Formal Education vs. Non-Formal Education: A Comprehensive Overview

Educators and academicians have differentiated multiple types of education to help kids get the best of different methods. From standardized learning to homeschooling, there are different types of educational opportunities for kids these days. You can also uncover new strategies of teaching your kids difficult subjects when you leverage multiple types of education. When trying to understand the world of education, we need to dig deeper into the meaning of education. Education is widely regarded as the guide towards developing a growth mindset, progress and freedom. To get a better sense of what education types are ideal for your child, you need to be aware of the types that exist in the world. There are primarily three major types of education available for kids, namely formal, informal, and non-formal.

Defining Formal, Informal, and Non-Formal Education

To understand the nuances of formal versus non-formal education, it's essential to define each type:

Formal Education: This consists of school-based learning, a subject-oriented, uniform curriculum, and highly structured teaching methods. Learning is structured around achieving specific learning goals. Formal learning is learning that’s delivered in a controlled, systematic way and guided by an educator or instructor. In a formal learning environment - either online or in-person - learning follows a structured learning path with a definitive goal like achieving a certification or degree.
Informal Education: This focuses on practical skills, diversity in teaching, real-life based scenarios, and independence in learning. Learning resulting from daily life activities related to work, family or leisure. It is not structured (in terms of learning objectives, learning time or learning support) and typically does not lead to certification. Informal learning may be intentional but in most cases it is not-intentional (or "incidental"/random). Unlike formal education, informal education doesn’t follow any specific structure or system. When it comes to informal learning, the learner has no specific goal in mind - and may not even realize that learning is taking place. For example, informal learning can happen while watching a video on social media, chatting with a colleague, or reading an article you find online.
Non-Formal Education: This is a balanced approach to strict formal education and non-structured informal educational practices. Non-formal learning includes various structured learning situations which do not either have the level of curriculum, institutionalization, accreditation or certification associated with 'formal learning', but have more structure than that associated with 'informal learning', which typically take place naturally and spontaneously as part of other activities.

Read also: The Importance of Formal Education

Formal Education: Structure and Standardization

When it comes to the types of education systems for kids, formal education is one of the first few things that come to mind. Your kids are taught by certified teachers that are highly qualified in their field across different grades and standards. You can identify formal educational curricula through their standardized K-12 program, which is designed to be uniform for all students. There is little flexibility and greater weight given to certification, degrees, and graduation. Classroom management is one of the primary examples of a formal education setup. Your kids can learn alongside others in a private or public institution. You can start formalized education for your child from Pre-K onwards by enrolling them in a formal school or Pre-K specific institute. Colleges, universities, and certification schools are other types of formal education as well. In these environments, your kids can excel in a highly disciplined and skill-driven ecosystem.The 5 major divisions of education are early childhood, primary, secondary, higher, and academy education.

Advantages of Formal Education

While there are different types of education for kids, the main advantage of opting for formal education is the structure provided. You can be assured that your kids will be able to maximize their potential within a highly structured and inflexible environment. Formal education has also become standardized after generations of iterations on various types of education systems. For scale purposes, formalized education has been the leader within the schooling arena. The planning aspect is also streamlined when it comes to formal education. You can rely on a range of teachers, staff, and assistants to provide the best quality of education. Another important advantage of opting for formal education is that it is highly planned by design. Your kids can benefit from a completely planned out curriculum, which can help them excel in any domain they choose.

Disadvantages of Formal Education

There are also clear disadvantages of opting for a purely formalized education standard. Students can find that the rigid structure doesn’t allow for creativity and flexibility. There is also the risk of falling into rote learning traps, as some schools tend to focus on what’s coming up in the examination rather than exploring subjects through curiosity. Your kids may also face unnecessary stress and anxiety caused by examinations.

Informal Education: Flexibility and Practical Application

In terms of flexibility and engaged learning, informal education is one of the best ways to teach children. There isn’t a direct syllabus or not much practice in creating a lesson plan involved in daily learning, but more attention is given to practice. That’s why things like field trips, museum visits, and after-school programs are vital for holistic development. Your children should experience the practical world and apply their skills to widen their horizons through different types of informal education. For homeschooled kids, informal educational practices are essential. You can follow state guidelines to understand what you should be teaching your kids, but there is so much flexibility in terms of what else you can teach them. Some of the main examples of informal education are learning languages, autodidactic learning, skill-based learning, scouts & guides, etc. These informal educational experiences can be enrichening for your children, as it allows them to practice creative-thinking in the classroom and real life too. Homeschooling is another critical example of informal education, requiring the integration of structure, technology, and tools. You can help your kids prepare for the challenges of the world by giving them the right homeschooling educational experience.

