COMMUNITY EDUCATION OF FAITH THROUGH NON-FORMAL EDUCATION

Item

Title
COMMUNITY EDUCATION
OF FAITH THROUGH
NON-FORMAL EDUCATION
extracted text
Catechetical Movement in India series no. 12

COMMUNITY EDUCATION
OF FAITH THROUGH

NON-FORMAL EDUCATION

by
D.S. AMALORPAVADASS

Published by
NATIONAL BIBLICAL CATECHETICAL
AND LITURGICAL CENTRE
Bangalore - 560 005
1979

Catechetical Movement in India series no. 12

nniWMUN'TV UCAI TU

COMMUNITY HEALTH CELL
326, V Main, I Block
Koramcngsla
Bangaiore-5C0034
India

COMMUNITY EDUCATION
OF FAITH THROUGH
NON-FORMAL EDUCATION

D.S. AMALORPAVADASS

Published by
NATIONAL BIBLICAL CATECHETICAL
AND LITURGICAL CENTRE
Bangalore - 560 005
1979

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents

2

Salient Features of the Present
Catechetical Approach

4

Necessity of Community Education
of Faith in the Total Life Environment

6

3.

Formal, Informal and Non-formal Education

8

4.

Difference Between the Processes of
Non-formal and Formal Education

11

The Content, Aim, Process and Scope of
Non-formal Education and Adult Catechesis

12

The Milieus and'Levels,
Agents and Communities that can assure
Adult Catechesis

13

7.

The Image and Style of Non-formal Education

15

8.

Faith Dimension and Education Achieved
Through Depth, Universality and Transcendence

18

What is specifically Christian in
Non-formal Education

19

1.

2.

5.

6.

9.

Appendix

I

22

Appendix

II

25

.

... '

-./■ Iks Fvad,

COMMUNITY EDUCATION OF FAITH
(Adult Catechesis)
WITHIN AND THROUGH NON-FORMAL EDUCATION
Fr. D.S. Amalorpavadass
Introduction: Rationale of this Topic

Today many of us discuss about the National Adult
Education Programme (NAEP) ar.d wish that the Church
should enter into this new field of non-formal education,
and do some pioneering service. That in itself is a service
which the Church can and should render as part of her
mission, not only as salvation of men, but also as full humani­
zation and integral development of men, transformation of
society, and re-orientation of the whole temporal order towards
its goal. In rendering this service we should be honest and
dedicated, identify ourselves with the programme, appreciate
the values and goals set, follow the procedure laid down by
competent authorities, make use of the means proposed and
enter into the processes of realising the objectives and play
the role that devolves on the educator, especially the nonformal educator.
Our specific concern is different though it is the continua­
tion of the same theme. We ask ourselves whether, while
carrying out faithfully the programme of non-formal educa­
tion, especially with regard to adult literacy, we can also
fulfil a catechetical task or include within it a programme
of educating the faith of an adult community. In short can
we catechise the people whom we serve as non-formal educa­
tors in NAEP?
Our answer is a definite ‘Yes’. While so stating we do
not intend violating the processes of adult education nor
substituting new religious goals for the temporal ones set
by the sponsors of the programme. We mean that it is possible
to bring in a dimension of faith, and help people to live
according to Christian faith in the process of facilitating their

2

3

integral human development through adult literacy pro­
gramme which itself is wider in perspective and objective
than mere realisation of literacy.
In order to assure a practical guidance in this regard, may
I be permitted
1) to recall the salient features of the current catechetical
approach and pedagogy
2) to emphasise the need for adult catechesis or community
education of faith in total environment
3) to describe what we mean by ‘formal catechesis’, ‘in­
formal catechesis’ and ‘non-formal catechesis’
4) to underline the difference between the process of nonformal adult catechesis
5) to outline the content, aim, process and scope of nonformal education from that of formal education
6) to indicate the milieus and levels, agents and com­
munities that can assure its own adult catechesis/or
community education of faith
7) to project a new image and style of the non-formal
educator
8) to show how the faith dimension and education can
be achieved through depth, transcendence and uni­
versality
9) to spell out what is/should be specifically Christian in
non-formal education.
I. SALIENT FEATURES OF
THE PRESENT CATECHETICAL APPROACH:
A. Catechetical Ministry:
Our whole life and entire human history—past, present
and future—can be and is the milieu and sign of revelation.
God is in the world through creation and through the in­
carnation of His Son; this creation and the humanity of
Jesus are the media of his presence in the world. These two
realities are prolonged through our life and history. Due to
this, the whole of human reality is charged with God’s
presence. God is in the world and history and in our large

