Development education in Northern Ireland: assessing the past and charting the future

In this assessment of development education practice in Northern Ireland over the past twenty years, Stephen McCloskey examines the funding trends and issues of capacity in the development sector. He examines the influence of the Department for International Development’s intervention in the sector in the late 1990s, and considers the importance of local policy and resource support of development education and the prospects for extending development education into new sectors of civil society in the future.

Introduction

A graphic representation of development education activity in Northern Ireland over the past twenty years would reveal a low starting position and a series of peaks and troughs but a steady progression, particularly in the final quarter. In its formative stages, development education activity was marginal to government policy-making, poorly funded and lacked strategic direction which limited its impact on civil society. However today we can detect broad public understanding of the importance of development issues and a greater willingness to become actively engaged with global agendas. In February 2003, for example, over 20,000 people attended a mass rally in Belfast city centre opposing the war in Iraq and in June 2005 a large and successful demonstration voiced local support for the Make Poverty History campaign in the build up to the G8 Summit in July.

       The importance of these public manifestations of solidarity with developing countries should not be underestimated in a society where conflict often denied opportunities for engagement with the wider world and created inward-looking perspectives. While these rallies may not tell us much about the depth of public knowledge of development issues or the role of development education in engendering active citizenship, they can be interpreted as a healthy indicator of interest in international development and a platform for future initiatives. Thus, development education can be offered to increasingly receptive target groups in civil society at a time when local citizens are becoming more aware of their interconnectedness with other countries and their capacity for change at local and global levels.

       This paper will reflect on development education practice in Northern Ireland over the last two decades and consider how global awareness has come in from the margins of mainstream education. It will outline some of the opportunities that could extend current practice into new areas of civil society and the challenges in areas such as funding and capacity that continue to hamper progression in the development sector. While the primary consideration here is practice Northern Ireland, the paper will make observations on the relationship between local practitioners and colleagues in Britain and in the Republic of Ireland.

Reflections on practice in Northern Ireland

From the 1980s until the mid-1990s development education practice was largely concentrated and sustained in the activities of Development Education Centres (DECs); small, autonomous non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with the aim of enhancing public awareness of development issues and galvanizing action toward justice and social equality. Around fifty DECs were established in England, Scotland and Wales with two in Northern Ireland (Derry and Belfast) and six in the Republic of Ireland. Most of these organisations shared similar functions and characteristics: they were resource centres with public libraries on their premises; they provided training in the formal and/or non-formal education sectors; they drew most of their funding from the development NGO sector; they were independent organisations rather than subsidiaries of larger entities; they operated with small staff numbers and often laboured under capacity deficits; they promoted active learning methodologies and imparted values, skills and attitudes that equipped the learner to participate in a process of progressive change.

       Many DECs were established by development agencies in the 1970s and 1980s when government support was minimal. As Richard Borowski (2005), a development educator with Leeds DEC, recently pointed out in an internal Development Education Association (DEA) discussion paper:

“During the years of Thatcherism development education was seen as subversive and dangerous; it encouraged people to think for themselves and to challenge the structures and systems that contributed towards global justice and inequality.”

       In 1996-97, the then Conservative government’s Overseas Development Administration (ODA) contributed just £700,000 to support its development education work throughout the UK (1996: The Case for Development Education: Why it should be funded and supported, London, DEA). The larger financial burden for development education was carried at this time by development agencies, many of which supported their own development education activities. For example, Oxfam until the mid-1990s had a Development Education Unit in their Belfast office; they provided resources on site and delivered training workshops throughout Northern Ireland. Moreover, the distance between NGOs and central government in terms of funding and policy issues saw the former maintain a more radical approach to development that was reflected in their resource and conference output.

       While the number of DECs in England facilitated the emergence of regional networks of centres, the development community in Northern Ireland largely comprised of development agencies with just two DECs. By the mid-1990s, the Derry DEC had effectively wound up its operations because of financial problems and subsequent efforts to revive it failed. Meanwhile the Belfast DEC, which was founded and supported by eight development agencies in 1985, continued to operate with support from the NGO sector. In fact, some development agencies regarded their grant to the Belfast DEC as their sole contribution to development education while others worked in partnership with the Centre in the course of delivering their own educational activities.

