National Youth Service :
A Global Perspective
Contents
Introduction
1: National Service Programs and Proposals
Profiles of National Service
2: Aspects of National Youth Service
Appendix A: Global Conference Participants, June 18-21, 1992
Appendix B: Annotated Bibliography
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2. Aspects of national youth service
Learning potential
The Learning Potential of Youth Service
Even a completion certificate from national service may signify more learning than takes place in some educational institutions. Mrs. Maria Gonzalez, supervisor of University Extension Projects and Programs at the University of Costa Rica, made the following reply to a question about the extent to which other Costa Rican universities offer University Community Service: "In my opinion, higher education has become a business in Costa Rica in the last five years....You can see in Costa Rica a small house, and it is called 'University of Such and Such.'" Her comment struck a chord, especially with those from the United States, who deplored the trend even at well-regarded universities to pressure faculty members to seek outside grants and to reward those who meet with success more highly than good teachers, good researchers, or good deliverers of service.
Conferees showed strong interest in ways governmental support for higher education might be made supportive of national youth service. Mrs. Hoodless suggested that governmental support for higher education be made contingent on universities' offering service-learning programs as part of the curriculum. Several participants recommended tying governmental support for college students to a period of national service either before matriculation, as in Botswana, or after, as in Nigeria.
Lieutenant General (Retired) M. L. Chibber, who was awarded a Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship to formulate a national service plan for India, said that "one area that is accepted by the government, by the presidents of the universities of India, is that one year of national service should be introduced for all those who are receiving a college education." He said that his draft proposal, upon his arrival at the conference, called for the 900,000 young men and women who enter college each year to complete one year of satisfactory national service as a prerequisite for matriculation. At the end of the conference, and after hearing about the experience with national service in other countries, General Chibber said he was considering modifying the draft proposal so that the year of service would take place between the first year of college and the last two years.
Dr. James Kielsmeier, president of the National Youth Leadership Council in Minnesota, reported that his focus group covered the spectrum of service-learning connections from kindergarten to university. He said that although systems of formal education varied greatly in the countries represented at the conference, there was a high degree of consensus on the importance of linking service with formal education. Dr. Kielsmeier noted that learning theory supports service-learning because people retain much more of what they learn from experience and from teaching others than from what they read in a book or hear in a lecture.
Dr. Kielsmeier said that when his group discussed the voluntary-compulsory issue, most members supported the inclusion of service activities as part of the required curriculum up to the eighth grade. Secondary schools and colleges should be required to offer service-learning opportunities to all students, with optional participation.
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National Youth Service : A Global Perspective
Donald J. Eberly, Editor
National Service Secretariat , Washington, D.C.Based on the advanced papers and discussions held at the conference, National Youth Service : A Global Perspective, held at the Wingspread Conference Center, Wisconsin, 18-21 June 1992.
About this online book
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