4

human community. The world and human community are
the bearers of God’s presence and designs. He reveals and
gives himself to us and saves us through the events and
situations of our life and history. The Church or the com­
munity of Christians forming the Body of the Word incarnate
becomes the universal Sacrament of Revelation and Salvation.
Thus God’s presence and Christ’s mystery are co-extensive
with the world and history.
Our ministry is to discern God’s presence in our life
and history, interpret his designs for our life and to help
others to make the same discovery by interpreting their life­
situations by the Word of God.
B. Human/experiential/incarnational approach:

At the last All-India Meeting we had a good discussion
and clear articulation of the new approach in catechesis. Let
me briefly recall it. We start from the experience of the
group. We focus on man, and the community and situate
them in their environment. We identify ourselves with this
experience and interiorize it by reflection and sharing. We
find its meaning at the human level. Then we proceed to
discover the still deeper meaning of it in the light of faith.
This leads the group to a discovery of God and an understand­
ing of his plan for us and others. This culminates in the
surrender of ourselves to God and his plan. In that process
we undergo a personal conversion; we also bring about an
impact upon the community by our commitment to the
transformation of the society. This is the dynamic process of
the new approach which we call human approach/incamational approach.
C. Universal Dimension of Catechesis:

Such a Catechesis or this Religious Pedagogy or the
ministry of interpretation is a continuous and life-long pro­
cess. Since revelation and faith are themselves a life-long
process, a progressive revelation of God’s mystery implies
a gradual discovery of it by man. God reveals himself con­
tinuously and everywhere; we must be ready to respond to
him in faith continuously and everywhere.

5

If revelation-faith is thus a full-time process and a day­
long affair, and if God’s presence and saving action is to be
found in everything, catechesis must extend to every minute,
to every event, to every aspect of life, to every age-group,
nay, to the whole span of one’s life. All of us need catechesis
in one form or other and always. Catechesis acquires thereby
a universal dimension.

II. NECESSITY OF
COMMUNITY EDUCATION OF FAITH
IN THE TOTAL LIFE ENVIRONMENT:
A. An Integrated Pedagogy in Educational Institutions:
Even the Catechesis in a school or a parish cannot be
a subject by the side of and among the other subjects, sepa­
rately or jointly. It cannot be compartmentalised. The re­
flection in faith which is Catechesis should gather and use the
material/data of all the subjects of the curriculum, decipher
and clarify them, evaluate and interpret them in the light of
the Gospel, underline all the values involved (human, reli­
gious and Christian) and enable the students to live them
personally and in society.

B. This supposes many factors:

1) There should be a competent person as a Catechist
or religion teacher. He/she should not only be well-versed
in catechetics but should have some knowledge of all the
subjects covered by a curriculum, capable of happy relation­
ship with others and working with his/her colleagues with
other teachers/lecturers. He should be able to coordinate the
whole teaching and yet be unassuming without threatening
to dominate the other teachers.
This calls for all-round team work in the whole
school/college, and among all the staff members, educators
and administrators of the institutions. They should be fami­
liar with and convinced of inter-disciplinary approach to all
the questions and topics of study.
3) All should be aware, especially the Catechist that
the various subjects taught refer to man, deal with his exis­
tence, evoke his human experience individually and socially.
6

4) The faith-educator should be able to gather all the
data covered by various subjects with reference to particular
life-themes or faith themes, select them, correlate them, make
a synthesis by leading the group to analyse the data, to re­
flect on them on the human level and faith level and to find
deeper Christian meaning and answer.
5) The overall atmosphere in the educational insti­
tution, in the family and in the neighbourhood should be con­
ducive, converging and thereby become supportive of the
effort made for an integral approach in assuring all-round
faith awareness and our life of faith.
C.

