Participatory Training and Self Development

Abstract

Over the last decade or so, training' has become a common activity in development projects. This enthusiasm to train or to build capacities at different levels and amongst different sectors of our society tends to overwrite the fact 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 take place 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 appropriate to state that during the last decade, training has become reduced to a 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, practitioners opt for training if a programme is not doing well. There are great expectations from training as if knowledge and action are mechanically related.