Education on the margins

Development education practice, in its earliest stages of progression, was characterized by under-capacity and limited outreach. In 1996, Ann McCollum, a development education consultant, delivered a paper titled ‘Bridging the gap between theory and practice’ at a conference for practitioners in Dublin. McCollum delivered a sharp critique of the sector that prompted in some quarters a reassessment of its role in mainstream education and impact on target groups. She suggested that the sector was largely talking to itself and failing to engage at a strategic level with key stakeholders in formal and non-formal education. While acknowledging that funding constraints limited the ‘conceptual space’ available to practitioners to strategically plot the development of their practice, McCollum argued that the sector had departed from its theoretical underpinnings found in the work of Brazilian philosopher, educationalist and activist Paulo Freire.

       While Freire regarded education as a means of empowerment and social transformation, contemporary development educators had absorbed the Freirean concept of active learning within ‘the dominant liberal ideology’. McCollum suggested that ‘Freire’s ideas have been misappropriated by development education leading to dilemmas in relation to the theory and practice of development education which must be recognised and resolved’ (1996). She suggested that assuming social action would naturally follow awareness raising activities was fundamentally flawed as it concentrated on the individual rather than wider society. McCollum went on to address other key aspects of practice such as evaluating the impact of activities on learners and the reactive rather than proactive positioning of the sector in regard to key policy and funding. Thus, McCollum saw ‘DEC activities as dominated and circumscribed by government whether it be in terms of education, policy or practice’ (1996). Of course, some practitioners challenged McCollum’s concept of marginalisation within development education which was specifically couched within the practice of DECs. Some of the larger development organisations in Ireland such as Trócaire were establishing strategic linkages within the broader education system toward creating new opportunities for global awareness. Trócaire established a partnership with the Curriculum Development Unit in the Republic of Ireland which resulted in the development of a new curriculum area called Civic, Social and Political Education (CSPE), an innovative programme that was welcomed by teachers and students alike. 

       While such initiatives were the exception rather than the rule, they at least pointed to the possibilities of strategic alliances between the NGO and governmental sectors in areas such as education and development. However, these examples of good practice also accentuated the unevenness of development education practice and the dangers in trying to consider the sector in homogenous terms by attaching to it general characteristics. Just as some of the smaller DECs struggled with basic capacity and infrastructural issues, many of the larger centres were producing quality resources and introducing dynamic working practices with target groups. The Teachers in Development Education (TIDE) Centre in Birmingham was and is a good example of a centre that directly involves learners in creating materials and incorporating development education methodologies into their practice.

       The unevenness of development education practice also extended to its geographical coverage within the island of Ireland and Britain. Most DECs and development organisations are located in large towns and cities which create obvious problems for learners outside urban centres in accessing training and resources. In Northern Ireland, the problems related to capacity and funding were exacerbated by the low number of practitioners. With just one DEC and a small number of educationalists working in development agencies, the level of development education practice outside Belfast was minimal. Moreover, many educators, particularly teachers, found it difficult to visit the Belfast DEC during working hours to access materials. While this is a persistent problem for development educators today, it has been eased somewhat by information technology and the capacity to promote training opportunities and resources on-line. It is also heartening to see more development agencies in Northern Ireland create positions in the area of education, even if at times they are related to either fundraising or campaigning. 

       However, development education activity and resources have been concentrated in the head offices of development agencies over the past two decades with the Northern Ireland offices often largely preoccupied with fundraising. Relatively few resources have been produced in Northern Ireland and although the Northern Irish public has traditionally responded generously to fundraising appeals and campaigns, expenditure on development education remains relatively low compared to other organisational activities. There are always notable exceptions, but Northern Ireland has been squeezed between Dublin and London in the allocation of resources and it is hoped that recent education appointments in Belfast signal a more fulsome contribution to awareness raising activity. In addition to human and financial resources, Northern Ireland requires development education outlets outside Belfast that can cater for the needs of learners and educationalists and development agencies are better positioned that most to provide such a service.

Mainstreaming development education

From the 1980s through to the mid-1990s, development education was largely under-funded and resourced with development organisations shouldering the support of DECs with minimal resources coming from government. As the Department for International Development’s (DFID) strategy document on development education,Building Support for Development (1999: London, DFID) suggests:

“For much of the last 20 years, the UK government has attached little importance to development education work in the UK, leaving others, particularly the network of Development Education Centres and others in the voluntary sector, to take the lead in promoting greater awareness and understanding.”