2-15
Closing the education gap:
community persons as instructors
When there is a wide ‘education gap’ between
instructor and students, try, instead of bridging it,
to close it or avoid it. This means trying to find or
prepare instructors who:
• are from the same immediate area as the health
workers-in-training
• speak the local language
• have the same cultural and social background (a
farmer, worker, father, mother, etc.)
• have had more or less the same amount of
formal education as those they teach (although
they may have had far more experience or training in health care at the
community level)
• dress, act, speak, and feel as equals to the students and villagers
It is important that instructors be culturally close to the students. But they also need
enough basic knowledge and skills {in health care, in problem solving, and in teaching)
to help students learn effectively. At first it may be difficult to find local persons with
this combination of culture and skills. During the first few years, ‘outside’ instructors
may be needed. But their first responsibility should be to prepare local people to
take over most or all of the instruction. The more outstanding and experienced
health workers are often the best ones for the job.
CAN LOCAL PERSONS BECOME EFFECTIVE
INSTRUCTORS OF HEALTH WORKERS?
Health professionals may be skeptical (doubtful) about whether villagers can make
effective instructors. But community-based programs in many countries have found
that:
Experienced village health workers—
with appropriate preparation, back-up,
and friendly criticism from the learning
group—can make excellent instructors.
Just as with doctors and nurses, villagers who make good instructors are
exceptional. The challenge is to find persons with the right combination of attitudes,
interests, and talents, and then to create the situation that permits and helps them to
grow.