest position in the organizational hierarchy of the Ministry of Education; in Honduras, they are officials of a public institution related to the Ministry of Labor and receive enough salary; in Nicaragua, the mentors are partially paid, but with very low salaries.


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especially in countries where non-State schools do not have guarantees of public financing. Also in many cases, given the low salaries of the educators, they receive benefits or other compensations, either from the families, municipalities, or other support institutions.

The Question of Power Transfer

This is a topic that always poses difficulties for the promoters, whoever they may be (bilateral cooperation, NGOs, unions, foundations, churches, local authorities). This transfer of power from the promoters or founders to the local Associations of families and people of the rural communities is a cause of personal and institutional conflict. The main reasons for these problems are perhaps the fear and lack of confidence of the promoting institutions in the capacity for autonomous management by the Association officers, that is, the families and farmers. On the other hand, the beneficiaries formed in this model, in some cases feel comfortable in this situation because they believe themselves incapable of working autonomously. This creates a real dependence or what we prefer to call an “eternal social adolescence”, and as a consequence the concentration of power in the hands of some people of the promoter group. They obtain increasing power, and consequently problems and difficulties of all sorts. What's worse, there results a progressive disconnection with the social reality of the foundations, that is, the families and the youth, when it is necessary to determine needs, search for solutions, and share responsibility. In some cases, the existence of the local Association is purely theoretical. The distance will progressively increase between the promoters of the initial group and the local situation. This situation leads us to conclude that institutions that maintain a non-participative monolithic system, may have power and authority (granted through the strength of money and the law), but not legitimacy (which can only be given by the local people themselves).

Relations with Public Administration

It is not easy to know the proper role of Public Administration with respect to civil society, especially given the social initiatives of the citizens with whom government should collaborate. In governments of all political stripes, and in countries with very distinct cultural characteristics, we can observe phenomenon of what we would call “statization” of education, or at least of the educational systems.


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Public power should collaborate with the social initiatives of the citizens, whose proximity to the problems best situates them to contribute answers and solutions. This public help can include facilitation of the corresponding authorizations and co-financing of the centers, as well as controlling the use that the CEFFAs make of these authorizations and money. In some cases such government involvement blocks, numbs, or impedes the CEFFA's operations, mainly by two means that turn into ends: pedagogy and economics. The features that most frequently drown the pedagogical system of the CEFFA are: excessive and inappropriate mandated classtime loads, high demands for professor qualifications, and excessive requirements for installations and material. These elements are double-edged swords, because in the name of supposed equality and educational quality, some questionable criteria are applied, above all in pedagogy. A small example of each area will help us understand more:

! Schedule Load: the government in a South American country imposed a weekly

schedule of 80 hours on the Alternating Cycle schools. The pedagogical criterion applied is that students only learn in school, in the classroom. The social, work, and life environment has no educational value. It is clear that such measures do not consider all the elements involved in the education and formation of a person.

! Professorial Titles: these are demands with regards to university specialization and formation. The teacher of mathematics, or language, or history is obliged to be a university specialist, without allowing complementarity to exist among the team of teachers. Our objection would be in demanding proof that the teacher of history is not capable of teaching languages, or that the engineer that imparts technology cannot teach mathematics or physics. It is thanks to this polyvalence and multidisciplinarity that favors transdisciplinarity, the transversal treatment of all subjects, and not a narrow disciplinary focus.

! Personalized education: “to teach John English, aside from learning English, one should know John”. Sometimes the workshop or practicum teacher, due to the demands of a university title and the systems of access to higher education, has never actually exercised the profession she teaches. That is to say, such professors are obliged to teach something they do not know practically, but only theoretically, and the intervention of professional experts in the respective subjects is not allowed, in spite of what these experts can contribute.

! Pedagogical Aptitude (certification of pedagogical skill), that in some of the countries where it is required that teachers take one-time, short, impractical theory courses. We


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can classify the methodology as hardly pedagogical. We should also add the grave inconvenience to teachers who are specialists in disciplines and must work in different centers at the same time to impart “their specialization”.

! Installation and material. In this aspect there exist all manner of experiences in the field. The application of the letter and not the spirit of the law sometimes leads the competent authorities to prefer that there be no educational center in an area where there is no alternative. On the other hand, sometimes there are official requirements for very specialized equipment for workshops or laboratories, in an attempt to imitate industry or business in the school, despite the fact that a school can never renovate and equip itself to adjust to the rhythm of progress of new technologies. Practica or experiences in the professional medium are not considered valid, though it is precisely in the professional world that the proper equipment exists, but is managed by people who know it well. The educational authorities sometimes supervise and inspect to evaluate things like whether the classroom size per number of student ration adheres to the prevailing legislation, or if at a given hour, on a given day, the assigned teacher is teaching the subject that appears in the schedule...

These previous affirmations are not intended to argue that the Public Administration should not perform regular controls, given that it must guarantee learning quality and the levels of students in each grade. We simply mean to show that there are to many cases in which the procedure is valued more than the results. With regards to the economic and financial realm, there is also the limitation, nullification, or the excessive conditionality as regards economic resources, can eliminate commitment, responsibility, and power in local Associations. This tends to present itself in different forms, for example: ! The denial of any type of help to CEFFAs, alleging that they are not public schools and

the lack of resources does not permit financing “private” initiatives, however socially relevant they may be. In fact, what is being denied is the freedom of civil society initiatives and the right of parents to choose the education they consider to be most appropriate for their children.

! The guarantee a certain support, through inflexible or inadequate conditions, with the proposal of solutions like the provision of public officials to occupy the positions of teachers. In other cases where teachers are already State officials, school Directors are imposed from above. This compromises in a grave manner the real power of the


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Associations and the necessary and obligatory pedagogical formation that enables the Tutor to do his tasks in the CEFFA.

! The granting of some economic help that directly applies to the teachers, imposing duties but not granting any right for the Associations. Also through the application of other formulas where the resources are granted to the Associations, but in a very limited and conditioned manner that impedes adequate functioning. To cite an example, we have the case of a teacher that can steal from the Center where he works and, despite being directly paid by the State, it is the Association, and not the civil and juridical authorities, that are required to assume the legal costs of firing him.

A failure to provide the minimum economic resources in satisfactory conditions for the funding of these Centers of social initiative, is a situation lived time and again in the history of the worldwide Movement.I In many cases it produces grave deviations from the original CEFFA model, an impossibility for growth, and in some cases, the closing of these initiatives.

Teaching in the CEFFA: the Tutors

The Tutors in the CEFFA are one of the key elements of the system. The importance of their adequate selection and formation is beyond doubt. But these educators can also pose problems mentioned previously. On one hand, they may distort the pedagogy of Alternating Cycle and its application in the CEFFA by a lack of collaboration with the families in the annual, weekly, and daily development of the pedagogical project of the Center, or due to their partial or complete lack of pedagogical formation in the system of Alternating Cycle. On the other hand, because of economic needs or questions imposed by the Ministries in charge, Tutors may give in to the impositions of the official educational system, and as a consequence give up on basic aspects of the CEFFA, losing the original values. Other cases of interference by the teachers can happen whenever they take the role of the parents and professionals in the Administration Council, thus invalidating the role of the families and other local agents in the Association. There can be different versions of this. One of them is to limit the presence of the parents in the Association to the period in which their children are studying in the educational Center, and hinder the presence of other people responsible for socio-professional development. Another is to convert the CEFFAs into cooperatives where the teachers associate with the families (the latter in a temporary form, only while they have the children in the schools).


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To summarize, for these and other similar reasons, the teachers can have the real de facto power of Association management. The real power in the global management of the CEFFA can be distributed among Associations, which represent the families and the socio-professional world, the Promoting Groups, the State, and the teachers, or be monopolized by one of these instances. As a function of the agents that manage the Center and the balance of power among its partenaires, there will be different possibilities of continuity of the CEFFA, maintaining its originality and authenticity. Finding the right balance of strengths, taking into account the present cultural, social, professional and economic situation of each country, and situating each of the agents in his proper role, is a vital necessity for the development and progress of the Educational System and of promoting the Movement that sustains it.

THE DIVERSITY OF PROFESSIONAL ORIENTATIONS IN THE CEFFAs

The Ages of Students

With regards to the ages of the youth in the CEFFAs the available data, differs according to countries. While the age of student entry is rising in Europe, the students of Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Guatemala, Uruguay, Colombia…) are starting in the CEFFAs younger and younger. It is observed there that the age of student enrollment in the CEFFAs, which was initially around 14-15 years, has decreased to around 11-12 years. Formation in Alternating Cycle was created to respond to the needs of those students who had no access to traditional school and that, thanks to the methodology of the CEFFA, might access higher education. They were youth who were already working, normally helping in the family farm tasks. Nevertheless, the CEFFAs are actually undergoing changes for a number of reasons. Educational systems constantly renew themselves, and are now offering basic education to pupils of 5-6 years of age to students of around 11-12 years of age as primary obligatory stage, and from age 12 to around 15-16, as secondary. Primary school currently has a wide coverage in the majority of the countries where attendance is obligatory, but the secondary cycle still has a very deficient coverage in the rural areas, and in some cases is nonexistant. On top of this, the traditional methodologies applied do not correspond to the


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reality of the students nor to their future needs (FAO, 1997; Taylor, 1998; BID, 2000a; PNUD, 2001; García-Marirrodriga, 2002). Precisely the triggering factor in the birth of the first MFR in France in the 1930s was a lack of relevance of rural youth formation (García-Marirrodriga, 2002), as we read in Chapter 1. So even today, at the request of rural families with a new problem, Formation in Alternating Cycle responds, beginning from the ages of 11-12, always in agreement with the respective Ministries. The contrary case happens in Europe, where Italy, Portugal, and Spain are having difficulties in dealing with academic authorities and cannot start the Formation using the system of Alternating Cycle until the age of 16, once the cycle of obligatory education ends. Likewise in France, they have strong pressures to abandon Alternating Cycle for the first stage of formation in the MFR (4ème and 3ème), thus passing the MFRs into the the traditional system or the Ministry of Education. This topic brings up a new pedagogical and methodological aspect that has emerged recently: the adjustment of Alternating Cycle for preadolescents and adolescents in Latin America. We can affirm that they are constructing a new version of Alternating Cycle in Latin America, without referring to the Old Continent, a vision that responds to the reality and the problems of each country. In some of the cases, the formation in CEFFAs is the unique possible option, especially for women, who often run into difficulties in the access to education (FAO, 1997). Historically, the CEFFAs have had as a starting point the socio professional experience, starting their activity with the youth that are entering the world of work and leaving, or already outside, of the academic world. Today, especially in Latin America and Asia, the CEFFAs are opening to a new age group in which, though students have less professional experience, the richness of the system makes the Alternating Cycle an alternative to the inadequacy of the existing educational systems. In any field it is necessary to innovate, especially in the world of education in which the new technologies, for example, offer many possibilities of information to the youth and the educators. But to be efficient, they must facilitate an appropriate orientation allows youth to go “from information to knowledge”. There is a need to develop creativity in the youth who have potential as entrepreneurs, because at times school does not favor it but rather quells


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it. That is, they are made to adopt a passive or reactive attitude when they should be proactive. According to Dolabela (2003)101, the student turns into someone who masters knowledge and then offers it to an intermediary (...). School prepares people to look for a job. It is important not to impose “fundamentalist” criteria from the European context, which might limit the research and development of the CEFFAs, but rather to guide the process. We can see a certain reluctance especially from France102, where due to ignorance of the realities of other contexts, and perhaps due to a false desire of purity, one can fall into certain pedagogical dogmas that become imprisoning. There is a need to find adequate lessons that can be given during the period spent in the social and professional environment, especially in what concerns the vocational orientation or discovery of professions. While these adolescents must be of use in family work, the time in the CEFFA also allows them to develop some important characteristics: the right to engage in recreation and to dream; the development of their creativity, which can be seen as limited in the demanding world of adults; the possibility of building for themselves a better future with new knowledge; the educational and social attributes of living in a group residence, etc. In Table 13, data is shown regarding the diverse levels of formation, with the names and specializations of each country, as well as the age of admission of students to the CEFFA. It is evident that there is a diversity of levels, and also an ample range of professions that show a transition from the purely agrarian to the more generally rural, and the necessity of these as initiators of juvenile employment.

Country Age Levels Specialties

France 13/14 4ème, 3ème,

CAP, BTA, BAC, BTS, University

Education

Compulsory Basic Education. Agricultural, Rural, and other professions: Mechanics, Commerce,

Tourism, Carpentry, Electricity, Sanitation, Social Work, Electronics, Hotel Management…

Italy 16 Professional Formation Agricultural and Rural

Spain 16

Bachelor’s Degree,

Professional Formation in Middle and

Higher Levels

Agricultural and Rural and new professions: Social Work, Electromechanics, Commerce, Tourism,

Sanitation, Hotel Management...

Portugal 15/16 Professional Formation

Agricultural and Rural and new professions: Tourism, Sanitation, Social Work, Hotel

Management … 101 Dolabela leads a project in the slums of Sao Paulo on “Entrepreneurship Pedagogy” in eight schools of basic education of the municipal network of education in São José dos Campos (SP). 102 It is not very difficult to confirm that a girl or boy of 8 in the mountain ranges of Peru spends the day with cows or sheep, and his/her vital experience is very distinct from his/her contemporaries in Europe.