Catechesis as a comprehensive reflection of life in
faith in the total life milieu:

Even a good catechesis cannot be limited to school or
formal catechetical sessions. It must extend to one’s whole
life-milieu and one’s sum total of activities. It must consti­
tute a comprehensive reflection of life in faith. In other
words, the institutional/parochial education of faith should
be related to and situated within a wider context of one’s
total life in the wider community and environment of society.
This education of faith in one’s total life-environment sup­
poses not only a person-to person catechesis but also a col­
lective catechesis in the whole environment. This is done by
the faith atmosphere created and maintained in neighbourhood,
by the life witness of adult Christians individually and as
groups, and by the formal initiation to faith by the entire
faith-community (Catechesis'. ' us is what is meant by
“adult catechesis”, or comma < education, (informal and
non-formal education in faith), 'therwise a classroom and
individual catechesis oriented towards children and/or youth
alone can be neutralised by the environmental influence of
the society or negated by the community and institutions
which embody un-christian values, or it can remain a com­
partment or pigeon-hole in the whole gamut of ones life
and society.
This implies a coordination among a) formal catechesis;
b) liturgy and prayer; c) school education; d) lay apostolate
training; e) life at home and society; f) the impact of the
gospel on social, professional and political life, and g) the
social means of communications.
3
7

To conclude, a real and effective catechesis for the
rising generation is therefore not one that is organised for
and addressed to children and youth outside the normal life
milieu but one that is situated in and integrated within the
faith-life of the whole adult Christian community, in its
ordinary life-setting, in family, social and work milieu, with
dynamic interaction of adult society. That is why we should
not only involve the whole Christian community (in a parish
or diocese) in the education of its faith, but also renew and
foster Children’s Catechesis and Youth Catechesis by the
medium and process of Adult Catechesis in the wider com­
munity of a village or an urban neighbourhood.

D.

Social means of communication and AV Media:

Such a community education in faith calls for the
language of social means of communications. The means that
inform, educate and orientate the human community should
also be the means of enlightening us in faith. We need a new
language of vision, audition and feeling. Mass media or social
means of communication are of a different kind from the
group media/mini media or audio-visual aids.

III.

FORMAL, INFORMAL AND NON-FORMAL
EDUCATION:

We have three types of education: formal, informal and
non-formal. For the sake of clarity, it is good to keep in mind
these three words. We need a common language if we want
to be clear and understand one another. Let us keep this
distinction for the sake of clarity.

A.

Formal Catechesis:

Whether we follow the experiential approach (inductive
method) of the present as described above or the doctrinal
approach (deductive method) of the past, both are formal
education.
8

“Formal” means that we follow a format and that an
education has a specific form. It is systematic and structured,
pre-determined and imparted through a set formula. This
type of education is normally imparted in institutions, and
so it is also called ‘institutional’ catechesis. It supposes an
organisation and set-up for example of a school or a parish
or an association; so it is called ‘organised’ catechesis. Every
formal catechesis is not only institutional but also and to
some extent, ‘regular’ because of the certain periodicity and
regularity in the faith formation process. That periodicity
may be daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. It is thus a formal,
systematic, institutional, organised and regular education.
What we have been doing during these past decades was
to assure this formal catechesis in our schools, parishes and
colleges. Our present syllabus and text books are good ex­
amples of formal catechesis, though very much renewed in
keeping with the new approach.

B.

Informal Catechesis:

There are some colleges and schools where formal educa­
tion is no more possible; or it is possible but not adequate.
So in recent years—during the last 10 years or so, we have
had recourse to what is called informal means of education.
It takes place outside a certain framework of an institution
and through other means than a formal catechesis.
(1) Relevant and flexible liturgy would be, for ex­
ample, a good case of informal catechesis. Our current dis­
cussion as to how we shall make use of the liturgy of the
Word on Sundays in order to give adult catechesis is connected
with this approach. Liturgy by its nature is worship and not
catechesis, even though it has a catechetical dimension. Yet
we are trying to make the maximum use of it for imparting
catechesis to the adult community.
(2) Prayer groups or group prayer would be another
informal means of catechesis.
(3) Indian forms of prayer like Bhajans and Namjaps,
Yoga and Dhyana or various forms of Hindu/Buddhist
Meditation can become informal means. Some people may
not be interested in a formal catechism class, but will readily
attend a prayer session or meditation.
9

(4) Samdhya (sunrise, midday and sunset meditation)
may be appealing to others.
(5) Hoine-based small group reflections and family
prayer sessions can become family catechesis. We may not
call it catechesis in the traditional sense. As the format is
not determined there is room for flexibility and it lends itself
to a variety of ways.
(6) In recent years we have developed also forms of
meditation like nature-meditation, object-meditation, picture­
meditation, painting-meditation and photo-meditation.
(7) Newspaper meditation: People easily read news­
papers. They are interested in the current affairs. It becomes
catechetical when the faith-dimension is integrated into it.
We have a Christian reading of the newspapers. It is holding
the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. It is the
dialectics between the Word of God in the privileged form
of Biblical revelation and the Word of God as actual and
on-going revelation, taking place in our history and lives and
reported by the newspaper.
(8) Today some are attracted by charismatic renewal
and prayer. This is not only a valid form of prayer but also
can be an effective means of adult catechesis and renewal in
the Spirit.
(9) Retreats, especially youth retreats.
(10) Youth missions and parish missions could be
other forms of faith education as informal catechesis.
(11) Student counselling and guidance etc. may well
be informal means.
(12) Various associations for children, youth and
adults, various lay apostolate movements.
(13) Study circles
(14) Campus ministry
(15) Camps and work projects.
We can make use of these and many other informal
means for the deepening of faith. If we cannot have formal
catechesis we can make use of informal means of catechesis,
though the one is not exclusive of the other. But informal
catechesis becomes necessary especially when we cannot have
a formal catechesis.
10

