EDITORIAL: Innovation in Continuing Education

The strategy of innovation is to develop and introduce new training and development programs in leadership, management, digital technology and in agriculture skills and rural entrepreneurship that is addressed to the demands of the new millennium. The program must be designed for enhancing current capabilities that are not covered by the restrictive formal education curriculum. It must be delivered through short courses, infographics and digital application platforms. They must be intended for the young generation and for the vulnerable sectors of the population.

Participatory action research of the Naga College Foundation (NCF) reveals surprising findings:

1. Local leaders also long to be shared with practical analytical skills, concepts, and frameworks that can enrich their management and leadership qualities.

2. They are amazed and wonder about the magic and mystery of modern technology, asking how they can learn and understand how they works.

3. They dream for virtual ideas to calm down their psycho-social deprivation, rekindle their interests in society, and enhance their capacity to face modern challenges.

4. They dream of getting free from the drudgery of farming and agriculture while they see others benefiting from it

5. We unconsciously set-aside the most important aspect of human development; the intellectual and psychological factors that provide motivation and satisfy unspoken desires.

6. Present programs feed only on the visible and corporeal needs of people, but they are bereft of cerebral or rational content for inner fulfilment.

7. Marginalized leaders and groups see us providing academic-based programs to the already well-educated, but we cannot adapt such programs to them.

Hence, it’s time to open, liberalize, share, and apply new and innovative tools and strategies for the overlooked and marginalized partners and intermediaries in the communities. It’s time to simplify IR 4.0 and IOT. It’s time innovative in continuing education courses in leadership, management, rural agriculture entrepreneurship, and in modern digital technologies.

Poverty is caused by our indifference to distinguish the rudiments of human resource development: capability versus capacity, capacity development versus capacity enhancement, and capacity enhancements versus people empowerment. For all our love of slogans, statistics and data analysis we set aside the social and economic factors, and the practical responses about what, to whom, and how we should address them. Our poverty policies focused more in AYUDA and income economics rather than the adverse effects of conventional programs in human development.

This is where innovation is most needed. We must remember the fundamental principle of development: no country ever progressed without strong communities. No community can be strong without compassionate and effective leaders. Modern education, science, and technology should not produce universal orphans of progress. There are innovative, and revolutionary ways to prevent it.