EDUCATION FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT: Towards New Policy Responses

More than half of the world’s population and more than 70 per cent of the world’s poor are to be found in rural areas where hunger, illiteracy and low school achievement are common. Educating a large number of people in rural areas is crucial for achieving sustainable development. Poverty reduction strategies are now placing emphasis on rural development that encompasses all those who live in rural areas. Rapidly changing technologies and increasing globalization also suggest that better education and training have become essential for sustainable livelihoods and the competitiveness of the rural economy.

For many years, the approach followed by policy-makers and education specialists has been to focus on practical and occupational agricultural skills training provided mainly at the secondary and tertiary levels. Yet, education for rural development requires a holistic approach going beyond the narrow boundaries of the traditional agricultural education and training concept.

In this context, this book makes a contribution to countering conventional wisdom and educational policies that have guided the provision of education in rural areas for several decades. It uses recent sources of information to reformulate education issues in the framework of the emerging rural development discourse. Various contributions describe current trends and innovations in improving the provision and quality of basic education in rural areas. This book also discusses skills development challenges, and analyzes emerging strategies developed by innovative higher education institutions to cope with the new educational and rural environment. In so doing, it opens the door for revisiting the links between education and rural development.

Education and training need to be placed at the centre of the rural development agenda in order to contribute to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, to ensure sustainable agriculture, and to build human capacity for rural development. This publication seeks to assist agents of change to progress in this direction.