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Brazil 11/12 Basic Education,

Middle and Professional Education

Compulsory Basic Education, Agricultural and Rural. New professions are beginning...

Argentina 11/12

ESB, Polymodal, TTP and

Professional Formation

Compulsory Basic Education. Agricultural and Rural. Tourism, Sanitation, Social Work, Hotel

Management …

Peru 11/12 Secondary Education

Basic Education. Vocational Orientation. Agricultural and Rural

Uruguay 11/12

Basic Cycle, Bachelor’s

Degree, Professional Formation

Compulsory Basic Education, Agricultural and Rural.

Philippines 11/12 High School, Post-Secondary Agricultural and Rural. Vocational Orientation

CENTRAL AMERICA Started since the ages of 12-14. In the majority of cases these

programs do not fall within the realm of formal education and do not grant official titles

AFRICA Diversity of ages from 13 to 45 years (“young adults”). Official diplomas do not exist

TABLE 13. Minimum ages of students, levels and specialties in Alternating Cycle. Puig, 2006

The Diversification of Professions and Levels of Formation

As we have previously seen, the CEFFAs are present in more than 40 countries. This signifies 40 different Ministries of Education, Labor, Agriculture, etc., that grant academic recognition, and as such, the respective diplomas. This question is important because in those countries where the formation offered by the CEFFAs is not recognized, their future viability is very much endangered. If initially the CEFFA starts with a focus on agriculture, forestry, and/or ranching, the diversification of professions in the rural community, and as such in the CEFFA, is an obvious need for two main reasons. In the first place, because not all children of farmers can dedicate themselves to farming; in the second, because the rural community needs formation in diverse professions in order to offer said the range of services that can improve quality of life. For example, we can group in large blocks the CEFFAs of some representative countries according to different educational systems (without considering the diverse university formations that are being developed in different agreements).


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- The CEFFAs of countries that have a single cycle of studies, like the case of Peru, that will go from 12 to around 17 years (secondary level), with rural orientation.

- The CEFFAs of countries that have two regulated cycles of studies, like the cases of Brazil and Argentina, that go approximately from 12 to around 15 years and from 16 to around 18, and are called Basic Education and Middle Education (case of Brazil) or Basic Secondary and Polymodal Education (case of Argentina). In the first cycle there is a focus on professional orientation, and in the second, aside from general education, they have Technical Professional Trajectories in agriculture, livestock raising, and other rural professions. Moreover, in both cases, there is Professional Formation of adults in modular courses. Also in both cases, the students have later access to university formation.

- The CEFFAs of countries that have various cycles or levels, like the cases of Spain and France. In Spain they study Basic Secondary Education (without Alternating Cycle) from 12 to around 16 years of age, so that they can later continue with cycles of Professional Formation at the Middle Level (17-18 years of age) and Higher Level (19-20 years of age). To this is also added the Professional Occupational Formation of Adults. In the case of France, there are cycles of two years that can begin from 4ème and 3ème for students of 13 years of age, continuing through Certifications of Professional Aptitude or for the Brevet (certificate) of Professional Studies. Afterwards the student of around 18 years of age can opt to take a Technological or Professional diploma and from 20 years of age, the Superior Technical studies. Similarly, there are many options for adult formation. In the two countries, the youth is able to continue studies at the university.

The possibilities of Formation in Alternating Cycle are very wide and it would be incorrect to consider that it only serves the family farm, as it originally did, because from that starting point the model has expanded to almost all the professions. Today the CEFFAs focus on close to 60 different professions in different educational levels. As a sample, we can name some professional sectors: - Agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, viticulture, wine making... - Forestry, horticulture, landscaping, water management, environmental management. - Food business: bakery, pastries, dairy, butchering... - Health work, geriatrics, early childhood education, nursing aide... - Agricultural mechanics, automobile mechanics, aeronautic mechanics.. - Cooking, Hotel and Restaurant Management, Catering... - Commerce, Sales, Business Management, Information Systems...


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- Tourist management, Tour guidance, Rural Tourism, Community Development... - Industrial, Electrical, Electronic Maintenance... - Carpentry, Construction, Painting, Heating... - Laboratory Agent, Pharmacy Aide...

All of these formations and professions, aside from allowing the youth to acquire technical and professional knowledge, offer a personalized guidance thanks to the formation in Alternating Cycle. The youth in formation have visited and known a high number of entrepreneurs and professionals that value them, have spent probation time in real business firms (not in imitation settings in school workshops), they have undertaken their professional project... And all of is adjusted to each youth, in his own reality, with the guidance of the Association that facilitates professional placement and helps students face a brighter future.

ALTERNATING CYCLE, PEDAGOGY FOR THE FUTURE: IN WHAT CONDITIONS?

According to Morin (1999b) and Tedesco (2003), we can affirm that two of the main challenges that the education of the future must confront are “learning to learn” and “learning to live together”. The education of the future must touch on the cognitive and social aspects of integral learning, while at the same time offering the challenge of living together and respecting the differences between people in the framework of society's profound evolutions. The necessary role of the family and the community in education, aside from promoting co-responsibility for the transmission of human and citizenship values, promotes changes in the social and work world. Keep in mind that in the CEFFA this element forms part of one of the “Four Pillars”103. The Associations of each CEFFA, and the Federations or Unions of Associations, should influence in a direct way the associative politics, promoting reflections, debates, and seminars that permit a proposal and a deepening of processes to obtain a relevant education that not only ensures academic success, but also leads to the creation of opportunities for social and professional insertion.

103 See Scheme 1 in Chapter 2.


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In the educational action of the future, we must not isolate an educational center from the social and professional context that surrounds it. New social and economic transformations require responses in the form of new educational alternatives. Because of this, Education by Alternating Cycle promoted by the movement of the CEFFAs is one of the proposals that responds to a new, complex, and diverse reality. As we have seen, the CEFFAs have diverse origins and promoting groups. In the majority of cases, people and institutions with social concerns, pertaining to Christian movements, have been the initiators or movers of the project104. Unions, professional associations, and public institutions, have also seen in the formula of the CEFFAs an ideal solution to the problems of rural education. The basic characteristics of the CEFFAs are initially well accepted by everyone. But at times, there are interpretations that can cause important deviations in the original project, which can even lead to its failure. The majority of the institutions and NGOs that participate in cooperation for development see in the CEFFAs a very interesting solution to the problems of formation in the rural areas. Whether through bilateral Cooperation, cooperation with NGOs, or with the support of Religious Institutions, Foundations, etc., they have obtained resources to initiate new CEFFA projects in many countries. There are also governments of some States that see in the Alternating Cycle a valid alternative formula to the classic system, that permits improvement of educational quality and adjustment to the current needs of formation (this is the case of France, Argentina and other countries where Alternating Cycle is “accepted”, but without explicit support).

There have been and always will be problems of a diverse nature, due to the complexity of situations: differences of culture, of values, of economic resources, of national priorities... In themselves, these problems can become decisive factors. But we have also seen that today there are CEFFAs in the five continents, in totally different cultural, sociological, and socioeconomic contexts, which proves to us the adaptive skills of the system and its vitality during its 70 years of history. We can therefore affirm that all the Centers and CEFFA Associations of the different countries worldwide have a common denominator (basic essential characteristics) and a very diverse numerator (just as people, cultures, laws, nations, life experiences, traditions are diverse).

104 Vid. Table 10 in this same Chapter.


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A short analysis of the history, evolution, and current situation of the different networks of the worldwide CEFFAs is enough to show some problems or difficulties that one way or another appear in the different places where there exist centers pertaining to the Movement. Below, in no particular order, we present some of these problems. The response to these same problems allows us to affirm that Alternating Cycle is an relevant model for the education of the 21st century, as long as it assures the following features: - The global management of the CEFFAs in the hands of truly committed families

that educate themselves in order to achieve the Association’s mission. - Recognition of the formation imparted in the CEFFA and sufficient local public

funding on the part of the corresponding administrations. - A careful selection and formation of the Tutors.


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CHAPTER 4

CEFFAs AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT105

DEVELOPMENT: REFLECTIONS ON SOME KEY CONCEPTS

There exist numerous definitions of “development” articulated from political, social, economic, administrative, juridical, or environmental paradigms. The term has presented a historical evolution incorporating nuanced concepts and names, according to the circumstances of historical periods, and above all according to the manner of posing the main questions. What are the human needs being addressed? How is the level of well-being measured? Thus, qualifying terms are presented like local development, community development, sustainable development106, endogenous development, rural development, urban development, regional development, human development... The more classical meaning relates to economic development, indicating the process that raises people's living standards. Development can therefore be understood as a process of continued growth that assures an enduring surplus of all goods that fulfill human necessities and foster welfare for the populace. The encompassing human necessities, following this concept of development, would be mainly economic and material, and the form of assessment of the level of well-being would be based on economic indicators: scope and dynamics of growth of the GDP; conditions for increasing wealth by exploiting resources; accumulation of means of production and infrastructure… Nevertheless, the problems of hunger, poverty, health, education, environment, and social injustice, cannot be bounded by questions of economic utility and profitability. They can only be addressed through a positive and anthropological concept of development (García-Marirrodriga, 2002). Subdevelopment is not an exclusively economic problem. It is, above all and essentially, a topic that is profoundly human: three fourths of humanity suffers its

105 Chapter written by Roberto García-Marirrodriga, based on: García-Marirrodriga (2002), which goes deeply into the concepts of development, local development, rural development, human development, sustainable development, and rurality, as well as the impact of the CEFFAs on development. 106 Many authors, ourselves included, use more or less interchangeably the terms sustainable, durable, sustained, permanent, or eco-development.


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consequences (Casas, 1982). In this anthropological, more humane concept of development that we hold, we assert with Llano (2001) that the contribution of any person is irreplaceable, because everyone is innately valuable and cannot be replaced by anyone else. Today well-being107 is understood in individualist and utilitarian terms. Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, who asserts that development has to be identified with the attainment of a better life (Sen, 1999)108, has called this conception welfarism. But globalization has not progressed towards a position of solidarity with the less fortunate, who are found not only in far-flung countries, but in the very heart of the large, luxurious cities of the West. It is therefore not easy to continue talking about this welfarism (at times, politicians call this “State of Well-Being”), when even within the borders of a developed country we find frighteningly high rates of marginalization and poverty. In the face of claims that these poor minorities really “do not want” to receive assistance, we recall the analysis of Sen: they do not even have a voice or the lines of communication to say with dignity that yes, they desire to receive social help, but they are in a situation where they lack even the means to ask for help (Llano, 2001). The so-called “Third World” seems to be constantly growing. On top of this, the lack of solidarity between peoples and the inequalities within countries continue to grow. It could be said that the rich become richer and the poor become poorer (John Paul II, 1987; Kliksberg, 2004). The experience of the 20th century shows us that simple economic growth, far from assuring a better life, is often accompanied by huge injustices of an intra- and intergenerational nature, by a dangerous squandering of environmental resources, by an increase in the levels of poverty and frustration, as well as by the violation of the most elemental human rights109. From the optics of Human Development, participation is an

107 Sen proposes that instead of emphasizing material goods (income), we must look at the capacity of people to live the type of life they value. In other words, poverty is seen as a limitation of liberty, a deprivation of capacities, and the process of development is seen as the expansion of liberty, or as the ensemble of capacities that people have to make their rights respected. 108 In another way of putting it, the PNUD defines Human Development as a process of widening people's options (PNUD, 1990). 109 For example, regarding the so-called "birth control" (also under the name of expressions such as "family planning" or "reproductive health"), Julian Simon, one of today's most renowned experts in economics and resources, explains: "Since 200 years ago there are many more people due to an amazing decrease in infant mortality. With the population has also increased production of natural resources and life expectancy. Summing it up, the number of people able to develop skills that increase the resource production has increased, so has happened to productivity: that is the reason why hope and living standards of population have also grown. The future of a country depends not only on their population. it also depends on the surrounding countries, and now more than ever, on the evolution of population and knowledge worldwide. But what seems clear is that countries need people to become economically active, dynamic, vibrant. Population creates needs and these needs make economy to develop: homes and schools are built, business and industry are implemented (...). Regarding the


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essential element: the persons can define their own destiny and mutually help one another; they do not have to identify themselves as passive receptors of loans from ingenuous projects of development formulated without their input. The international struggle against poverty, which should not only be a financial mobilization, but a moral one as well, begins by improving the conditions of life of rural communities through policies adapted to balanced development. And, given that the majority of the poor world (more than 800 million people live on less than one dollar a day) lives in rural areas (Wolfensohn, 1999; Manos Unidas, 2000; FAO-UNESCO, 2003) -approximately 80%- there is a need for fundamental policies that confront rural poverty110.

