The Formal, informal, non-formal education system

Everyone agrees that education is a social issue. Every society thinks of education in different ways. Some put it at the center of their concerns, others state it then forget it, education becoming evident as it gets lost among the priorities of the state. However, what are we talking about when we talk about Education?

The first thought goes to school and family:

These two institutions have long been identified as the only areas of education. However, since the eighteenth century, another form of education is trying to impose itself, accessible education. How, then, did this third form of education development through the history of French society and how did we come to dissociate three types of knowledge: formal, informal, non-formal education?

Non-formal education is trying to organize itself:

This issue aims to show how the field of non-formal education is trying to hold itself in France. What is happening in other countries? What are the challenges today of recognizing the existence of out-of-school and out-of-family education?

Examples of Construction:

Before discussing the different standards that show how much this field is under construction, it is essential to review its historical development. 4The history of French society has allowed, over the Years, to develop different approaches to education. In the eighteenth century, while the instruction was reserved for boys of middle-class families and families of craftsmen and tradesmen, the children of workers worked as soon as they could.

The League of Education:

In 1866, the League of Education was created to organize the education of the people. So we see organizations appear next to the school, whose mission is to educate the people. It is the Ferry laws of 1882 that will accelerate the organization of care for children out of school time.

Much popular education movements:

The end of the 1914-1918 war will see the emergence of many popular education movements. The Popular Front will be, from 1936, at the origin of a change of society which will allow the holidays paid, the week of forty hours and the development of a policy of culture, leisure and popular sports.

Jean Claude Gillet defines animation as a praxis:

 it is a particular way of acting while involving for the animator a specific form of being in this action: she is a strategic intelligence of the social situations, characterizing the professional animator.

The animation comes from psychosociological currents:

From the pedagogical point of view, the animation comes from psychosociological currents valuing the group as a place of expression and creativity. Sociologically, it is indicative of the rise of leisure. Culturally, it is the expression of the rising social layers of the years 1960-1970. The animation aims at access to culture and to train responsible and critical citizens.

Formal education:

It is an education organized in a constitutional due (school, university, vocational training) structured in sequence and hierarchically. It must lead to a certification or diploma.

Informal education:

It is an education that takes place in the family, between peers, in spaces of socialization. Educational learning is less conscious.

Non-formal education:

It is an organized educational process that takes place alongside traditional systems of education and training. There is no certification. Actors have an active role in this learning process.

These three definitions:

When we look at these three definitions, we see that, finally, education should be an ongoing process that encompasses all these levels of clarity. Today, non-formal education is struggling to gain recognition. It cannot produce a genuinely quantifiable result since it does not give rise to a certification or diploma. The animation that is at the heart of this process also suffers from this non-recognition. Speaking of non-formal Education makes it possible to reposition animation in the educational intervention. This idea is not shared by all but to the advantage of posing the debate and thus to make visible a field in composition.