PRONAEEH : NON-FORMAL RURAL EDUCATION PROGRAM, HONDURAS; EVALUATION OF THE PRONAEEH COMMUNICATION SYSTEM : ANALYSIS, DESCRIPTION, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

PRONAEEH has 2 purposes: (1) to coordinate institutional efforts in non-formal education and (2) to deliver basic integrated education for the rural poor. In 1977, program was concentrated in the area of Ocotepeque and San Marcos; it reached 1000 people with 40 monitors (the teacher/facilitor of a learning group). PRONAEEH attempted to use the "psycho-social method" wherein the objective of a lesson is supposed to be "encoded" in the illustration of a poster; through group participation, these objectives should be "decoded" and come as a discovery by the group. Because of the illustrators lack of experience the posters did not accomplish this. Illustrations and captions were often vague, unrealistic, and failed to dynamize the group. The evaluators analyze specific examples from the units on soil erosion and chicken raising. USAID should hire an agronomist and a health advisor to insure correct technical content and a literacy program specialist to advise on the proper use of the psycho-social method. Monitors, who average a fourth grade education, must currently teach health, agriculture, community development, co-ops, literacy, and other subjects. This means that the monitor will duplicate the work of every one of the Government institutions that take care of those subjects. The problems of this approach are: (A) the monitor does not have the capacity to play this role effectively, and (B) the program does not have the budget to respond to such a scheme. The program calls for an expansion in 1978 to reach 20,000 people in 5 regions. Authors believe that the program is not ready to be expanded to such a scale. Rather, PRONAEEH should concentrate its efforts in the Bajo Aguan region, using it as an experimental base to develop the most effective system. Real and modern non-formal education communication systems should be tested instead of the out-moded, pseudo non-formal approaches borrowed from formal education as was done in Ocotepeque. Meanwhile, the other regions should be reached with educational radio programs.