Rural communities are very far from centers of power, not only physically; they are the last places where knowledge, information, and technology are brought. Moreover, many poor peasants pertain to ethnic minority or socially marginalized groups. Rural poverty in this case, is even more exclusionary for ethnic reasons. Finally, the democratic participation in

work of governments, I believe that freedom is the best policy. I do not think you can convince people to have more or fewer children, and families must decide for themselves, and I am convinced that in the long term, they will take the best option. I believe in the good judgment of the people who will always do the best for themselves and their families. Politicians have tried everything in the past and have been unsuccessful. In Mussolini's Italy, families were encouraged to have more children and the opposite happened in India with Indira Ghandi, just to take two examples, and neither of these practices had important political effects" (Simon, 1998). There are many authors with this same idea, for example: "The authentic family planning must take place within the family by choice and without administrative interference, which enjoy controlling everything (...). Less mentoring and paternalism and more respect for individual freedom" (Trueba, 2006) and "The solution of the problem of population growth may be the expansion of individual freedom" (Sen, 1999) and Kuznets -Nobel Award in Economics in 1971- to address the naysayers who predicted that population growth would cause problems and food shortages, said without fears that population is the main source of progress, because it involves abundant workers, innovation and initiative, key elements for development (Ferrero, 2007). According to John Paul II (1987): "No one can deny the existence -especially in the southern hemisphere- of a demographic problem which creates difficulties for development. We must immediately add that in the northern part this problem is the opposite: here, we are concerned about the falling of the birthrate, with consequences on the aging of the population, unable even to renew itself biologically. This is a phenomenon capable itself of hindering the development. It is not accurate to say that such difficulties stem only population growth. It is not even proved that any population growth is incompatible with orderly development. On the other hand, it is very alarming to see in many countries the launching of systematic government campaigns against having children, in contrast not only with cultural and religious identity of the countries themselves, but also with the nature of true development. It often happens that these campaigns are the result of pressure and are financed with money coming from abroad and, in some cases, are subordinated to them and to their economic and financial assistance. In any case, it is an absolute lack of respect for the freedom of choice of those people affected, men and women, who are at times subjected to unbearable pressures, often economic. There are the poorest populations which suffer such mistreatment, and this sometimes lead to a certain racism, or promotes certain forms of eugenics, equally racist. Also this fact, claiming the strongest condemnation, is a flawed and perverse conception of real human development”. 110 For the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), for example, the magnitude of inequality in the distribution of income is troubling: 25 % of the national income in each country in Latin America is held by 5% of the population, and 40 % by the richest 10% (BID, 1999). “It is necessary to contribute to a culture of solidarity that, also in the political and economic field, both nationally and internationally, fosters generous and effective initiatives for the benefit of the less fortunate communities (...) by means of an active solidarity such that everyone, without exception, can enjoy the fruits of the mother earth and live a life of dignity as children of God” (John Paul II, 2000).


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public and political life is much lower than in the cities111. Because rural populations are dispersed and isolated, social organization does not always exist. Nepotism, manipulation, vote buying, and the pressure to support partisan politics is a widespread practice.

REGION RURAL POOR (millions) TOTAL % OF THE POOR AFRICA 254.6 85,4

LATIN AMERICA 75.1 43,9 NEAR EAST 18.8 97,4

ASIA (SOUTH AND EASTERN) 534.9 79,6 CHINA 105 100

OCEANIA 3.2 88,9

TABLE 14. Rural Poverty in the Developing Regions. PNUD, 1994 Poverty, most of all in the rural areas, also implies a lack of access to indispensable cultural resources112. Cultural development should also be considered as a true motor of economic and social development, and not as a luxury that can be disregarded. We can say with Sánchez (2001) that education is the process of permanently updating culture. From a cultural viewpoint, education is a cultural good, for synthesizing and transmitting culture, for individualizing and transforming culture.

Local Development

If we talk about local development, it is surprising that it is a diffuse concept without a universally accepted definition; it can change in relation to the pursued objectives and the context. If our main objective is, for example, to lessen economic and social disparities, we can define local development as the process of applying economic development in a uniform territory, generally with a subregional extension, directed by different local agents in a cooperative manner (European Commission, 1999a). Local development, inasmuch as it is a territorial development under the responsibility of the populace, implies a sense of belonging to a territory and of identification with the need to attend to its renewal and improvement, as well as stimulus and mobilization around the achievement of concrete objectives to obtain this development. What is “local” should not be seen as a mere administrative or geographical demarcation with some similar characteristics

111 In this there are exceptions, as what we will see in this Chapter in talking about Social Capital. 112 It is very hard to realize, for example, that many Bolivian, Senegalese, or Indian children will never have a book in their hands. It is not because they do not have the capacity, but rather they lack access. It is obvious that before being able to read it is necessary to eat, but the deprivation of education and culture is an offense to human dignity.


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that translate into shared socioeconomic problems. Local development favors the emergence of people who propose initiatives to improve the economic and professional situation and/or to value available local resources, including personal potentials. This is to say that the “local” character of development does not refer to the circumscription of development to a determined area, so much as the act of its conception and materialization by the interested “local” population, considered local agents of development (Herreros, 1990). Senault (1998) refers to local development with the adjectives global, transversal, and integrated, and defines it as the general elevation of the capacities of a territory and of the people that live there. It coincides with the “dynamics of approximation or integration” of local development postulated by Herreros (1990): an exogenous and descending movement that would bring the contribution of local authorities to the local populace; an endogenous and ascending movement, the opposite of the former, that would bring the aspirations and projects of the local populace to public authorities; a vertical, sectorial dynamic; a horizontal dynamic of geographical integration. Without the existence of a universally accepted model, there exist some key dimensions that permit a more exact delimitation on what represents local development (Scheme 4).

SCHEME 4. The focuses of true local development. García-Marirrodriga, 2004 - Territorial: the geographical scale of local development corresponds to a territory of

reduced dimensions (an urban neighborhood, a rural region), which permits the mobilization of a populace devoted to a given place, and the use of the zone's shared

SUBSIDIARY FOCUS

ASCENDING (BOTTOM-UP)

FOCUS

SUSTAINABLE FOCUS

COOPERATIVE FOCUS INTEGRATED

FOCUS

LOCAL DEVELOPMENT

TERRITORIAL FOCUS


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history, identity, culture, and economy as levers for development (European Commission, 1999a).

- Endogenous: the resources of each territory (human, natural, economic, cultural, tecnological, etc.) valued by the local agents, should be the bases for the creation of new activities for generating employment and wealth. These resources present a strong link to a particular tradition and environment.

- Integrated: implies that local development cannot limit itself to stagnant sectoral actions, but should create synergies that propel projects capable of begetting new activities.

- Ascending: “bottom-up”, in which strategies are defined by means of a participative process from the grassroots, related to the needs determined by the local agents themselves, and with a solid union between local dynamics and development. If we talk about rural communities, they are especially resistant to change when it is promoted by external factors. Nevertheless, local decisions taken by the people and not for the people, have a proven effectiveness: any desing for change will have to come from inside the community and arise from their skills and unique characteristics (Holder, 1982).

- Cooperative: the process of local development is the responsibility of all local agents, with the support of public authorities. Local development should be transversal and all actors in the community (farmers, skilled workers, professionals, merchants, local politicians) participate in the search for solutions (Puig, 2006). This is a concrete process of organization for the future of a territory, thanks to “work in alliance” and the effects of joint actions of the concerned population. The group of allies (González de Canales, 1997) brings together local and supra-local public authorities, enterprises, centers of formation, diverse associations… It is not possible to develop all these in isolation.

- Subsidiary: to ensure an effective and an optimum transparency in the policies enacted, by means of a clear distribution of the competencies among the different levels of decision (González de Canales, 1997). The principle of subsidiarity refers to the necessity of an ample participation of the populace, giving priority to local participation over regional authority, and to a regional level over the national level, which must in turn come before supranational.

- Sustainable: the strategy of local development should be able to last through time, guaranteeing the continuance of activities, employment, and resources, and considering the quality of life, protection of the environment, and the rational utilization of natural resources. There is also a spatial dimension of sustainability in the sense that continued human settlement is necessary in a territory in order to mak it sustainable (García-Marirrodriga, 2002 and 2009).


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A possible definition of local development that encompasses all the dimensions mentioned above, could be what González de Canales (1999) proposes: “An endogenous process generated in a territory reaching across different sectors of activity, and that demands the active participation of the populace in a process supported by subsidiary action from government and other external agents. Through this process, is sought an improvement of the conditions of life and work, bringing with it the creation of employment and wealth compatible with the preservation of the environment and the sustainable use of natural resources”. Definitively, local development is conceived both in terms of economic progress and also in human terms (freedom, democracy, fulfillment of the person). Local development is at the same time to have more, and above all to be more, in the phrase of John Paul II. Development entails economic fulfillment and acquisitions, but its main objective remains intact: the promotion and the progress of people, of families, of communities. The originality of local experiences consists in their ability to gather and stimulate all the endogenous dynamic elements from an integral perspective.

Rural Development and “Rurality”

To talk about rural development, we can apply local development to the case of rural areas. However, the notion of the rural world is not that simple, because it does not only imply a simple geographical delimitation. It also evokes an entire economic and social fabric, with a set of diverse activities: agriculture, small craftsmen, small and medium industries, commerce, and services. Moreover, rural areas serve as shock absorber and regenerator, as they are indispensable for ecological balance, as well as serving as a preferred place of repose and leisure (European Commission, 1988). The development of rural zones should not only be endogenous, but also complemented with exogenous development. In other words: it is necessary that resources and actors from outside of the rural community participate and intervene. The problem is in defining the term “rural”, which presents diverse and at times contradictory meanings, depending for example on the continent where it is discussed. For example, the “official” definition of the rural areas by the EU is of having less than 100 inhabitants/km2. The urban zones have a population density of 500, while the rest of the zones are considered “intermediate”. Nevertheless, the same EU sometimes adopts the classification of the OCDE that we will see below. Other definitions are even more ambiguous. For example, one definition describes rural areas as places where activities have


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high transaction costs, associated with poor infrastructure and distance from cities (Ashley & Maxwell, 2001). The concept of “rural” has been little analyzed in recent years. The lack of consensus in social and educational investigations is problematic (Whitaker, 1983)113. In 1994, there was a notable effort to homogenize the concept of rurality in three dimensions: spatial, thematic (referring to demography, occupation, culture, and environment), and temporal (which implies the recognition of a process of change in rural areas). Its main contribution was evaluation according to territorial criterion (the human land use). In this way, a Rural Community is defined as a local territory (or municipality; in the nomenclature of the EU, we would be talking about LAU2, or NUTS-5) if it has less than 150 inhabitants/km2, whereas a denser population density would define an Urban Community (OCDE, 1994b). The EU assimilates this classification in the following manner: a “rural commune” has 90% of its territory dedicated to agriculture, livestock grazing, forest, and natural areas (though in France it is referred to as a “canton” and not a commune). For the OCDE, anything that is not a Rural Community is considered an urban or periurban zone. Using this criterion of population density coming from the OCDE, brings up certain important paradoxes114, for example in the case of Argentina (IIPE-UNESCO, 2005). In this way, aAccording to national Argentine criteria (where rural population is defined as “dispersed in localities of less than 2,000 inhabitants”), 8% of the country's population is rural; that proportion goes up to 46% if we define rurality as areas having less than 150 inhabitants/km2. The figure would be 44% if we considered low-density areas considered “remote” (more than one hour of travel away from a city of 100,000 inhabitants). And 25% of the populace would be considered rural using the criterion of “ultra-low” densities (less than 20 inhabitants/km2) and adding the criterion of “remote”.

113 This author made an exhaustive analysis of what is significant to the “rural” term, but only in the United States. Nevertheless, the concepts used become very interesting for a multidimensional approximation of the topic from the sociocultural, territorial and ecological aspects. See also, Ashley & Maxwell (2001) and FAO-UNESCO (2003). 114 This criterion has two problems. In the first place, population density is only available for the level of large administrative regions. Thus the area of each district is a variable that excessively influences the calculation of population density. But moreover, districts with a city of relative importance, but without much population outside of them, would be considered as “rural”. Thus, for example, the locality of General Alvear, in Mendoza, had 26,300 inhabitants in 2001. But as the Department of the same name possesses 14,500 km2 and the total population of the department was 44,000 inhabitants, the population density was only 3.1 inhabitants./km2. In this manner including the use of a criterion of population density much lower than 150 inhabitants/km2 of the OCDE, and employing 5 inhabitants/km2, all the inhabitants of General Alvear would be considered as “rural” (including those from the capital having 26,300 inhabitants). This goes against the habitual conceptualization of “rurality” in Argentina. If we use the criterion of 150 inhabitants/km2, even the area of Bahía Blanca, with its city of 275,000 inhabitants, would be “rural”. One option would be excluding cities and recalculating dispersed population and small town to compute the population density. In any case, it is always problematic to choose a limit to differentiate “urban” from “rural” (IIPE-UNESCO, 2005).