C.

Non-formal Education:

Non-formal education is simply all that formal education
is not. It starts from the group and its specific needs as felt
by the group. It is practical and pragmatic as it is learnt by
doing and it is acquired while engaged in one’s work, pro­
fession and milieu, while solving problems of life, while
formal education culminates in an academic degree or certi­
ficate, most of the time unfit and useless for any employment.
Non-formal education enables a person to improve his work,
his ability and skills, and orientate towards his humanization
and all-round development. It is aimed at self-reliance,
spontaneity, creativity, and productivity.
With regard to non-formal catechesis, the group is en­
abled to see God in its life, to discover in faith God’s mes­
sage for it and to commit itself to live that aspect of life
according to that faith commitment.
God is present in man and in every human reality,
in the world and in all realities of the temporal order. The
discernment of God’s presence in these realities and faith
response to him in our life by collaborating with Him for the
fulfilment of His plan is a life of faith, a Christian existence.
The educational process which facilitates this life of faith
is what is called today, the existential approach or human
approach. This human/incarnational approach becomes more
evident in what is called ‘non-formal education’.
In the formal catechesis of a classroom-setting we are
isolating an experience of a group in order to go deeper into
it and to have a faith-interpretation of it, whereas non-formal
education takes the total reality of the human experience of
the community, and discovers faith dimension in it.

IV.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PROCESSES OF
NON-FORMAL AND FORMAL EDUCATION:

The dynamics and the procedure in this form of education
are totally different from those of formal education. Here
we start from reality and from our lived experience of re­
ality as and when we live it. We do not know the reality
until and unless we change it. We cannot change the reality

until we are involved in it and are identified with it, unless
we live it in depth and reflect on it and transform it. Now,
this reality is complex, dynamic and ever-changing. We can­
not understand a changing reality unless we ourselves change.
We cannot influence the dynamics of reality unless on the
one hand we are carried in this dynamics and on the other
we give meaning and direction to the process of change
in the dynamic reality. Man makes history and becomes
master of it when he gives meaning, assures a purposeful
orientation, and channels and guides the process of change.
Since reality is complex, it cannot be known unless it is
analysed and interpreted by tools of various sciences. This
analysis and reflection can be supplied by various sciences:
human sciences and also theological sciences. Making use
of all the sciences in an approach of interdisciplinarity, we
facilitate their interaction and convergence.
V.

THE CONTEXT, AIM, PROCESS AND SCOPE OF
NON-FORMAL EDUCATION AND
ADULT CATECHESIS:

(1) Non-formal faith—education should be situated in
the context of our ever increasing awareness of the vital
necessity of adult education, the all-round and all-out effort
made for ushering in social justice and the shift of emphasis
realised from child and school-centred education to adult and
community-centred environmental education (and catechesis).
(2) The aim and process of non-formal adult catechesis is
to enable a group of adult Christians to become aware of
themselves and of their life-situation, (the locus), to become
involved in it by a committed action in common, to enter
into a process that will lead people to a more human develop­
ment and to the building up of communities at all levels
and to reach thereby human maturity and adulthood, and
attain the community’s common goals of total liberation and
integral human development.
(3) The educative process is not merely one of ac­
ademic teaching and acquisition of abstract knowledge from
without, but a genuine concrete knowledge of the reality ac­
quired by involvement and committed action, and by personal

12

and group discovery from within the reality. It is neither a
mere reflection in a vacuum outside the reality, nor a mere
involvement and action without reflection but an action-re­
flection-in-faith process. The pedagogy makes the group in­
volved, participative and creative.
(4) Groups: This education is/should be directed not
simply towards small groups, or an elite, the privileged
classes, but towards the masses, for the benefit of larger
human groups.