Advantages of Informal Education

Some of the more obvious advantages of informal education are the focus on singular goals. These can help kids focus their attention on attaining one objective with multiple milestones. Your kids can also tend to enjoy the freeform nature of informal education, as well as its practical applications. Kids also leave with a sense of pride and accomplishment in the short-term. This motivates them to continue pursuing excellence, as the incentive of an informal educational program is to engage kids.

Disadvantages of Informal Education

As you make the decision of what type of education is best for your child, you should also know the disadvantages of a purely informal educational experience. When it comes to informal education, you need to assess different classes, schools, and centers individually. There isn’t also a set routine for the child to follow within the domain of informal education. Kids that thrive under structure may feel out of place and disengaged. The results are also highly unpredictable when it comes to informal education.

Non-Formal Education: A Balanced Approach

Another form of education is gaining in popularity these days, called non-formal education. This is a balanced approach to strict formal education and non-structured informal educational practices. It finds the fine line between flexibility and educational goals for kids. What differentiates non-formal education from informal education is the planned nature of the program. There is a well-outlined structure for the non-formal educational program, making it goal driven. It is also more practically oriented when compared to formal educational learning practices. You’ll find non-formal educational programs to be more impactful for specific areas of learning for your kids. Training schools, youth exchanges, and summer camp activities for kids can also be impactful. Home-based learning programs, tutoring, and other forms of individualized learning can help your child strengthen weaker areas.

Advantages of Non-Formal Education

When trying to figure out the benefits of different types of education, you need to look at the advantages offered by non-formal education. Non-formal educational programs are generally learner-centered. Non-formal education also engages kids through different types of stimuli. This makes the entire program more participatory, practical, and goal driven. Your kids can learn about things they would never traditionally have in a formal educational system.

Disadvantages of Non-Formal Education

While there are many advantages of non-formal education, you need to be mindful of the core disadvantages as well. You can find that your kids may not be focused enough within a non-formal environment. Your kids may also find that they are more productive in a formal educational program. Schools are developed to maximize the time spent within the four walls through engaged teaching, which is the right approach for many kids.

The Interplay Between Formal, Informal and Non-Formal Learning

The debate over the relative value of formal and informal learning has existed for a number of years. Traditionally formal learning takes place in a school or university and has a greater value placed upon it than informal learning, such as learning within the workplace. This concept of formal learning being the socio-cultural accepted norm for learning was first challenged by Scribner and Cole in 1973, who claimed most things in life are better learnt through informal processes, citing language learning as an example. It is the acquisition of this knowledge or learning which occurs in everyday life that has not been fully valued or understood. This led to the declaration by the OECD educational ministers of the "life-long learning for all" strategy in 1996. This includes 23 countries from five continents, who have sought to clarify and validate all forms of learning including formal, non-formal and informal.

Read also: Comprehensive Education History

Hodkinson et al. (2003), conclude after a significant literature analysis on the topics of formal, informal, and non-formal learning, that "the terms informal and non-formal appeared interchangeable, each being primarily defined in opposition to the dominant formal education system, and the largely individualist and acquisitional conceptualisations of learning developed in relation to such educational contexts." Moreover, he states that "It is important not to see informal and formal attributes as somehow separate, waiting to be integrated. This is the dominant view in the literature, and it is mistaken. Thus, the challenge is not to, somehow, combine informal and formal learning, for informal and formal attributes are present and inter-related, whether we will it so or not. The challenge is to recognise and identify them, and understand the implications. Eraut equates informal with connotations of dress, language or behaviour that have no relation to learning. Eraut defines formal learning as taking place within a learning framework; within a classroom or learning institution, with a designated teacher or trainer; the award of a qualification or credit; the external specification of outcomes. Any learning that occurs outside of these parameters is non-formal.

The EU places non-formal learning in between formal and informal learning. This has learning both in a formal setting with a learning framework and as an organised event but within a qualification.