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Rurality is thus a spatial concept linked to territory. At the regional territorial level (what the EU calls NUTS-3), we have “essentially rural” regions (with more than 50% of Rural Communities and less than 100 inhabitants/km2), regions "relatively rural" (with between 15 and 50 % of its communities defined as Rural Communities, and between 100 and 240 inhabitants/km2), and "essentially urbanized" regions (with less than 15% rural territory and more than 240 inhabitants/km2). In the majority of European countries there is an attempt to distinguish rural communities from urban communities using the number of inhabitants in the inhabited nucleus. But this number differs vastly (from 10,000 inhabitants in France, to 250 in Denmark, for example). This creates paradoxes. For example, a European municipality of 4,000 inhabitants, with a population density of 52.6 inhabitants/km2 and an extension of 76 km2, would be semi-rural in Spain (for having between 2,000 and 10,000 inhabitants), not rural in France (for having more than 2,000 inhabitants) and rural in Portugal (for having less than 150 inhabitants/km2). In general, the EU talks about three great types of rural areas (European Commission, 1999b): those that can continue being competitive in the present conditions by means of intensification of agriculture; those that can react to the changes by means of extensification; and those that, having problems in relation to competitiveness, must try to diversify their economic bases with the development of alternative activities. The development of the rural setting should also be linked to the satisfaction of a series of new necessities demanded by modern society. Rural areas should convert themselves into authentic poles of attraction for an urban population that increasingly demands aspects related with the conservation of the environment and the intrinsic characteristics of each territory. A frequent paradox in Latin America consists in considering “urban” a population of 2,000 inhabitants concentrated in one place, which leads to policies that remove the town from the rural context that surrounds and determines it (Echeverri & Rivero, 2002). In Europe (we talk here about the EU-15), the active farming population has seen a vertiginous fall. From almost 30% in 1950, we have reached an average of 6% in 1995. Moreover, in that same period, the level of agrarian productivity increased by 750%, with the consequent loss of employment. It becomes clear therefore that the farmer has new assigned functions resulting from the improvement in levels of well-being and from economic, social, and cultural changes. Farming must not only continue its function of food production, but also must assume a role in non-food production and provision of services and non-material goods (García-Marirrodriga, 2002). The desired role for farmers is that their activity become a profession spanning production, nature management, and the arrangement of the territory. Hervieu (1993) espouses the definition of a new occupation in the countryside that


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goes much further than the traditional role: farming represents an occupation of synthesis, in the crossroads of production (taking into account markets), of the management of patrimony (land, water, and landscape, which are properties of our grandchildren and of humanity as much as our own), and of the rural territorial planning (...). It is not so much about reinventing the peasant, as much as transcending mere farmers. It is the new multidimensional role of the farmer. Society requests agriculture to be mercantile ("merchande") and housekeeper ("ménagère"), at the same time it provides our subsistence and survival (Pisani, 1994). The thesis of Hervieu can be hard for farmers and agrarians who dream of the perpetuation of (or the return to) the old productivist paradigms. Hervieu points out the ruptures that have been produced in the last years, but also the contradictions, incoherences, and perverse effects of the traditional agrarian/productivist model, which that the author qualifies repeatedly as “fundamentalist”. The predominant idea for Hervieu is that agriculture and the rural world have no other choice than to assimilate the cultural orientations of the rest of society. Agriculture is defined as a partenaire or member of a collective debate that affects the orientation of the entire society. A “social contract” is needed between agriculture and the rural world, on the one hand, and society as a whole, on the other, which should allow rural areas and agriculture to assume new economic, territorial, social functions and, at the same time, recover their sense of meaning. In other words: the rural reality is not what it once was (Ashley & Maxwell, 2001). In this line of a more holistic focus, the FAO (FAO-UNESCO, 2003) defines rural development as the process that comprises agriculture, education and the strengthening of people’s skills, infrastructure, health, employment (agricultural and non-agricultural), institutions, and the satisfaction of the needs of vulnerable groups, and whose objectives aim for the improvement of socially and environmentally sustainable and equitable livelihoods, in addition to better access to resources (natural, physical, human, technological, and social capital), services, and control of productive capital (both financial and political). And, gathering some ideas from authors already cited in this section, the FAO talks about rural areas as spaces where population and infrastructure occupy only a small part of the landscape; the surroundings are dominated by pasture, forests, mountains, and deserts, the nucleus of the population has between 5 and 10,000 people dedicated above all to the primary sector (due to the availability of relatively inexpensive land), and where the cost of transactions is high, the means of communication scarce, and there are great distances to the cities.


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In the context of the European Union, Rural Development has been defined (Quintana et al., 1999) as a process of balanced and self-sustainable revitalization of the rural world, based on its economic, social and environmental potential, through a regional politics and an integrated application of territorial-based actions on the part of participating organizations. The European Commission (1999c) aims for a balanced territorial planning by means of searching for urban-rural synergies. The inhabitants of the cities need the food, natural, patrimonial, touristic, and recreational resources that the rural areas offer.

The situation in Latin America is different. Agriculture has some enormous deficiencies as regards technology and competitiveness, and employs very high percentages of the population that carry out their work in precarious conditions (García-Marirrodriga, 2002). For example, the active agrarian population of Guatemala is about 40% (in Colombia this figure is 21 %) and 38% of the population is urban (PNUD, 2001). Latin America uses diverse definitions of the term “rural”. In the region, population censuses and household surveys use five wide definitions (CEPAL, 2002; IIPE-UNESCO, 2005) of the term based on the following criteria: - Locality: a maximum population of around 2,000 persons would be rural (in the majority

of countries115). At times this criterion is combined with the proportional weight of the primary sector (localities with less than 1,000 inhabitants are considered “rural”, but also those that have less than 2,000 and less than 50% of the active population dedicated to industrial and service activities).

- Agglomeration of adjacent housing units: an agglomeration of more than 100 permanently-occupied houses would be considered urban in Peru. In some Peruvian departments and in other counties, this criterion is combined with the access to determined public services (existence of sidewalks, electrical lighting, sewage system…).

115 This is the “locality approach” used by the Statistics Office of the United Nations (UNSO). A locality is defined as an area with a predominantly urban land use, and is classified in relation to the number of inhabitants: urban localities have more than 2,000 inhabitants, and rural areas have fewer. But the generalized application of this criterion implies that a great part of the territory is classified as urban without really being so. This is what occurs in Latin America. For example, if we study again the case of Argentina, the above definition of “urban” and “rural” is what is declared official by the INDEC. Nevertheless, this does not turn out to be applicable to all the country's areas, which may have populations of fewer than 2,000 inhabitants and that can conform centers with urban characteristics of density and endowment of services. The INDEC has not yet found an alternative, though according to this criterion, only 10.6 % of the Argentine population of 2001 was rural. In the case of Argentina, “locality” is considered as a dense concentration of buildings and streets; all else is considered “open country” (IIPE-UNESCO, 2005). As Corvalán (2004) says, it is not possible to talk about one sole rurality but rather the existence of different ruralities, in the degree that some rural zones are more dynamic than others.I It is also possible to find rural areas related to export production based on cutting-edge technology, in coexistence with traditional and marginalized rural areas.


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- Legal: legal definitions determine what is urban and what is rural in Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Uruguay.

- Administrative: areas located outside of the designated “municipal seat” or head of the Municipality are considered rural in Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Paraguay.

- Criterion of “non-rural characteristic”: (Costa Rica and Haití). Moreover, almost no country uses exactly the same definition as others, and many countries have modified the definition over the years. Scheme 5 below summarizes these differences. The disparity in the definition of “rural” is not exclusive to America. At the worldwide level, official data often do not correspond to the reality (FAO, 2006). As a “curious” case, we can allude to the legal definition of Brazil that appears in the Decree 311 of the year 1938. According to the Decree, urban zones are “all municipalities or districts, independently of their structural and functional characteristics”. Hence in the census of the year 2000, the “city” of União da Serra, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, had 18 inhabitants! More precise estimates of what is “urban” in Brazil indicate that over 50% of the Brazilian territory is rural as opposed to the “official” 20% figure (Da Veiga, 2002). An example like this refutes the official statistics that declare Latin America as the most “urbanized” continent.

SCHEME 5. Different criteria that define what is rural in Latin America. Adapted from

CEPAL, 2002 and IIPE-UNESCO, 2005

In general, up to 2,000 persons per locality. But there are other criteria

Number of adjacent housing units

“Non-rural” characteristics

Legal definitions

PERU

BRAZIL ECUADOR

GUATEMALA URUGUAY

COSTA RICA & HAITI

Outside the municipal seat

COLOMBIA DOM. REP. SALVADOR PARAGUAY


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But still, we can include two more criteria in the previous list. For example, there are discussions about the distinction between metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas. In statistical and academic analyses this criterion has been partially replacing the rural/urban distinction. The metropolitan area consists of a large city but also the nearby zones integrated with that city, whose residents travel to the city to work. Since the year 2000 discussions have also started on "micropolitan" areas (not metropolitans, but integrated with populations of 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants). In a way this criterion is also related to distance (measurement in vehicle travel time) to a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants. The areas that are more than one hour travel time away from a city are catalogued as “remote”, and those that are more than four hours away as “very remote”. The idea is that zones with easy access to a major urban center could be considered as urban, even if they are occupied with farms. The accessibility to important markets would be a key question to differentiate these zones from areas whose scarce population density prevents the possibility of competing for the provision of products and services to major markets. A more subtle aspect that is gaining importance only recently refers to local actors' subjective “self-identification” as being part of the “rural” universe in relation to lifestyles, values, and cultural visions. According to UNESCO (IIPE-UNESCO, 2005), this proposal is highly interesting, but presents grave inconveniences. In the first place, it impedes any predefinition of rurality, because it depends on an analysis to determine rural areas or individuals. Thus this conceptualization becomes very difficult to employ with a quantitative technique. In the second place, this open redefinition of the concept of rurality turns out to be excessively distant from the concept traditionally employed in some countries (although it would take into account the situation of those that work in the country but reside in the cities, for example).

All the above allows us to affirm in summary that an unequivocal concept of “rurality” does not exist; but rather “ruralities” exist that vary by country, approach, and even the cultural sentiments of the implicated agents. To close, we can say that although agriculture continues to be vital for the articulation of development in Latin America, agricultural production cannot absorb the excessive labor offer of the rural Latin American area. The diversification of activities beyond the agrarian, varying of course according to countries and regions, is becoming a fact in the New World, which is rapidly crossing over from agricultural development to rural development (García-Marirrodriga, 2002; Gasperini & Maguire, 2002; FAO-UNESCO, 2003). Rural development includes multiple activities outside urban areas and is focused on the entire productive system. It is concerned above all with the production of crafts, simple


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operations of agro-processing, sales and marketing, transportation (in bicycle or by animals and/or people), and acquisition of agricultural inputs (FAO, 2000). This concept of rural development focused not only on agriculture is not new; the novelty is that it is now taken seriously in Latin America, as occurred in Europe in the past. But it is already obvious that we cannot separate the concept of rurality of the diversification of socio-economic activities. It is very significant that, at the end of the last decade of the 20th century, non-agricultural rural employment constituted more than one third of employment in the rural homes of Latin America and contributed more than 40% to their total income (Berdegué et al., 2000).

Agriculture or Rural Areas? Urban-Rural Synergies

The signature of the GATT agreements in Marrakech (1994), signified the beginning of a process of worldwide reassignment in agrarian production. The decrease of the protectionism of the Common Agricultural Policy of the EU, and in consequence the increased accesibility of European markets to the products of Third World countries, radically called into question the traditional productivist paradignms. At the end of 2005, the WTO, heir of the GATT, meeting in Hong-Kong was not able to solve the problems inherent in the commerce/development dichotomy, although it opened some doors for hope. In the developing countries, environmental problems and those associated with the model of massive urbanization have become so grave that there is a universal recognition of the need to stop rural depopulation, and to take advantage of rural zones' productive potential, both for food production and for the satisfaction of other goods and services that are increasingly demanded by society. The goal of sustainable development is in play both in those countries and in industrialized countries. Since at least 1994, political, economic, and social debates are dominated by the mutations affecting agriculture as a sector, agrarian policies, rural territories and the rural population, international trade of of food, and worldwide food security. This led the EU to summon in Cork the most important conference on Rural Development in recent memory116 Since November 1996, the date of the conference, we have a new manner of understanding agriculture and rural development, and also the relations between countryside and city.

116 A “continuation” of this took place in Salzburg in 2003. But the change of paradigm from agriculture to rural started in Cork.


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The priority is no longer the development and intensification of production, but rather the creation of a territory and a society that must live as well as producing. The results are no longer quantitative, nor exclusively qualitative, but should rather find an equilibrium. Agriculture has never constituted the only activity of the agrarian world. There is a clear distinction between what is agrarian and what is rural. Agrarian politics and territorial planning are no longer synonymous; they should be conceived separately, although aiming for a dynamic complementarity. According to Pisani (1994), a primarily economic agriculture policy should co-exist with a primarily territorial and social rural policy. Conceived separately, these two policies should articulate with one another, country by country, considering activities, production, and societies. Without forgetting the traditional territorial and generational imbalance of European rural societies, the analysis of small-town demographics, reveals a light recovery in determined types of mid-sized rural settlements. Although these data are only indicators of a tendency, one can talk about a certain recovery of the rural European territory that is often due less to a positive natural growth (although in certain rural areas this also exists), than to an increase in stable returnees (early retirees, retirees and neo-rurals117) and seasonal populations (second homes, for example). The analysis of migratory movements between rural and urban areas and the profile of the groups involved makes clear a new spatial configuration of the European rurality, as well as a process de-agrarization and economic diversification in which varying socio-professional groups participate, each with different interests and strategies, and a certain balance between migratory movements in the rural municipalities. To improve territorial balance in the EU, the search for complementarities and rural-urban cooperation is key. Complementarity cannot be conceived without a functional and physical interrelation of the different geographical levels (European Commission, 1999b). The rural world is conceived from a spatial perspective that supposes a balancing element to an urban world that has generated harmful effects to the environment and to humankind. The defining element of rural space is thus not an opposition to the city (Sancho, 2002). According to Sáez & Colom (2000), two considerations can be taken from urban-rural relations. On the one hand, rural space is the setting of a complex system in which farming activities occupy one place among many other possibilities. In this sense, to organize the rural areas is to take agriculture into account, but not only only agriculture; it is

117 In some countries of the EU, some “urban” families have benefitted from funds of help for their establishment in rural areas, under certain conditions (particular a commitment to remain for a determined period of time).