(5) In this process adult Christians should play their
specific role as Christians by sharing the Christian vision of
realities, by giving a Christian meaning to life-situations and
events in the light of the Gospel (Christian interpretation),
by offering Christian inspiration, motivation and orientation
to committed action and to the historic process, and by living
their Christian commitment to the achievement of their goals
taking risks in a spirit of selfless and humble service.
Thereby they will bear witness to Christ risen from the
dead and become Lord of the universe. Thereby they will
also contribute to the renewal of man and society and for
the final fulfilment of human history and creation of a fully
just and human society which will emerge as the Kingdom
of God.

VI. THE MILIEUS AND LEVELS,
AGENTS AND COMMUNITIES
THAT CAN ASSURE ADULT CATECHESIS
Now non-formal education has to be done at different
levels e.g. the family and the parish. It could also be in
terms of districts and Centres as the government has envisaged
it. The level of every project has to be determined by the
group of educators taking into account the local situation. A
project can also be small, limited to a town or a slum.
Some of the areas or levels where adult catechesis has
to be imparted in the context of wider human community
are:
(1) The family: Interpersonal relationship in love
between husband-wife, parents-children, wider relationships,

13

Christian atmosphere and witness of faith, Christian initia­
tion of their children, Lmily prayers and gatherings, patents
as educators and catechists.
(2) In the parish, the Local Church: through the
liturgy, devotions and festivals, missions and retreats, various
ministries in the Christian community as a whole in neighbour­
hood groups, in the wid< human community, in the inter­
actions of the socio-econc.. •• "ultural reality of the parish
(3) The Institutions: Contribution of Services for
Adult Catechesis by education, medical, health, cultural, social
and other institui: ns. One needs to identify these various
services both regular and extension services, by constant
evaluation and by fixing priorities among them.
(4) Adult Catechesis through various lay apostolate
movements: Regular evaluation of their contribution in terms
of practice of faith, maturity of witness, and Christian vision,
with possible re-orientations in terms of goals and organisa­
tion, vision and inspiration.

(5) Adult Catechesis in dialogue with and openness
to the larger human community of the neighbourhood in a
town or village, in the context of participating in building
a better society; religious dialogue, action-programmes of
development and community7 building, participating in civic
and political life with critical use of mass media.
An important characteristic of non-formal education is
that we do it with the whole community, which means with
people of all religions, of no religions and of all ideologies. As
we take the entire community at the level at which we work
we should collaborate with people of all religions and
persuasions. Within this wide ambient and universal dimen­
sion of deep inter-religious dialogue of life, we bring in a
Christian contribution vzith Christian motivation.

Thus all these levels should contribute to and converge
towards community education and adult catechesis. The
Christians with their pastors, in this context and process
should offer a Christian leadership of animation and coordina­
tion to make of everything a Christian reflection in faith, a
prophetic interpretation and a Christian life-witness.
14

community health cell

326, V Main, I Block
Koramangala
Bangalore-560034

VII.

t/?E IMAGE AND STYLE OF

NON-FORMAL EDUCATOR:
Here we come to a new type of educator/catechist.
It is no more the individual teacher/catechist who matters
but the community/the group involved. For the subject of
reflection, the subject of involvement, the subject of trans­
formation and the subject of faith-interpretation is not the
individual educator but the whole community. They will do
it not only for half-an-hour when they are isolated from the
reality of their experiences and withdrawn from it. They
will be doing it 24 hours of the day as they go from one
reality to another and as they are involved and live in each
of them in the light of faith.
Now, the animator which the catechist is, helps the
process; he inspires, guides, orientates, stimulates and
challenges, in such a way that the group is awakened to its
faith and becomes capable of faith-response and faith-life.
In this process he will be journeying with the group, bm
not in passivity and indifference, but in dynamic solidarity
and interaction, playing his/her specific role: inspiring, and
challenging the group from within the process of life. So the
whole life of the catechist should be evaluated in terms of
his identification with the community and of his ability to
animate the community. One has to be, and one has to
function all along from within the group.
In this style of Catechesis, the people are participants
and decision-makers as they will be enabled to be involved in
the project of their life from the very beginning. They will
not be
object of development, teaching and liberation.
They will always be respected as persons; they will be facili­
tated to establish and intensify relationships, to build up
community, to face the problems as a group, and to solve
them also as a group. Thus the ‘poor’ become the evangelisers
and catechists of their own community.
Even though we are following more and more a non­
directive approach, we have still a long way to go to get
this new reflex. The non-directive approach and group work
become indispensable in the process of non-formal education.

