The reconstruction of education

“May God let the right side win,” she said, adding, “We don’t even know what the right side is.”

The above quotation comes from an article published in the New York Times on Libya and the problems its teachers, students and officials face in a post-revolution Libya. The author has highlighted a number of problems the Libyan education system faces. In places like Abu Salim, many students are still loyal to Gaddafi and so are failing to turn up for their classes, or if they do, are being divisive. Other students are just returning from the frontline. Teachers are divided in their political sympathies, with some school principals having volunteered for pro-Gaddafi forces. The previous school curriculum is being re-designed, books will have to be re-written, schools will have to be renamed (many are synonymous with the Gaddafi revolution), and in school, a new flag flies, and a new national anthem is being sung. These issues are both real and symbolic, and represent a fissure that may yet destabilise Libya.

What is also evident is that there are a number of tensions. People are struggling to come to terms with the past versus the present, deciphering fact from fiction, and knowing right from wrong.

In his article in The Guardian, Rory Stewart proposes that Libya resolve its reconstruction issues mainly by itself, with less foreign intervention. He prioritises the local over the global. Comparing what went wrong and right in terms of the reconstruction of Afghanistan and Bosnia, he rightly notes how local officials are better placed to lead change, as they have a far better understanding of the political, economic, social and cultural climate. However, comparing the supposed success of Bosnia and the supposed failure of Afghanistan and transporting that to Libya misses that same point; the local.

Libya is significantly different; geographically, politically and historically. Whilst the revolution has been led from within, it was only through massive financial assistance from the West and the Libyan “contact group” that rebel forces finally usurped Gadaffi. Historically, from 1911-1951 Libya was occupied by the Italians and following World War II, the allies. Before that, there was the Ottoman regency that lasted for some 350 years. One cannot ignore the global issue when searching for a solution, as it is interwoven in the local fabric of Libya.

Will Libya even be a post-conflict country? Unlike other countries that have been torn asunder along tribal and ethnic lines, the removal of an unwanted despot appears to have unified the majority of Libya. Whilst Gaddafi tried to propagate regional and tribal divisions, there is little evidence to suggest that he succeeded. This has been described as a revolution locally and globally rather than a civil war. Furthermore, the students referred to as returning from the frontline have not been described as child soldiers, although they may be over 18. Once the fighting ceases, will any western notion of nation-building suffice for its reconstruction?

Ever since Graca Machel’s landmark 1996 UN report “The impact of armed conflict on children,” education has been seen as a panacea for promoting reconstruction in post-conflict situations. Not just in terms of the economic security it can bring to individuals, families, communities and nations, but also as a means of sustaining peace. The UN’s Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme for former child soldiers has relied on education. In post-conflict countries like Sierra Leone (my last posting with the FCO), the DDR programme has not always proved a success. From what I was told by parents of students there, these findings are consistent with their concerns. Issues of poverty and corruption need to be addressed and allied to a stable economy for a top-down, information-processing educational system to work.

UNESCO now aims to provide leadership in the global delivery of education, and to guide local policymakers in the transformation of education. Interestingly, their focus on building education for sustainable development has put ideas of “learning” and “learners” at the heart of its agenda. They appear to be looking at alternative means of education delivery to that which is described above.

Two experts in the fields of education, Thomas Mark Turay and Leona English propose a transformative model of peace education (TMPE) for adult learning. The former was born in Sierra Leone and worked there for a number of years in education. Transformative learning sets out to promote change and social growth. Peace education allows people to analyse the root causes of conflict so that they can form their own alternatives. Without going into great detail, the TMPE relies on celebrating diversity, participatory learning, and maintaining a globalised perspective. However, it is a call for recognition of learners’ life experiences and the meanings that they find within dimensions of indigenous knowledge, and indigenous religious and spiritual beliefs and values that are most important. Whilst this model prefaces the local, it still embraces the global. It seeks to include all and exclude nobody, thereby bridging any division.

So what might this mean in terms of education and Libya? It is possible that students may come to understand how fact and fiction, and right and wrong, come to exist if a constructivist approach were adopted. It would also help explain a past and a present, to the end that people learn that there is little difference between these poles as they are intertwined. In order to build a sustainable peace, learning has to include all those involved in the educational system. Yes, it needs to be locally informed, but it needs a global outlook that appreciates the world in which we live.

Returning to the New York Times article, I am not confident that Libya will adopt an alternative approach to education and build a sustainable future, at least in the short-term. The National Transitional Council has only provided teachers with basic instructions towards implementing a new curriculum. There appears to be little input from the likes of UNESCO. Although a local school official indicates that teachers would reach out to children of pro-Gaddafi families, he adds that these children would need to be reformed. One principal remarked: "We need to plant in them the love of the country, the spirit of reconciliation and forgetting the past.”

This suggests a top-down approach to education. This will exclude and divide. People need to learn how to do these things for themselves so that they can move forward and build new lives.