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necessary to find a balance in each case that safeguards agrarian culture inheritance without being imprisoned by it (Pisani, 1994). On the other hand, rural areas cannot contemplate themselves as independent from urban areas. The old comparison between country and city has stopped making sense, making way for an open situation of mutual influence, in which we see the consolidation of a completely new and more socially dynamic framework. In this sense, it is good to recall some famous words of the European Commission on Agriculture (Fischler, 1996) in Cork: “if the rural community dies, a part of the cities disappears”. The country and the city are ever closer and more interdependent. A demonstration is that in rural areas we see the return of population looking for a better quality of life, and in Europe a new concept has been born: “rural urbanism” or the “rurban” area. This tendency to blur the limits of what is rural and what is urban also appears in Latin America, although there is no reduction of the disparity between development levels of the metropolis versus rural areas, however they are defined (Da Silva, 1998). In all cases, it is fundamental that development institutions, together with the population itself, take an active part in local rural development. By means of this process, an improvement of living and working conditions is sought, which brings with it the creation of employment and wealth, compatible with environmental preservation and the sustainable use of natural resources. The right road for the future of the rural world is based on the coordination between public and private agents; between urban areas and rural areas; always alert to the interests and needs of the local populace, in order to achieve endogenous development, whose effectiveness has already been shown118. The CEFFAs are not alien to the changes in urban-rural relations and, in some European areas most of all, they have had to reorient themselves to respond to urban demands. In effect, according to Briffaud (1987) in a study about two Departments in the French regions of Pays de Loire, there was an evolution in three stages: the MFRs of agricultural learning (1960-1970); of pre-professional formation (1970-1980); and MFRsof professional skills and the urban phenomenon (from 1980). Between 1980 and 1986, the proportion of “urban” youth that solicited a place in the MFRs, went from 7% to 19%. In the conclusions, the author reveals that the modality of education in Alternating Cycle and the integration in a local setting, are two essential elements that let those youth choose the CEFFAs over traditional

118 In this sense, it is important to emphasize that some studies detail that improvement in agriculture in countries like India, but also in others like Kenya, Bolivia and the Philippines, reduces poverty both in the rural areas as well as in the urban areas of those countries (Datt & Ravallion, 1996).


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education. The rural “urbanization” and the bending of the limits of the “countryside”, causes the emergence of a potential for development in the educational realm that should, more than ever, be based on the local environment and adapt available programs to a new public and new demands. The most striking case is the establishment of urban CEFFAs in Europe, especially in France119. Rural community development should also be linked to the satisfaction of a series of new necessities that the present society proposes. The rural areas should convert themselves into authentic poles of attraction for an urban population that increasingly demands aspects related with environmental conservation and the intrinsic characteristics of each territory. It is necessary to eliminate the existing psychological differences between the inhabitants of rural and urban areas, and to attempt to see the positive or potentially positive characteristics of the rural zones on which development can be based, such as the high environmental quality that favors them as a place of residence or work within a wide array of labor sectors. The existence of good communication, technological innovations, and an adequate infrastructure, can favor this and become keys in balancing the advantages of urban and rural areas. Agriculture continues to be important today because it remains as the guardian and the guarantor of our territory, of our society, and of the civilization linked to it, and not just because of its productive capacity. The European citizen requests the agro-rural complex to continue. Citizens believe in its necessary, and are willing to pay the price to preserve agriculture (Pisani, 1994). This is precisely the content of the “new social pact” between society and agriculture. The rural world has to comply to the new functions referred above, and has to be adequately remunerated for them. The size of the municipality, the population density, the environment, and the occupation of the people can serve as indicators, but do not exhaust the qualitative richness of what is rural. In the words of Romano Prodi (SIMFR, 2001) when he was President of the European Commission, “we should preserve the characteristics of the rural world, but at the same time lighten and decrease the walls that separate it from other activities. I have the firm conviction that the rural world can incorporate activities outside its original history (soil conservation, ecology, tourism, careful preservation of traditional products), but beginning from an activity of scientific investigation, of innovation, that should be matched with a productive activity

119 This phenomenon is not exclusive to Europe. In some areas in American countries like Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and even Peru or Guatemala, totally “urban” students have enrolled in the CEFFAs. They see in Alternating Cycle an alternative to the sluggishness of the not so relevant “traditional education” that they have been offered.


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different from the traditional. Because if rural dwellers live in an isolated world, they end up marginalized and disconnected from society. These are the challenges we face. Challenges that are not solved only with economic endowments in relation to commodity prices and Agricultural Policy in general, but with a Policy of Global Development”. With regards to migrations, it is convenient to point out with frequency that one of the explicit or implicit objectives of rural development in Latin America has been that of “avoiding rural-urban migration” with concepts that, in their more extreme manifestations, demonize the urban world and idealize the rural, or in more centralized states are founded on questions of cost and social benefit (Schejtman, 1999). The processes of hyper-urbanization that characterize the majority of countries of the region since the 1950s have perhaps justified the antimigratory slant of many proposals of rural development. But this has not impeded continued changes in the spatial distribution of the population (where the relative weight of agriculture decreases), which seems to abide by a natural tendency that only actions of force or high cost politics can block. According to some authors, migration contributes directly or indirectly to the increase of family incomes, the productive transformation of the small farm, and the overcoming of poverty and problems of environmental deterioration. Still more, rural emigration is one of the elements of economic development: it is necessary, obligatory and positive. If the excess population does not migrate to the towns, it would be impossible to introduce modernization to them (Vergara, 1992)120. The final objective of the CEFFAs is not to halt the rural exodus, as has been alleged at times, but rather to promote development. It is certain that a great number of graduates, youth formed in life and for life, will discover some potentialities in their own territory and undertake projects that contribute to the development of their communities, as we will see at the end of this Chapter. But freedom, one of the great gifts of the person and a characteristic of education in the CEFFA, has to be always respected and it cannot be prevented that some should abandon their community in search of better alternatives. Nevertheless, the CEFFA should provide all graduates with a sense of the legitimate use of their freedom, as well as the skills that allow them to live with dignity, both in the rural community and in the urban. The problem, the failure, would be that these youth

120 This author, referring himself to the case of Peru, nevertheless points out that in reality, the great migratory catastrophe was that the dwellers in the mountain ranges did not migrate to their cities but towards those of the Coast. In consequence, the modernizing effect that urbanization generates was monopolized by the Coast. Rising land values and increased proximity to markets favored the coastal dwellers and not the mountain population; the offer of services existed for the coastal dwellers and not for the mountain population; the modernization of mentalities, of social relations of production and of technology didn't apply to the Andean area. Without cities, the Andean area stagnated in the past.


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enlarge the slums of the large cities, or be unable to earn for themselves a dignified life in the big city.

THE “NEW RURALITY” IN LATIN AMERICA

The practice of rural development in Latin America has crossed from a focus on rural communities and small producers, to a focus on the agents of development. It is not only about the participation of the agents, but also a social strengthening that responds to a concept of “empowerment”, more powerful than mere decentralization and participation from the grassroots, in which there is a real acquisition of power, both to control external resources, and to increase self-esteem and internal skills (CEPAL, 2002). Topics like rural poverty, Non-Agricultural Rural Employment (NARE)121, ethnic issues, and the role of women, are beginning to appear in the political agenda of the governments and of the agents of development. Already in the 90s, one starts to perceive that the formation of social capital finds in rural territories an opportunity very favorable for strengthening traditional cultures, their communities, and their own forms of organization. At the start of the 21st century, it seems obvious that the evolution that Latin America has carried out since the end of the 1950s (growth by means of social inequalities), has already reached its limits with the inheritance of ample social tensions, strong ecological damages, and chaotic processes of urbanization (Sachs, 2000). As such, themes of rural development are gaining new traction. The persistence of the problem of rural poverty, and the obligation to approach it from a different perspective, the changes experienced in the conception of the role of agriculture and of small-scale farmers, and the need to transcend the Washington Consensus122 on agriculture, are some of the elements that have fundamentally marked this resurgence.

121 NARE has an important and increasing weight in the absorption of rural labor supplies; it is a mechanism for overcoming poverty not offered by mere agricultural activity; off-farm employment permits the stabilization of income, compensating the seasonality of production and agricultural employment; and diversifies income, reducing the risk inherent to agriculture. But access to better options of NARE is strongly linked to education levels, to the development of infrastructure (energy, roads, telephone), and to gender, since men receive better-paying jobs than women (Schejtman, 1999; Berdegué et al., 2000). 122 The so-called “Washington Consensus” was the decision of international financial organizations to start a set of reforms in the member countries (clients) that would include, among other things, politics of inflation control, commercial liberalization, reduction of public deficit, and privatization of State enterprises. In agriculture, this Consensus directed policies towards the stimulus of exportats, the importation of food, and the elimination of subsidies in order to foster competitiveness, the cutting development and agricultural support budgets, and the drastic reduction of programs for the poorest of the rural population.


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Concepts like the expanded role of agriculture, territoriality, local culture, decentralization, governability, and local cooperation, have become more common in the literature about rural development, and their influence is felt in the thinking of some agencies of development and in some governments. In this way emerges a new focus in the practice of rural development, based on the concept of territory (IICA, 2003). The territorial focus of Latin American rural development can consider itself a point where different historical approximations converge (community development, small-scale producers, integrated rural development), with other more recent ones that emphasize aspects like participation and empowerment of rural populations. The countries of Latin America have subscribed to Agreements similar to that of the Earth Summit123. In all these, they seek to better satisfy the needs of the population, and determine as main objectives: the strengthening of democracy, the promotion of prosperity, the eradication of poverty and the guarantee for a sustainable rural development. It is therefore necessary to incorporate considerations of sustainable rural development in the processes of decision-making, policy formulation, and development planning in the framework of New Rurality (IICA, 1999 and 2003; Echeverri & Rivero, 2002). This concept is understood as a proposal to look at rural development from a perspective different from what predominates in the political strategies of governments and international organizations, and that allows for inclusion instead of exclusion, equity instead of social and ethnic inequalities, and the revaluing of what is rural as a continuum of what is urban. The territorial focus of development employs the main conceptual elements of the “New Rurality”, whose basic foundations are:

- Human Development, understood as a process through which major opportunities are offered to people so that they, both individually and collectively, can develop all their potentials and enjoy a reasonable opportunity to live a productive and creative life, conforming to their needs and interests (PNUD, 2000). Eventually, the term was expanded in meaning, coining the concept of Sustainable Human Development, understood as development that not only begets economic growth but also distributes its benefits equitably, regenerates the environment instead of destroying it, and motivates people instead of marginalizing them (PNUD, 1994).

123 For example, the process “Summits of the Americas” has approved: in the First Summit (Miami, 1994), the Declaration of Principles called the “Pact for Development and Prosperity: Democracy, Free Commerce, and Sustainable Development in the Americas”; in Santa Cruz de la Sierra (1996), the “Declaration of Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Action Plan for the Sustainable Development of the Americas”; and in the Second Summitof the Americas (Santiago de Chile, 1998), the “Declaration of Santiago”.


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- Sustainable Rural Development which, instead of a handout focus, promotes endogenous capacities.

- Social Capital (Putnam, 1993 and 1994; Woolcock, 1998; Midgley & Livermore, 1998; Grootaert, 1998; Coleman, 1988; Fedderke et al., 1999; Narayan, 1999; Kliksberg, 2000a and 2000b; Woolcock & Narayan, 2000; Uphoff & Wijayaratna, 2000; Fukuyama, 2001; CEPAL, 2002; Lindon et al., 2002; Durston, 2002; IICA, 2003) as a base for development strategies, human and natural capital, and education as a road to dignity, democracy and peace (Wolfensohn, 1999).

- Equitable Economic Growth in which prevail objectives like the creation of employment, satisfaction of basic necessities (nutrition, housing, health, education...), the improvement of individual and social capacities, and respect for the rights of all, without creating dependence on the achievement of others.

The “New Rurality” starts then with a new definition of what is rural, opposed to others visions like that which has prevailed in Europe for years (Quintana et al., 1999). This new vision incorporates dispersed areas and urban concentrations, economic and non-economic dimensions, functional, integrated relations with the urban, and a territorial focus. Thus emerges the importance of the consolidation of a participative democracy, which demands the appearance of a new rural citizen.

TABLE 15. Evolution towards the concept of New Rurality in Latin America. García-Marirrodriga y De los Ríos, 2005 (adapted from Ellis and Biggs, 2001)

1950-1960 - Beginning of Modernization - Negative vision of rural living GROWTH BY

MEANS OF INEQUALITY 1960-1970

- Agrarian Reform - Mechanization - Peasants as economic agents

1980-1990 - Focus on the agents of develoment - Poverty alleviation, foreign debt, beginning of the

boom of the NGO - Empowerment WASHINGTON

CONSENSUS

1990-2000 - Globalization - Social and Human Capital - Environment - Poverty reduction

POST- WASHINGTON CONSENSUS

SINCE 2000

- Sustainabile livelihoods - Decentralization - Poverty eradication


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In the Table 15, the evolution toward the concept of New Rurality in Latin America is summarized. This concept aims for sustainable development with a territorial focus. The integration of diverse components of sustainable development is linked with the diverse “capitals”, in approaches that prioritize territory, endogenous resources, innovation and diversification in agriculture, and education-formation, keys to the creation and maintenance of social and human capital in th framework of a “New Rurality” in Latin America.