Some feel that the whole project could be a failure
and in fact the NAEP has been a failure in many
places. It is because the officials and even voluntary
agencies are used to the directive approach, to making people
objects of our action, and to filling in their minds with
concepts through what is called ‘banking method’ of educa­
tion. Thus most of us could be unfit for non-formal education.
If this is the danger for us, specialists and technicians
who are well aware of the danger, one can well imagine the
danger for government officials and other voluntary agencies
who are not initiated to the new approach and educational
process.

The Government-sponsored National Adult Education
Programme (NAEP) supposes this new educational approach
and calls for new educators. That is why there is a big gap
between the government policy which includes all that we have
stated above so well, and what is done by executives of this
programme who do not have this spirit and vision, attitude and
approach. What they do may be a programme of literacy or
a teaching of skills; but it cannot be considered an education
in the sense that we understand.

If we do not have this ability/reflex, we need to under­
go a training for this purpose. Such a seminar/course/formation should enable Christian Educators of adults:

1)

to learn the new educative process by which a
group of adults can be made
—to be aware of themselves, others and the social
reality,
—to reflect on concrete facts, happenings and pro­
blems of their immediate and distant environments.

2)

16

to become promoters of personal maturity and
builders of community
—by bringing about openness and initiative
—by creating an atmosphere of confidence and freedom
—by encouraging spontaneous and free expression
—by involving people in decision-making and per­
sonal participation

—by fostering their interpersonal relationships and
—by challenging them to creativity and originality and
—to be prophetic in society and in the Church.
3)

and for this purpose
—to liberate themselves from their paternalistic
attitude of a teacher who knows and
—to identify themselves with adults as persons
(sensitivity training) and
—with milieus of life realising how the latter exerts
pressures for an unchristian living.

4)

to acquire the ethos of our times integrated with a
Christian World Vision
—to raise questions on the trends and values, pat­
terns and structures of actual socio-economic
development in the community.
—to realise the need for social change
—to involve themselves in concrete action for
development and change
—all that in the light of God’s Word and as a conse­
quence of their Christian vision and commitment.

5)

to acquire a variety of tools, skills and techniques
for doing so in various groups and situations

6)

to develop a new reflex of working as a team
—with people of various faiths, competences, fields
and experiences
—in a genuine spirit of collaboration and genuine
universality

7)

to evolve thus new models of education and Reli­
gious Education.

17

VIII.

FAITH DIMENSION AND EDUCATION
ACHIEVED THROUGH

DEPTH, UNIVERSALITY AND TRANSCENDENCE:
In the process of analysis and reflection, interiorization
and personalization, discovery and interpretation, faith
dimension and faith education are assumed by leading the
group to deeper transcendence and universality.
In non-formal education, in formal and non-formal catechesis the reality of our reflection and interpretation is the
same; life-experiences. But faith dimension always implies
going deeper as we believe that our God is a ‘hidden God’
and is at the core of every reality. But due to this awareness
of God’s presence in history through creation and incarna­
tion, we are able to go to a certain depth and arrive at a
discovery of the ultimate and fuller meaning of our life in
faith. So the deeper we go the more meaning we find. For
Christ is the revelation of the depth of God’s mystery and
embodiment of the depth of man’s mystery.
Secondly, faith dimension and interpretation of reality
of our life demand that we transcend it and go beyond it.
We need to transcend it because, even though God is pre­
sent in reality, he is not limited to the reality. Every sign
is lesser than the reality. Therefore taking our human ex­
perience seriously as bearers of God’s presence and yet going
beyond it is the challenge of faith and is the guarantee that
our Christian life and faith-education include awareness of
the mystery of God’s transcendence.
Thirdly, we should universalise our experience, by re­
lating our particular experiences with our other experiences
and with the experiences of others today and yesterday.
During a faith reflection and education we may limit ourselves
to one particular experience for the sake of depth and re­
levance. But out of this experience we should move out, go
beyond it and embrace the total reality, the totality of human
experiences. Therefore we have to relate such and such
human experience of ours with all experiences of others. So
day after day, the progressive on-going revelation of God

18

becomes an object of our concrete and lived experience.
Depth, transcendence and universality are the dimensions
which we need to focus on as Christians ensuring faith­
education.

