Quality Assurance of Non-Formal Education: Practice or Theory - Research Paper Example

The results show that while the policy documents follow both humanist and economist viewpoints in the QA framework, wherefrom the economist viewpoint, there is the usage of quite a several measurable quality indicators, the framework predominantly fits in a humanist theoretical stance on quality of education since the policy documents are strongly grounded in the wholesome development of the learner that surpasses academic attainment alone. Such learning includes both personal and social development, with the learning process being primarily learner-centered.

Twenty years later, the situation has improved and we know, albeit incomplete, how many participate in Non-Formal Education. The process and outcomes have been looked into. Yet the quality of Non-Formal Education in the youth field is a topic that has been hardly researched, despite the presumed substantial impact it has on our societies and young learners. Quality is a concept that came into education policymaking once education was sufficiently spread throughout society, as soon as access was secured for all, the focus switched to quality (UNESCO, 2005).

A literature review was done in preparation for this research. It shows that both quality and non-formal education have conceptual challenges and that they cannot simply be combined. The challenge for the quality of non-formal education is that most models are developed from either an industry perspective (Poole 2010) or a formal education perspective (UNESCO, 2005). Further analysis of non-formal education will be the basis of the work, building on the work of Colley, Hodkinson, and Malcolm (2003), Colardyn and Bjornavold (2004), and the work of the Commonwealth on Learning.

Quality assurance is a new concept for those youth organizations providing NFE, and this concept, although developed by the field, will need to be extensively tested and refined (European Youth Forum, 2008).Quality is one of the most used words in the discussion, research, and policies about education and society in general. Yet its meaning is disputed both in a political a semantic sense.