SCHEME 6. Integrated Development and New Rurality in Latin America. García-Marirrodriga, 2002

It is necessary to emphasize the close link between development and “New Rurality”, with assets or capital of “intangible” characteristics, such as human and social capital. We can distinguish the following types of capital (Kliksberg, 2000a):

- Natural Capital, comprised by a territory's endowment of natural resources.

- Constructed Capital, made by humans (infrastructure, equipment, technological and financial capital...).

- Human Capital, determined by the levels of nutrition, health, and education of the populace, and understood as the sum of innate abilities, knowledge, and skills that people acquire and develop during their lifetime (Laroche et al., 1999).

DIMENSIÓN ENVIRONMENTAL

DIMENSIÓN

ENFOQU E INTEGRADO PLAN COMARCAL

NEW RURALITY IN

LATIN AMERICA

EDUCATION FORMATION

INNOVACION VALORIZACION CAPITAL

NATURAL

SEGUIMIENTO TERRITORIAL

D IMENSION

HUMAN

ENDOGENOUS

SOCIAL

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION

ECONOMIC

SOCIO - CULTURAL

BUILT CAPITAL

DIMENSI ON

FOCUS

CAPITAL CAPITAL

DIMENSION RESOURCES

DIMENSION

DIVERSIFICATION


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- Social Capital, derived from the complex relations of the present economy and often referring to the importance of communication networks and local associations (social interactions) for development.

In a more elaborated classification, Boisier (1998) talks about nine forms of (in reality ten because he adds natural capital): economic, cognitive, symbolic, cultural, institutional, social, psycho-social, civic, and human124. The catalyzing element in all of these categories, which should interact to generate development, is the “synergistic capital” or the social capacity to promote joint actions directed to collective, democratically-accepted aims. The social capital is perhaps the most written concept among those that appear in the previous list, probably because it is interdisciplinary (Robinson et al., 2001). We will shortly go back to this matter in the following epigraph. With regards to the relation between sustainable development and “New Rurality”, we share the opinion that development is the result of a multifunctional process in which competitiveness, equality, sustainability, and governability are mutually articulated and conditioned (Carretero, 1999). Consequently, the design of rural development in Latin America should consider the following aspects in order to be sustainable (IICA, 1999; Carretero, 1999; BID, 2000b; CEPAL, 2002):

- An adequate balance between the need to satisfy the necessities of the present generation and future generations.

- The necessity for national strategies to assure the expansion of production, the improvement of living standards of the majority of the populace, and the solution of major social problems, with special incidence in education.

- The understanding that environmental protection and economic development require global solutions, given the interdependence of the main environmental problems, but without renouncing the necessity to strengthen the identity of each country and its capacity to design and put into practice its own strategies of sustainable socioeconomic development.

- The need to develop human capacities and social capital.

124 The forms of capital according to Boisier (1998), are: natural (natural resources); economic (stock of available financial resources for aims of investing in the region); cognitive (endowment of scientific and technical knowledge); symbolic (the power of discourse to build a region); cultural (stores of traditions, myths, beliefs, language, social relations); institutional (the institutional map and its attributes of flexibility and density of the organizational thread; psycho-social (collective self-confidence, collective memory); social (negotiation skills of local agents, social participation, cultural identity, and gender relations); civic (democratic political practice, trust in public institutions); human (knowledge and individual abilities).


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- The special attention that should be given to possibilities of fostering transfers of technologies between Developing Countries, as well as South-South collaboration in matters of formation of qualified personnel and the improvement of research and development skills, among other areas.

- The need to aba-ndon the idea of measuring development in economic terms of income or expenditures per capita, without reference to solidarity, compassion, mutual respect, courage, and many other values whose practice implies, in many cases, a decrease of income and spending.

Definitively, on top of the great challenges for agriculture and rural development in Latin America in the next decade, which we could summarize as food security, poverty reduction, and sustainable resource management (Trueba, 2002), there is one more: that of education and formation (García-Marirrodriga, 2002). These are key aspects for strengthening democracy, creating social capital, and human development for people and communities.

THE CREATION OF SOCIAL FABRIC THROUGH THE CEFFA ASSOCIATION

Numerous authors have exposed the crisis of the top-down model of development planning (Cernea, 1995). The major criticisms to the model are that the criteria and objectives behind projects do not come from local actors or project beneficiaries. Planning “from below”, on the other hand, involves participation and begets social learning among the different agents, fostering a dialogue and a joint analysis of reality and of proposed projects (Friedmann, 1993). The definition of CEFFA125 does not include the terms “school” or “educational establishment”, but rather speaks of an Association of families, professionals, and institutions… That is, a place of participation for the commitment of the agents of the CEFFA (García-Marirrodriga, 2002) that are, in their turn, beneficiaries of actions that it performs. The CEFFA is a place of participation that becomes a pole of development because, according to Ackoff (1984), effective development should be participative. Participation in itself, as a social process, changes its agents, strengthens unfavored groups, develops trust in people's own capacities, and contributes to their articulation (Kliksberg, 2004).

125 See Chapter 2.


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Participation can occur in different periods of the “Project Cycle” of development, in the same way as in the different levels of society, and can assume many forms. Participation in itself is at times both an end and a means. As a means, it is a process in which people and communities collaborate in programs and projects. As an end, it is a process of “empowerment” of these people and communities through the acquisition of abilities, knowledge, and experience, which lead to more autonomy (García-Marirrodriga et al., 2006). One of the principal elements of social life is associative life. Its quality and intensity constitute at once a good indicator of the state of that social life, and a privileged instrument for its further development. Participation represents the concrete primary form of collective action. The level and style of participation of each of the members of the association constitute an indicator of its vitality and the effectiveness of its social function (Chenu, 1982). Moreover, for participation-driven development to become sustainable, those participating should be the “owners” of the development (OECD, 1993). An association is at the same time an effect and a cause of freedom and democracy, a place of expression of freedom, fulfillment of a social project, not only because it becomes a protagonist in local and personal development, but also because it contributes decisively to participation in public life. That is, an association is the irreplaceable mark of participation (Lory, 1976), and is favored in the rural areas, as Kliksberg (2004)126 affirms when he points out the great social capital of group work and ethical values in rural area, which is reflected in their attachment to moral and family virtues, and in the cultivation of solidarity and hospitality. Sander (1998) stresses that for the improvement of educational management, it is necessary to evolve from a critical evaluation of current organizational and administrative realities, to concrete proposals for action. In his vision, the most effective strategy for meeting this challenge is participation. The Association is a fundamental, indispensable principle in the CEFFA, in various ways: association of general formation with technical formation in professional teaching; association of the school with the world of work, with life; association of families with the school's living environment. A formation that disregards these associative aspects, intending to endow the student with the abstract, with the scientific, with the cultural, disconnecting them from the vital immediate reality, would only become a simple storage of data, a training, not a development of the student (Martinell, 1974).

126 In this work, the author describes various experiences relevant to different countries of Latin America, in the field of “social capital put into action” by the poor.


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This disconnect has grave consequences; above all in the case of rural youth who have very tight relations with their surroundings due to the very conditions of life that surround them (González de Canales, 1973). As we have seen in Chapter 1, the triggering factor for the establishment of the first CEFFA was precisely the lack of relevance of the official curriculum for the local reality. CEFFAs use the reality of the surrounding living environment and base themselves on it to make a Formation Plan. And within that environment are the parents, the family, the neighbors, other professionals, educators, and Alternating Cycle coordinators... The youth of the CEFFA are not separated from real life to receive formation, because Alternating Cycle rests on the conviction that it is impossible to form youth only in the school with teachers. The potential of a territory consists in physical, human, economic, financial, technological, and sociocultural resources, and in what is today called “social capital”. This last factor, fundamental in the newest ways of understanding and aspiring to successful local development, is linked to the level of trust among actors, the norms of civic behavior, and the degree of associativity that characterize a population. These elements manifest the wealth and strength of the internal social fabric of a society (Putnam, 1994; Kliksberg, 2000b). The differences among successful and unsuccessful territories, as well as other conditions, can presumably be explained by the emergence and advancement of this intangible social capital127. Social capital can exist in a latent form among people or groups that share common characteristics that have not yet been discovered by them. The conversion of this “latent social capital” into “active social capital” requires special interactions or situations so that these common characteristics can be recognized (for example, a natural catastrophe that leads the people to group themselves on the basis of their common characteristics to address the problem); or can also arise from external interventions (for example, programs for community development) that require the active participation of the community members as receptors of help in the different stages of the project, and that allow them to recognize the advantages that can be obtained through community work (Lindon et al., 2002). In the case of the CEFFAs, the situation that puts social capital into action is the assumption

127 Numerous authors have defined social capital. We will cite some examples (aside from what is referred to in the text): “content of certain social relations characterized by attitudes of confidence and behavior of reciprocity and cooperation” (Durston, 2002); “norms, networks and social relations immersed in formal and informal institutions of society, that give people the possibility to coordinate their actions and reach their goals” (Grootaert, 1998); “shared norms or values that promote social cooperation and permit that weak inviduals group together to defend their interests and organize themselves in support of their collective needs” (Fukuyama, 2001).


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of responsibilities in the formation and in local development on the part of the group of associated families. Social capital favors the fulfillment of collective actions for the benefit of the community (Putnam, 1993). To contribute to real development of the territory, social capital should include relations of intracommunity integration, on one hand; and, on the other the ability to relate with groups external to the local community, as well as synergy among institutions (Fedderke et al., 1999). It is about associativity, trust, reciprocity, and civic commitment (Putnam, 1993; Woolcock, 1998; CEPAL, 2002). That is, the capacity to obtain benefits using social networks. According to Woolcock, there are two principal dimensions that are involved in the analysis of social capital in a group (Woolcock, 1998). The first dimension refers to social capital understood as a specific capacity of mobilization of determined resources on the part of a group; the second deals with the availability of networks of social relations. Two especially important notions converge around the capacity to mobilize: leadership and its counterpart empowerment. The resources referred to are associativity and the horizontal or vertical character of social networks. These characteristics have given rise to distinctions between the networks of relations in the interior of a group or community (bonding), the networks of relations between groups or similar communities (bridging), and the networks of external relations (linking). In this sense, the CEFFA Association, formed by the parents of students, but also by other families, professionals and social agents of the territory, assumes responsibilities and commitments in juridical and economic aspects, as well as in decision making and execution of actions, passing from the logic of participation to the logic of collective action (Cernea, 1995). An intense associative life with the three types of relation networks that Woolcock describes has been a factor of territorial development from the time the first CEFFA was created128. Logically, the different levels of people's participation and implication vary with respect to the association. In the case of the CEFFA Association, its members should be transformed as soon as possible from users to sympathizers, and later to militants (Puig, 2006). That is, to 128 Cf. Chapter 1 and García-Marirrodriga (2002). The protagonists of the beginnings of the first CEFFA were concerned about the development of the youth, but also community development (creating, for example, the cooperative of commercialization of the plum of Agen). And they responded to their common problems with an initiative of formation that later resulted to be the MFR of Lauzun, around which it is articulated –as what occurred afterwards in all the worldwide CEFFA – processes of local development.


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people that assume personal responsibilities and commitments and that assume the risks implicit in any type of associative movement to promote local development processes. This mode of approximation requires a process of learning based on the beneficiaries themselves (Cernea, 1995). Because of this, a Formation Plan is essential for the members of the Administration Councils of these Associations (Puig, 2006). To achieve territorial development, there is a need to invest in social capital (Schejman & Berdegué, 2003). In the case of the CEFFA, the creation of social capital, a capacity that is frequently forgotten in educational institutions (Narayan, 1999), it greater in the degree that the association that sustains the school is more dynamic. The participation experienced in the CEFFA Association is a factor of social change and increases the innovating potential of the organization. This change comes through innovation generated by the assumption of personal responsibilities in the core of a group of people where everyone participates actively. The Association favors collective change that perhaps would not have been possible as the mere sum of individual changes. The actions organized around the Association lead to questioning of current realities, and as a direct consequence of this dynamism, the surroundings can be modified, changed, and developed. This is a clear example of the creation of mutual benefits as a consequence of a collective action (Uphoff & Wijayaratna, 2000). The CEFFAs, by means of Alternating Cycle, advocate for an education, a formation, in development and for development, because it leads to the realization of individual and collective skills and to commitments that cause changes in the community: “social capital in action”. When we build the bases for a more sustainable development, we are educating for the future and working for the progress of the territory. The “New Rurality” has its objectives in the principles of human development (PNUD, 2001), and in education it has its most important means to obtain the objectives. In this framework, human capital is the main strategy for sustainability and youth are the main bearers and promoters of this new vision (Vacca, 2001). In the CEFFA model of schools, the goal is to form graduates with the profile of a local agent of development, of a leader (Herreros, 1998), because they have pursued a formation that facilitated personal development, and beyond that, of the local territory. Rural associations in almost all of Latin America start establishments for education in Alternating Cycle, present an enormous richness in social and human capital that is positively linked with its participative character and with the promotion of the popular culture, which fosters local identity. Therefore, there is an “existing social capital” expressed in the


