Abstract

“Today, all over the world, 115 million girls are doing no learning” because they are not in school or are in inadequate schools. These are the opening words of a video issued to promote the latest UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2013/14 (GMR 2014). It is almost impossible for such a statement to be made within a discussion of formal education in Western educational contexts, for in that field there has been growing interest in informal learning, all that learning that goes on outside of formal educational establishments (schools and colleges), and in its relationships with education, both formal and nonformal. That it is possible in the field of education in international development for this very large and important field of learning to be demeaned or denied remains puzzling, especially when some other sectors of development do take informal learning seriously. It is when talking about schooling in international development that the learning that these 115 million girls and others are doing in their everyday life in family and community is very often dismissed or ignored.