IX. WHAT IS SPECIFICALLY CHRISTIAN IN
NON-FORMAL EDUCATION:
If all are participating in non-formal education, and if
the Christians should work with the people of all religions
and ideologies then what is the specifically Christian dimen­
sion in non-formal education? What is that makes us Christ­
ians? Let us suppose that a Marxist, a Hindu, a Muslim and
a Christian follow faithfully the government policies and
implement its programme. What is the specific Christian con­
tribution that is made by the Christians? What will make
of it an adult education of faith, in addition to the imple­
mentation of the national adult education programme?

1) Christ: The originality of Christianity is Christ.
Christ is present everywhere and he is Lord of heaven and
earth, whether we are aware of it or not. But when I say
Christ I mean also the community in which Christ is present.
Hence an awareness of Christ’s saving presence and a personal
and living faith in him transform our work.
2) Christian inspiration and motivation: Those who are
working in the project should have a specifically Christian
inspiration and motivation in addition to other motivations.
Even though one of the motives of the Christians may
be to implement the national adult education programme,
this is not their only motive, nor is it the only source from
which they get their inspiration.

3) Christian experience and Christian dynamism for
Christian sharing: Basically it is the Christian experience, the
transforming encounter with the Risen Lord that is the source
of their dynamism to go out of the community and in
service of others. All that we do springs spontaneously from
basic Christian experience which generates a Christian dyna­
mism, a new power to go out and share it with other people.
19

4) Christian spirit, vision and values: We take for
granted that all promoters of non-formal education live by
some human values and inspire the people to live according
to them. Likewise, we take for granted that all the religious
values are built into the programme and that we encourage
people to communicate, share and live these religious values.
We should also bring to them a Christian spirit, a Christian
vision of reality and a specifically Christian scale of values.
The temporal order will be fulfilled only when the spirit of
Jesus Christ and values of the gospel permeate all its realities,
transform them, and re-orientate them.
5) Christian interpretation and orientation: Every pro­
ject has a meaning and a purpose. As Vatican II clearly states
the temporal order and human history do not depend upon
the religious reality. They have meaning, goal, orientation
and an autonomy of their own. That goal, of course, is God.
Working from within the temporal order, the educators have
to give a Christian interpretation to the various realities and
to assure a Christian orientation to the process of building
a new society, a society of justice.
6) Christian involvement and commitment: The genu­
ineness and seriousness of it will be shown in the personal
conversion of those engaged in these projects. Besides the
personal conversion of those who are working in the project,
there should also be a transformation of society, and concretely
in the communities where they are animators and educators.
7) Christian transcendence and universality: Christian
future and hope: Even taking for granted that the present
implementation of the project is a failure and that in practice
participation is refused to Christian agencies, we can still
do something all the same. A Christian hope can be ignited
in the midst of hopelessness. For even in what fails, and
precisely because there is a failure we need to bring in Chris­
tian hope. While frustration is to feel that everything is closed,
hope means that there is something beyond and hence one can
and should move towards it. Without being bogged down by
any failure we can always move forward. This is transcendence.
So in all our functioning we should breathe out hope and
we should give expression to the possibility of a future. There
is a future because we have hope. There is hope because there
is a future.
120

8) Christian emphases: All that will become possible
only in an authentic Christian spirituality of self-emptying
(Kenosis or sunya) in a pilgrimage (yatra or pascha), with
openness and expectation, with certainty of hope we grope to­
wards the ultimate goal which is fulness (poornam or Pleroma). This whole movement should be lived under the
action and guidance of the Spirit of Christ.

21
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COMMUNITY HEALTH CELL

326, V Main, I Block
Korambngala
Bangalore-560034
India

APPENDIX I

Non-formal education is
An Education for Justice & Liberation,
for Development & Humanisation of the Masses

India has about 400 million illiterates, more than half
the illiterates in the world. After 30 years of independence,
60% of India’s population is still illiterate. And yet the
Government spends annually Rs. 25,000 million on Educa­
tion. Of the total education budget primary education receives
only 25%, secondary and university education 60% and adult
education less than 1 %. All decisions are made always by the
elite in favour of the elite. Education is not planned for the
masses, in view of the poor and the underprivileged.