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associative tradition of the rural communities, often stronger in indigenous communities, because interpresonal reciprocity and belonging to a local community with its own sociocultural system and community cooperation, are traditional resources of peasant culture (García-Marirrodriga & De los Ríos, 2005; García-Marirrodriga et al., 2006). CEFFAs favor development because they imply a framework for the feeling of belonging to a territory and the desire to improve and renew it. That is, there is a social dynamism arising from the democratic participation by means of the Association. This participation and the consequent empowerment, aside from creating a collective consciousness, encourage the creation of relations of trust that are precisely what build and strengthen the institution. The lack of economic resources, or adverse cultural and political conditions, can slow or temporarily stop the process, but not annihilate it when the local commitment is assured (García-Marirrodriga, 2002 and 2009). According to Kliksberg (2004)129, when the poor are no longer seen only as objects and are seriously confronted with the topic of community participation, in a way that does not underestimate them, it is possible to achieve striking development. These local associations can be converted in a true force of union and local cohesion, going beyond any possible ideological and social differences. If a summons is made, an “animation of development", to the all the local agents of the territory, these associations can become much more than a simple union of representatives from the diverse sectors of activity. The associative spirit can progressively extend itself toward all sectors of the population, including the categories that have been traditionally excluded from debates and decision making (disfavored persons, retirees, youth...), thus obtaining the associative articulation of the local populace (Herreros, 1990). In this manner are introduced a series of specific forms of grassroots democracy that allow a better participation of the agents in reflection and in action. These ideas are precisely at the heart of the CEFFA Associations worldwide. Sensitizing community leaders on the importance of social capital (the ideal is to have some of them in the Administration Council of the CEFFA Association) promotes and facilitates the social integration of the youth in formation, and introduces the school as an element in the life of the community, moving it away from the image of isolation that educational

129 It is interesting to realize that poverty goes beyond the mere lack of basic necessities: it erodes families and causes psychological damages. In a survey undertaken by the World Bank of the poor in 50 countries, the majority from Latin America (World Bank, 2000), the respondents emphasized that above all poverty attacks their human dignity and their self-esteem because they are considered as “inferior” persons. But when asked about what organizations they trusted, they put in the first place the associations of the poor because there they truly participate and recover their confidence in themselves and their community.


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establishments often suffer. In other words, the theory of social capital suggests to the youth that the society that surrounds them cares about their well-being and values their commitment to local development (Smith et al., 1992). Alternating Cycle, a factor of innovation, is a pedagogical methodology and an instrument of community development thanks to participation. It renders the evolution of a territory possible through the education and the formation of youth, because it is works on two coordinates: personal development and involvement in the local territory. These coordinates are facilitated by the practice of a professional activity that is converted into a source of formation, and by the participation of the parents and of all the local agents in that formation, from which they themselves also benefit. This is the articulation between formation and development that is obtained thanks to an educational system that, starting from personal development, mobilizes the territory and creates social fabric, thus generating, activating, or increasing the social capital. Social capital contributes to the formation of human capital by facilitating the educational process. We could say that Alternating Cycle articulates processes of formation (human capital) and local development by means of participation, associative commitment, and teamwork (social capital). Also, the impact of Alternating Cycle can be measured in terms of creation and strengthening of networks of social capital: youth in formation, families, educators, businessmen, representative agents of the territory, diverse professionals, and local organizations and institutions (García-Marirrodriga & De los Ríos, 2005).

THE PROJECTS OF THE CEFFA STUDENTS, A CONTRIBUTION TO LOCAL DEVELOPMENT

The problem of education in the rural areas (Chartier, 1986; FAO, 1997; García-Marirrodriga, 2002) is the irrelevance of the systems of “traditional” formation and education to the specific needs of the youth, and its predominantly “urban” focus. This lack of relevance translates to some immediate effects on rural development, as a consequence of the lack of motivation of many youth, who opt to leave for urban areas that theoretically offer better employment. Moreover, the absence of local characteristics in the curricular content poses serious difficulties for the education to influence territorial development (Werthein & Bordenave, 1981). We can say that technical and professional schools worldwide face a two-fold challenge. On one hand, it is difficult to suit formation programs to the demands of the market. Precisely, one of the major difficulties of the institutions of rural education is the


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rigidity in the curricular structure, contents, and mode of execution (Taylor, 1998; FAO, 1997; García-Marirrodriga, 2002). On the other hand, there is an imbalance between the training given and the possibilities of employment. In the case of Latin America, curricular and pedagogical models, with their proposals of urban values, models of life, have decisively contributed to the encouragement of rural exodus. Conversely, if the focus of learning is centered on the real interests of the student, it creates a special climate in the classroom for both the student and the teacher (Deay & Saab, 1994). The CEFFAs and the Pedagogical System that sustains them, Alternating Cycle, advocate for the necessity to link the youth with his environment, and allows students, who spend at least half of academic time in their family farms or in small rural enterprises, to pursue professional projects and to become real local agents of a sustainable development. The successful management of the pedagogical model of Alternating Cycle, the continuous entwinement of the curriculum with the environment (UNESCO, 1972), assumes “a management of complexity” consisting in constant vigilance to the achievement of goals and an extreme attention to the proper use of means130. For this it is necessary to have educators that are not only teachers but also true social animators of the territory, whose profile allows the promotion of development in an educational establishment sustained by a local association (García-Marirrodriga et al., 2005).

Formation Plan and Youth Project

The ideal profile for a CEFFA graduate is that of a local leader that lives from his work and in his environment with dignity; a youth capable of undertaking projects that contribute to his personal and family development, in order to obtain the progress of everyone in the community. For this it is necessary to draft a “Formation Plan” that integrates the national curriculum standards with the complex reality of the youth in formation (Puig, 2003 and 2006). At the end of the formation is the student arrives at a Professional Project that favors employment or self-employment (because professional formation is only relevant if it leads to employment, according to BID, 2000a). It is not essential in all cases that it be a farming project. It is not even required that the student stays in the territory, although this occurs frequently.

130 See Chapter 2, where the ends and means of the CEFFA are described.


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The following Scheme (no. 7) attempts to explain how the Project of the student is a central theme of the formation in Alternating Cycle in the CEFFA, and explains why this pedagogy has been called the “Pedagogy of the Project” (García-Marirrodriga, 2004), because it is the Project that gives sense and significance to the formation. In this way, the six progressively larger circles would become each one of the courses of formation in the CEFFA. For example, in the case of Argentina131, the three first years would correspond to the three last years of the ESB, and the following three to the “Polimodal”. It is expected that during the three first years, the CEFFA focuses on the vocational or professional orientation of the students, showing them, through the on-the-job part of the Alternating Cycle, all the possibilities of professional dedication in the local environment (it is the phase of vocational orientation). At the end of this period, the student should have a certain idea of his future Professional Project (that, he should have defined his “professional option”), that will be progressively narrowed and solidified in the following cycle of three years. Once the idea is defined, in agreement with the family and the team of educators, and before entering into the development of the project as such, it is important to pose some questions: is it a realistic idea?, will it have the support of the family and the community?, is it technically viable?, what about the economic-financial aspects?, does the future benefit justify the effort needed to implement the project?...

SCHEME 7. The project of the youth, central theme of the formation in Alternating Cycle. Puig, 2006

131 In the case of Brazil for example, we would be talking, respectively, about “Basic Education” and “Middle Education”; in Guatemala, of the “Basic Cycle” and of the “Diversified”; in Uruguay, of the “Basic” (Lyceum) and of “Bachillerato”… In other cases, the trajectory can have a shorter duration (for example, in Peru we talk about a Secondary level that lasts for five years).

VOCATIONAL ORIENTATION STAGE

PROFESSIONAL

OPTION

THE YOUTH’S

PROJECT


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The second cycle, separated from the first in the illustration by a dashed vertical line, has a major objective different from the previous cycle. If the youth has been guided correctly, for which a serious work of the team of educators is necessary in the satisfactory planning of the youth’s Alternating Cycle periods, now he will be ready to specialize and construct his Professional Project. Simultaneously, the two outside arrows in the diagram gradually open, reflecting how the general and professional formation is gradually completed and made more complex throughout the entire formation.

The horizontal axis, an arrow aimed at the Project, signifies that the entire Formation Plan of the CEFFA is precisely oriented to the Project of each student132. In this manner, we can affirm with Puig (2002) that the Project is at once a means to motivate learning, and the result of this learning. It is a tool to learn how to undertake processes of personal and community change, which will enable the youth to become inserted in the socio-professional world. Alternating Cycle teaching has an impact if it simultaneously produces a change in the territory. It is sustainable if the whole of the territory prospers at the time that the youth, their families, and their communities prosper. The CEFFA schools cannot be viable if they are not concerned about economic, social, and human development of the surroundings where they operate. This the task of different agents of the CEFFA, especially the officers of the Association and the Tutors… Alternating Cycle facilitates changes, modifies social processes, and accelerates the ability to innovate in the face of the “anti-development” represented by stagnation (Duffaure, 1975). From the point of view of development, what distinguishes and characterizes humans as a builder of the future and, therefore, of innovation, is the capacity of people to make new things, exercising their imaginations and motivating them to develop the necessary attitudes and knowledge. This is called “entrepreneurial skill”. Alternating Cycle promotes this entrepreneurial capacity by means of undertaking Projects. In the countries where there are CEFFAs, they have achieved wonderful results from students rooted in their environment, because they learned to undertake projects that let them live a dignified life. Their contribution to community development is the obvious result of the dynamics created

132 For this to happen, the Pedagogical Tools of Alternating Cycle (study visits, professional get-togethers, technical courses, and most of all the “plan of studies” or “search plan” and the “common synthesis”), should be focused towards the Project. But what is more important is an adequate guidance of the educators, most of all in two other instruments: the visit to families and the Alternating Cycle coordinators and the personal guidance of students which, starting from the technical aspects of the Project of each student, will cover other aspects of the integral formation that is sought in the CEFFA as one of its pillars (professional, social, human, spiritual…).


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by Alternating Cycle, in the degree that the procedures of formation and of animation favor the participation of the parents and other local agents in the Association, winning the commitment of everyone involved. The first effect of change brought about by Alternating Cycle in the core of the CEFFA arises from the coming-together of generations and the conflicts this produces, which force everyone to depart from the routine. A synthesis is arrived at between two forms of experience: one of the past (in the adult) and one of the future (in the youth). That cooperation between generations, generator of a shared responsibility in the core of the Association, contributes to social progress. But the fulfillment of those projects depends in a significant degree on the territorial environment of each person. In other words, if the environment is not developed simultaneously with the youth in formation, they will leave their community, which implies precisely the opposite result from that which is sought. That is to say that territorial sustainability would be put in danger by the absence of adequately formed youth. This makes us understand the fundamental role of the CEFFA Association. On one hand, beyond being a simple group of parents united around a school (which is common in most traditional pedagogical systems), it should be an authentic focal point of Local Development that uses the School as an instrument. The young generations show a major propensity to take advantage of the opportunities for education. Youth are strategic agents in the technological and organizational change of productive systems. We are talking about forms of innovation that do not necessarily imply a rupture with traditional activities but rather, as it modernizes the old systems and practices and diversifies the rural economy, propels the cultural continuity of the local traditions through a flexible use of local knowledge, information, and processes of youth empowerment. It is precisely the youth, actor and author of his own formation (Gimonet, 1998), that is the center of the Alternating Cycle system. Alternating Cycle is a means of building lasting changes by attempting to relate formation with action and research. This process of building of course affects the educators, but also the students, because it means that they will not consume knowledge from the teachers, but rather they will become skilled in producing their own knowledge through their own experience (we are not only talking about an Active Pedagogy, but above all an “Experiential” one). In this production of knowledge, students count on the support of all the agents of formation, in a sort of “cooperative for knowledge production” (Pineau, 2002b): families, businesses, educators, other students, the community... And students also use a series of complex pedagogical tools that make the practice of Alternating Cycle possible.


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In this sense, each student should formulate (and enact, whenever possible) a Professional Project at the end of her formation. The specific Formation Plan of the CEFFAs is precisely oriented to that Project with the objective of employability (guarantee of sustainability for rural areas and of territorial balance in the degree that it contributes to the permanence of youth in the community) and of citizenship (human capital, social capital). A tool that facilitates employability is the construction of the Professional Project, which puts the student into contact with professionals, makes students familiarize themselves with the formulation of projects, fosters their critical spirit, and helps them to live real situations of business-related risks (the periods of rotation in the socio-professional environment). This pedagogical approach supposes that the youth is responsible for her own knowledge, for the search for solutions to problems, and for the execution of Projects. We could say that at the end of his formative itinerary in the CEFFA, each youth presents in a systematic, global form his “masterpiece”, something tangible that should make the intangible formation visible, and that will be recognized by others. It is not about making the Project, an unreachable reality, but rather in converting it into an opportunity to learn to undertake (Puig, 2002; García-Marirrodriga, 2002 and 2004). In effect these youth, who are local agents of development and small-scale entrepreneurs, acquire the skills to undertake Projects of improvement that respond to the necessities or local opportunities that facilitate employment or self-employment. The increases of income obtained through small projects have a clear impact on local development, because these projects improve the quality of life of the families and communities, and contribute to strengthening the social fabric. The projects, sometimes agricultural, or other times linked to diversification, create significant impacts in families and in communities with a very small initial investment. At times the student projects lead to improved nutrition and contribute to the food security of the family (García-Marirrodriga, 2003). Other projects favor the improvement of housing. Almost always the projects imply a diversification and increase of incomes, and are very dependent on the support of the family and the guidance of CEFFA educators.

