Professional Co-operative Education
1. Evolution of Co-operative Education Discussion
What is your image of the Professional Co-operative Education? What reasons can you think of?
The use of the term “Co-operative learning” may be interpreted in at least three ways, all of which are linked to mutually supportive approaches to education. First, the term is connected with the history of a particular tradition of learning within the co-operative movement. Second, the term implies learning for co-operative action, gaining skills, knowledge and understanding that will enable to work with others for the good of the community and the society as well. Third, co-operative learning suggests an approach to the learning process itself, which emphasizes the importance of learning with and from others. Learning enables people to play a full part in the community. It strengthens the family, the neighborhood and consequently the nation. This is why we value learning for its own sake as well as for the equality of opportunities it brings.
Co-operative education dates back to the 19th century, 1844, when the first cooperatives emerged, and members of the co-operative started educating their counterparts. “We need to be educated both generally and according to the principles and practices because we concern with the detailed knowledge required to run a business” (William King). Educational work had come easily to the Rochdale Pioneers, partly because there was a crying need for basic adult education, and because education was necessary for any social progress, it changed people’s habit and character. That’s why Rochdale Pioneers had provided two educational opportunities: elementary education for semi-literate adults and engagement in free-thinking debate. By the 1870s, the first of these had been catered for by setting up of school boards, so that by 1876 there was a system of compulsory education for children in place. The second: they provided 14 libraries with 13,000 volumes on loan, had a fully equipped laboratory, and so on.
When the university extension movement was launched linking academic lectures with part-time students, the Co-op provided both the students and the grants to pay for their education. In 1903 the Workers’ Education Association (WEA) was set up. The idea of WEA was to give working-class people the opportunity to study not just through a series of lectures, but through intensive tutorial work. At Rochdale over 30 people agreed to study economic history every Saturday afternoon over a two-year period. “This was a generation with a proper sense of values” (Bonner).
Step by step there emerged a network of educational associations providing guidance on how to run courses in co-operative bookkeeping, auditing and other co-operative subjects. By the mid – 1890 s there were correspondence courses and even junior classes in co-operation. However two problems were found. Firstly, this renewed emphasis on co-operative education was very narrow and technically-oriented and was not preparing co-op members for their social duties; broader courses in citizenship were needed. Secondly, the spread of activity was still disappointing. In 1913 the Education Department held its first residential summer school, and in 1914 appointed Fred Hall as the first director of studies, with a view to setting up a Co-operative College.