Participatory Training for Promotion of Social Development

Abstract

During the last one decade or so, "training" has become a common activity in all development projects. But it needs to be recognized that the "most extensive and far reaching learning has proceeded with no trainers at all or with the trainers involved marginally and from a distance." If learning can happen without training, why is so much energy being put into training in general and participatory training in particular? Before we address this question, perhaps it is most appropriate to state that during the last decade, training has become reduced to pre-planned technique-happy mass of simulations and role plays without any contribution to critical thinking and generation of understanding and awareness. In certain development circles, the practitioners opt for doses of trainings if a programme is not doing well. There are great expectations from training "as if knowledge and action are related".