From this it is obvious that education in India is part
and parcel of the unjust and oppressive system of the social
mechanism. Rightly therefore has Mr. Jayaprakash Narayan
stated in his foreword to the Tarkunde Committee’s Report:
that “the present system of education has failed to promote
individual growth and has become more of a hindrance than
a help to bring about an egalitarian transformation of society.
If anything, the present system has merely confirmed the
status quo and perpetuated the gap between the majority who
are poor and uneducated and the minority who are privileged
and have a vested interest in the establishment.” Elsewhere
he continues. “The experience of the past 30 years has shown
that the State in India shall represent by and large, the haves
and the upper and middle class and that the representatives
of the weaker sections play only a minimum role therein.”
Further in India we have depended almost entirely on the
State to bring about this transformation and the results have
been far from happy.
This helps us to evaluate the systems advocated by Nehru
and by Gandhi. While Nehru thought that education and
culture should percolate from the top to bottom, from the

122

lite to the Masses, the educational system tended to become
elitist and widened the gap between the classes and the masses.
Whereas Mahatma Gandhi pleaded for basic education of the
masses, an education that will meet their basic needs and
help them for their work and occupation, including manual
work.
This shows that the education system should be so radi­
cally changed as to make it an education for development
and liberation. Secondly education should be changed from
being elitist to mass-oriented. Thirdly, we should not depend
upon the State to bring about this change as it is class aligned.
It is the masses and the masses alone that can bring about
the change. For this the masses should be educated and en­
abled to exert mass pressure on the system and the power
that be. What is required is popular involvement in view of
mass movement. It also calls for the association of voluntary
agencies on a large scale, in the implementation of the pro­
gramme.

It is against this background that we should see the
wider perspective and the whole gamut of the programme
content. It is more than mere literacy: “Because learning,
working and living are inseparable and only acquire a mean­
ing when co-related, the activities to be undertaken under
NAEP should be related to the needs of the learners and
their self-reliant development.” Mr. Jayaprakash Narayan in
his foreword sums up the all-round objectives of ‘non-formal
adult education’ as follows:
“Pursuit of simultaneous and complementary programmes
of social and educational reforms, shifting of the emphasis
from teaching to learning with the involvement of the entire
community in the educational process, collaboration of educa­
tional and socio-political workers, pursuit of knowledge, ex­
cellence and social transformation as a way of life, political
and academic decisions to make the education system pur­
poseful and effective, primacy of work among the people at
the grassroots level and a mass movement for solving the dayto-day problems in the lives of the common people so that
they are helped to come into their own.”

23

The Role of the Church and Christian Education

In this strategy of change in education,
This is clearly articulated by Cardinal Picachy, Presi­
dent of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI):
“Just as in the last one hundred years Christian Education
contributed significantly, and in a pioneering manner,
to the establishment of a system of formal Education, so
present day needs call for intensive pioneering in the field of
non-formal education. As Christians we must see that this
programme of the government succeeds. The top officials in
Delhi have asked us to enter the programme in a big way to
make it work. This is an historical time when the Govern­
ment of India is taking a mass line seriously and we must
be there to help the tide to change. The challenge offered to
the Church is probably unprecedented considering the magni­
tude of the plan and the category of the people involved: all
the marginalized. This is an opportunity to involve ourselves
in a new type of education at the grass roots level, training
animators and doing pioneering work in the field of educa­
tion for the masses.”

34

APPENDIX

II

POLICY STATEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF
INDIA ON ADULT EDUCATION
1. Exclusion of a vast majority of the people from the
process of education is a most disturbing aspect of educational
and social planning. This has been uppermost in the con­
sideration of the present Government ever since it assumed
office in March 1977. While determined efforts must be made
to universalise elementary education upto the age of 14 years,
educational facilities must be extended to adult population
to remedy their educational deprivation and to enable them
to develop their potentiality.
2. The Government have resolved to wage a clearlyconceived, well planned and relentless struggle against illi­
teracy to enable the masses to play an active role in social
and cultural change. The present thinking on adult educa­
tion is based on the assumptions (a) that illiteracy is a serious
impediment to an individual’s growth and to country’s socio­
economic progress; (b) that education is not co-terminus
with schooling but takes place in most work and life-situa­
tions; (c) that learning, working and living are inseparable
and each acquires a meaning only when co-related with the
others; (d) that the means by which people are involved in the
process of development are at least as important as the ends;
and (e) that the illiterate and the poor can rise to their own
liberation through literacy, dialogue and action.

3. Adult education should emphasize imparting of li­
teracy skills in the spoken language to persons belonging to
the economically and socially deprived sections of society.
However, literacy programmes unrelated to the working and
living conditions of the learners, to the challenges of the en­
vironment and the developmental needs of the country can­
not secure an active participation of the learners; nor can it
25

COMMUNITY HEALTH CELL
3z6, V Main, I Block
Koramangala
Bangalore-560034
India

First Edition : 5000 copies, May 1979

© Author NBCLC, Post Bag 577
Bangalore 560 005, India.

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