EDVOCAL PAKISTAN
UPDATE ON MEGA PROJECT — BLOG 2
Non formal education isn’t a replacement to formal education, which is key and fundamental to the growth of the person, however, it can complement it by covering needs or certain aspects that the regulated institution lacks.
UNESCO, for example, emphasizes the flexibility of non-formal education and how it allows for more personalized learning to be developed for each person. In fact, this would be the most ideal model for them.
How is it flexible? Non formal education is open to any age, origin and personal interest. Moreover, it’s a relatively voluntary type of education, with diverse teaching methods and its end goal isn’t a degree, but rather pure learning. To support this cause, we as a young generation of Pakistan felt the urge to develop a platform where learning is not stopped or bounded within the structured form of education — Edvocal Pakistan.
Edvocal Pakistan — an online youth project which stands to help fellow youth meet their non-formal-educational needs and minimize the unfair competition in the employment market.
Link to the Social Media Accounts:
www.instagram.com/EdvocalPakistan/
Lowering our very first steps into our startup, we decided on reaching 400–500 following as our first short term goal. We were jumping when we first reached 100 likes on our page, the progress is steady and our hope remains as hyped as it always had been. The Social media reach is gradually increasing and it’s an achievement for all of us.
This little achievement helped us leap forward towards the attainment of our second goal: start the very first online course by October. With undying efforts of the team members, all necessary requirements were taken well care of. This readies us for the commencement of our very first batch from 15th of October.
What were the challenges?
We had previously decided to start off with our batch from 1st October. The lack of awareness regarding informal and nonformal education amongst a huge number of youths, had us re- schedule the commencement of our first batch for two weeks, during which we decided to carry our webinars in order to familiarize the public with what we stood for.
We were able to do 2 online live sessions until now and the response was amazing! We were able to engage 700+ views in the first session. In which we invited Zubair Pirzada, a motivational speaker, youth parliament member and faculty member at Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur.
In our second session we invited A CSS officer as our guest speaker, this session would have more impactful because the topic was very engaging but unfortunately, we kind of faced technical issues from the guest’s side. It was kind of embarrassing to shut the live session, therefore we continued with it.
We came to the conclusion that there is a lot that needs be worked upon in developing counties such as ours to spread the importance of inducing informal and nonformal education in formal setups.
We also started off with miniseries regarding informal and nonformal education. The first video of which is already out. The concept we worked on here is to try to interact with the audience through a made-up character: Edlicia, who represents Edvocal and briefs on various aspects of informal and nonformal education.
What Change will it Create?
- Helps grow and mature, on a personal level, as well as within society. In many cases, teamwork or coexisting, can play an important role.
- By developing the skills of each individual, you boost their self-esteem.
- The capacity to learn and discover on your own develops a healthy critical attitude of your surroundings, social norms and power mechanisms.
- Boosts job placement opportunities and encourages self-employment.
Sustainability?
We plan to go live every weekend in which we will try our best to invite a guest speaker who talks and engages the community with their queries and shades light on the importance of in-formal education. Once we successfully commence our 1st batch, our next instant goal is to create a counselling group or collaborate with an established group through which students will benefit from counselling facilities.
Edvocal’s vision is to provide non-formal education and spread awareness of in-formal education to Pakistan’s youth. This will help them to broaden their progressive capacity and strengthens their moral, social and economic values. We hope that our project will put great impact among society.