Some Projects of CEFFA Graduates

As an example of the impact on youth, families, and rural communities, we can shortly review some projects of CEFFA graduates, women and men, in very different socio-geographical contexts: Asia, Central America, South America, Africa, and Europe. ! ASIA: a CEFFA student from the province of Batangas (Philippines), had a problem of

worm-infestation in her small rice field. The humble economic means of the family did not


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permit them to overcome the problem by using chemicals. But the student had learned in a study visit done in school about acertain type of duck that swims in the rice field and feeds on these worms. After researching a little more, and with the technical assessment of the CEFFA, she decided to buy two dozen eggs of these ducks with her savings. In time, she was able to breed the ducks and solve the plague in her small rice field. At present, the family has become breeders of ducks, and this small business provides the main source of their income. The student's earnings were first used to construct a simple bedroom of her own (she was the eldest daughter and was 17 years old), which would give her a certain privacy and autonomy from her parents and siblings. The example inspired other families to improve their housing little by little. Presently, this graduate has obtained her Bachelor’s degree from a university in the provincial capital and has a small computer shop and internet café (the first business of this type in her town). At the same time, her parents still maintain the duck breeding business, where she is involved in management and accounting.

! CENTRAL AMERICA: in the Department of Huehuetenango (Western High Plateau of

Guatemala), a student of a CEFFA decided to put up a small vegetable nursery, with a two-fold objective. On one hand, he wanted to remove the long trip necessary to obtain seeds (more than five hours' walk to the market in the municipal capital). On the other hand, the goal was to improve families' potato- and corn-based diet (we are talking of a plateau of more than 3,000 m. of altitude). In this manner, on a surface of 0.5 has., and using only his savings and a small family loan, he bought seeds of lettuce, tomato, cauliflower, carrots, cucumbers, radish, as well as a bit of plastic (moreover, he had been gathering the pieces of plastic, wood, wires, and nails that he found in his surroundings). The student's family is starting to eat salads and vegetable soup, with the consequent vitamin inputs that they did not have before. Moreover, he has already started to sell seeds to his neighbors, who no longer have to walk far to obtain seeds, and the earnings from the sales are used to buy fruits. This example is spreading in the community, while the student will improve his small greenhouse when he gathers the necessary resources to renovate it.

! SOUTH AMERICA: in a CEFFA of the Province of Buenos Aires (Argentina), we can

see a youth who is a “typical product of Alternating Cycle”. A son of small-scale farmers, he was a student of the local CEFFA, eventually became a Tutor, and presently serves as the School Director. His Life Project consists in becoming a Tutor in an Alternating Cycle-model School. This has allowed him to motivate himself to contribute to the development of the community through the formation of the youth and their families. He


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has just obtained a degree in Educational Organization and Management with a thesis about the participation of families in the education of their children. In this thesis he proposed a specific plan to form these families. He has completed this formation thanks to the Marzano Foundation and Austral University, which created this degree in an Alternating Cycle modality, with the collaboration of SIMFR. Moreover, he maintains his family business in the community.

! AFRICA: a student of the CEFFA Minkoumou (south of Cameron), the only female in

the family who works to support her siblings, decided to undertake a Project on banana plantation for two reasons. The first was that she simply enjoyed eating bananas more than cassava. The second reason, more profound, was the study she carried out to verify that this product had a year-round market, locally, nationally, and internationally. The initiative has just started and she is now studying the problem of transportation costs, which have obligated her to focus on the local market for now, with good results. Moreover, with the perspective of some months passed outside of the school, she realized the necessity that her CEFFA put up a formation in cosmetology for the youth of the surrounding villages. She has proposed this idea to the Council and to the team of educators of her CEFFA.

! EUROPE: a student of a CEFFA in Galicia (Spain), after an unfortunate experience of

migrating to the capital, decided to go back to her local setting and put up a project of self-employment with her husband. It consists in offering integral services for the development and promotion of the region in the economic, cultural, and social spheres. Her principal activity is assessing other small businesses in fiscal, accounting, and labor matters. The background idea was to act as an Agency of Local Development and to work like a motor and revitalizer for the creation of new business initiatives. But she centered her idea on the counseling of businesses and private individuals because she needed short-term income to pay for initial investments. They achieved profitability relatively quickly and launched another venture: a cooperative dedicated to making a typical local product from cow’s milk packaged with honey. Her objective was to take advantage of the local resources and to commercialize an artisanal product with a long tradition, with the sanitary guarantees required by the consumer and by the present European legislation. With this initiative, direct employment was created (two fixed positions with a future possibility of four), as well as indirect employment (for the collection of honey and commercialization of the product). The benefits to the region are yet to be determined, but the fact of recovering traditional products and creating local employment in a depressed area is a clear contribution to development. With regards to


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honey, another typical product, they are seeking to achieve quality production that will give it recognition as an “ecological product” (which will allow access to assistance from the EU).

Definitively, we can draw some conclusions from the examples of CEFFA graduates, all of them thankful for having discovered a school for life in their own local environment, and all of them involved with local development, many times through the Association. These students demonstrate some trends: " Permanence in a rural community that should be competitive, profitable, sustainable,

endogenous, and multifunctional, which has to link tradition and innovation in order to assure a future for the youth.

" Diversified socio-professional insertion in the rural area and the creation and the maintenance of employment.

" Social commitment to the local development of the rural area (through cooperative, associative, solidary work), and to the defense of family values, territorial balance, and the environment.

" Enterprising projects to improve quality of life and work in the personal, family, and community realms.

TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE RURAL DEVELOPMENT BASED ON PEOPLE AND THEIR FORMATION

Education at all levels is a fundamental key to open the door of sustainable rural development (Wolfensohn, 1999; CEPAL, 2002; FAO-UNESCO, 2003) and to alleviate poverty, especially rural poverty (FAO, 1997; CEPAL, 2002; García-Marirrodriga, 2002; FAO-UNESCO, 2003). But educating people with a sustainable vision of development does not consist in adding the protection of the environment to the contents of the curriculum, but rather in offering students the tools to achieve a balance between economic objectives, social needs, and ecological responsibility. In the face of the changes in the conception of what is rural, education (which should place the human being in the center of sustainable development) has to contribute to the building of polyvalent capacities and must reinforce social promotion. Beyond the economic dimensions of development, in the case of Latin America the main preoccupations of the populace are in this order: education, corruption, and delinquency (BID, 2000b).


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Alternating Cycle supports elements that are at the base of the “New Rurality”. Centered on the person, it makes it possible: to guide formation towards diversification of economic activities in agreement with the necessities of the rural populace and with new focuses of development; to promote human capital by means of relevant formation and education; to favor participatory democratic practices and the creation of social fabric through the commitment of the local agents in the CEFFA Associations. The search for development based on a unique and formation and supported by a local Association whose agents are committed to the territory, converts the Alternating Cycle into an innovative alternative not only from the pedagogical point of view, but also from the integrated and integrating development that it seeks to achieve. The impact of Alternating Cycle can be measured in terms of creation and strengthening of networks of social capital: on the one hand the youth in formation who promote projects, guided by the educators; and the families, entrepreneurs, representative agents of the territory, diverse professionals, organizations, and local institutions, all of them pertaining to the Association, on the other hand. The youth, local agents of development and small-scale entrepreneurs, acquire the capacity to undertake projects of improvement that respond to local necessities or opportunities and that facilitate employment or self-employment, know how to assume responsibilities, and are prepared to convert themselves into revitalizers of their environment, with greater confidence and autonomy after the formation received. This is translated into a guarantee for the sustainability of rural areas and of territorial balance, in the degree that these Projects contribute to the permanence of the youth in their community, as we have seen in the examples of CEFFA projects from different social and geographical contexts. The Formation Plan of the CEFFA schools, - an authentic Movement for Development in the Rural World, should include coherent alternatives for the local socio-economic reality. In this manner, significant transformations and innovations can be achieved with an impact on the territory (introduction of new technologies, sustainable agricultural practices, diversification of productive activities, start-up of diverse entrepreneurial initiatives). The changes that are advocated by “New Rurality” demand evaluations on the needs for formation in each territory, in order to adjust the educational offerings accordingly. In this way, the impact of youth formation processes will be more intense in the degree to which they respond to the need for new economic activities, passing from a focus of agricultural formation to a new, much more integrated rural focus.


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In this manner, Alternating Cycle will allow “learning to know” (which includes “learning to learn”, that is to continue forming oneself during one's entire life, “learning to execute new projects”, and “learning to unlearn”); “learning to do” and to face real complex situations through cooperative work; “learning to be” better people, better families, better communities, starting from one’s own moral rectitude, responsibility, judgment, and autonomy; “learning to live together” to strengthen understanding and mutual respect in a globalized society where, with a relevant education and formation, we can have influence starting from the local level.

PROMOTING RURAL DEVELOPMENT THROUGH ALTERNATING CYCLE EDUCATION References

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! AIMFR (1975). “Actas de la Asamblea General Constituyente y Estatutos”. Dakar (not published; available at AIMFR archives).

! AIMFR (2010). “Actas de la Asamblea General y Estatutos 2010”. Lima (not published; available at AIMFR archives).

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! ANNAN, K. (2001). “Report of the Secretary General for the Commission on Sustainable Development acting as the Preparatory Committee for the World Summit on Sustainable Development”. Second Preparatory Session Implementing Agenda 21. Washington, D.C.

! ANTONIAZZI, A. (2006). “La tutoría personal en los CFR de la provincia de Buenos Aires. Diagnóstico del impacto de los valores del personalismo en la tutoría de los jóvenes”. Dissertation Degree at the Austral University, Buenos Aires (not published).

! ASHLEY, C.; MAXWELL, S. (2001). “Rethinking Rural Development”. Development Policy Review, 19 (4), 365-425.

! BERDEGUÉ, J. (2007). “Informe del Desarrollo Mundial”, in World Development Report 2008. Santiago de Chile: FAO/RLC.

! BERDEGUÉ, J.; REARDON, T.; ESCOBAR, G. (2000). “Empleo e Ingreso Rurales No Agrícolas en América Latina y el Caribe”, in Proceedings of “Development of the Rural Economy and Poverty Reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean”. New Orleans: IADB.

! BID (1999). “América Latina frente a la desigualdad. Progreso Económico y Social”. Washington, D. C.: BID.

! BID (2000a). “Capacitación profesional y técnica: una estrategia del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo”. Washington, D. C.: BID.

! BID (2000b). “Progreso económico y social en América Latina. Informe 2000”. Washington, D. C.: BID.

! BOISIER, S. (1998). “El desarrollo territorial a partir de la construcción de capital sinérgico”. Santiago de Chile: ILPES-CEPAL.

! BRIFFAUD, J. (1987). “De l’urbain au rural”. Maurecourt: Éditions Universitaires UNMFREO.

! CARRETERO, A. (1999). “Desarrollo sostenible: ¿un objetivo posible y deseable?”, in “Desarrollo Rural”, 11-33. Departamento de Economía Aplicada de la Universidad de Almería.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS Roberto García-Marirrodriga (Madrid, 1967) holds a PhD in Agronomy and Rural Development from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (Spain). With 20 years of experience in alternating cycle education, he currently serves as the Deputy Secretary General of the International Association of Family Movements for Rural Formation (AIMFR). He works as the Headmaster of a Semi-Private Bilingual School called “Arenales” in a rural area near Madrid. A frequent collaborator of various universities in Europe and the Americas, García-Marirrodriga has published books, book chapters, journal articles, and contributions to international congresses on the topics of development and rural education. Pedro Puig Calvó (Barcelona, 1955) holds a PhD in Education from the International University of Catalonia in Barcelona (Spain), where he currently works as a professor. He serves as the Director of the Technical Assistance Team of DISOP-SIMFR, a Belgian organization that offers support to CEFFAs throughout the world, and is also the Secretary General of the International Association of Family Movements for Rural Formation (AIMFR). He has more than 35 years of experience in alternating cycle education, and collaborates with different universities in Europe and the Americas. Puig has published many works on the topic of alternating cycle and rural education.

The goal of this book is to provide a global view of Family Centers of Education using the Alternating Cycle Pedagogical System (CEFFAs). Starting with the history of the educational model and the definition of its objectives and methods, the book explores the worldwide panorama of this movement for education and development, which in recent years has experienced solid growth in some African and Asian countries but above all in Latin America. The book also describes the influence of the alternating cycle (as a methodology and an educational system) on local development, especially in rural settings. This role in local development is due to the commitment of those who form the base associations that manage CEFFAs, and thanks to the youth in formation that create small family enterprises capable of imbuing their territories with new vitality. This book is recommended for educators (tutors) and for the administrative councils of such associations, but it is also intended for a larger public (rural youth, CEFFA graduates, families, diverse local actors). Despite its academic rigor, the book employs a simple, practical style, as corresponds to action-research based on experience. The AIDEFA Collection (International Alternatives in Development, Education, Family, and Alternating Cycles) aims to inform development actors, educators, and families on the perspectives and alternatives of alternating cycle formation at the international level. Its production consists in books, research projects, interventions for international congresses and seminars, evaluations, studies, and more. This is the first title of the AIDEFA Collection to appear in English. THE LOGO BELOW HAS TO BE TRANSLATED! AIDEFA IN ENGLISH IS: International Alternatives in Development, Education, Family, and Alternating Cycles

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