Recently, many international organizations and UNESCO Member States have emphasized the importance of learning that takes place outside of formal learning settings. Cedefop has created European guidelines to provide validation to a broad range of learning experiences, thereby aiding transparency and comparability across its national borders. There are different approaches to validation between OCED and EU countries, with countries adopting different measures. The EU, as noted above, through the Cedefop-released European guidelines for validating non-formal and informal learning in 2009 to standardise validation throughout the EU.

Non-formal education (NFE) is popular on a worldwide scale in both 'western' and 'developing countries'. Non-formal education can form a matrix with formal and non-formal education, as non-formal education can mean any form of systematic learning conducted outside the formal setting. The UNESCO institute of education conducted a seminar on non-formal education in Morocco. The association for development of education in Africa (ADEA) launched many programmes in non-formal education in at least 15 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2001 World Bank conducted an international seminar on basic education in non-formal programmes.

Several classifications of non-formal education have been proposed. Willems and Andersson classify non-formal education according to two dimensions: (1) "NFE in relation to formal and informal learning (Substitute-Complement)" and (2) "Main learning content of NFE (Competencies-Values)". Based on these two dimensions, they describe four types of non-formal education. The goal of their framework is to better understand the various public governance challenges and structures that very different types of non-formal education have. Similarly, Shrestha and colleagues focus on the role of NFE in comparison to formal education. Hoppers proposes a three-fold classification, also in comparison to formal education: "A. Supplementary provisions", "B. Compensatory provisions", and "C. Alternative provisions".

In France and Italy animation in a particular form is a kind of non-formal education. It uses theatre and acting as means of self-expression with different community groups for children and people with special needs. Youth and community organisations young people have the opportunity to discover, analyse and understand values and their implications and build a set of values to guide their lives. They run work camps and meetings, recruit volunteers, administer bank accounts, give counselling etc.

Education plays an important role in development. Out of school programmes are important to provide adaptable learning opportunities and new skills and knowledge to a large percentage of people who are beyond the reach of formal education. Non-formal education began to gain popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Non-formal education is popular among the adults specially the women as it increases women's participation in both private and public activities, i.e. in house hold decision making and as active citizens in the community affairs and national development. According to UNESCO (2010), non-formal education helps to ensures equal access to education, eradicate illiteracy among women and improve women's access to professional training, science, technology and continuing education. It also encourages the development of non-discriminatory education and training. Non-formal education is beneficial in a number of ways. There are activities that encourage young people to choose their own programme and projects that are important because they offer the youth the flexibility and freedom to explore their emerging interests. When the youth can choose the activities in which they can participate, they have opportunities to develop several skills like decision making skills. Non-formal learning has experiential learning activities that foster the development of skills and knowledge. This helps in building the confidence and abilities among the youth of today. It also helps in development of personal relationships not only among the youth but also among the adults. Formal education system are inadequate to effectively meet the needs of the individual and the society. The rigid structure of formal schools, mainly because of rules and regulations than concentrating on the real need of the students, offering curriculum that leans away from the individual and from society, far more concerned with performing programmes than reaching useful objectives.

Non-formal learning, due to its 'unofficial' and ad-hoc nature, may also not have a specific curriculum with a clear structure and direction which also implies a lack of accountability due to an over-reliance on self-assessment.

Formal and Informal Education in the Workplace

Employees often engage in formal and informal education at work. Management training is a great example - an employee might be put forward for a formal management training course where they complete online modules and courses taught by an instructor with the goal of qualifying to be a manager in their organization. But outside of the formal training program, that employee may also learn how to be a good leader and an effective manager by observing other managers in their organization, as well as through conversations with c-suite executives, and after-work events with colleagues.

Blended Learning Approaches

You can blend formal, informal, semi-formal, and hybrid educational strategies to create a well-rounded curriculum. By establishing different methods of stimuli, you can improve the way that your kids view the idea of learning. You can shift their mindset from rote learning to a more curiosity-driven learning experience. As a parent, you need to establish the right set of educational foundations and help them adjust to it by making it flexible. Kids shouldn’t stay rigid in the type of education they want.

Enhancing Learning Outcomes

To improve learning outcomes in your organization, it’s important to encourage both formal and informal education.Kids learn in a collaborative and curiosity-driven manner.

Build learning communities: Learning is often a social activity - so maximize both formal and informal learning by providing opportunities for discussions outside of the classroom.
Find strategies to increase engagement: Engaged learners are more hungry for knowledge - and more likely to take part in both formal and informal learning.

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