A design approach for financial literacy curriculum targeting smallholders in Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACT

Agricultural extension plays a vital role in closing the capacity gaps of smallholder farmers throughout low- and middle-income countries, and there is an increasing interest to improve extension outcomes due to its central role in improving livelihood outcomes. Central to this interest is widening the scope of extension content to cover essential agribusiness skills, which, due to the challenges in breaking down this nuanced content into culturally appropriate content and delivery, have been largely absent from agricultural extension. This research details an approach used in Papua New Guinea to develop a series of learner- and problem-centred coursebooks to assist smallholder farmers to overcome the dominant agribusiness challenge facing smallholders throughout the world – accessing finance. The coursebooks were designed from ‘the space between’, an emerging perspective of community membership where deep content knowledge and anthropological insights of the learning culture combine to envision new ways for nuanced content to be culturally placed. The approach detailed in this research can serve as an important reference to other practitioners working to design extension curricula for agribusiness skills within agricultural extension.

KEYWORDS:

• agricultural extension
• curriculum design
• Papua New Guinea

1. Introduction

Educational programs directed at adult farmers, known as agricultural extension, present knowledge to rural populations and have played a central role in delivering production capacity programs to farmers for decades (Haug, 1999). In low- and middle-income countries like Papua New Guinea (PNG), where rural people depend heavily on agriculture, crop production improvements are often a prerequisite for more extensive changes to livelihoods and food security (Cook et al., 2021). Although practitioners have long identified agribusiness skills such as market engagement and financial literacy as vital complements to production improvements (Tindiwensi et al., 2020), there is a paucity of literature detailing the design of extension curricula and content targeting the broader agribusiness skills required to help drive viable rural enterprises and improve livelihoods.

This is due in part to extension directed at improving production skills having the benefit of being able to break down content into subject-centred curriculum which can function without relying heavily on nuanced language or oral content (Faure et al., 2012; Rivera, 1998). The subject-centred design which has dominated agricultural extension (Cook et al., 2021) reinforces top-down approaches to education and subjugates the local knowledge of farmers and the cultural context in which the new knowledge is applied. This subject-centred approach to curricular design limits the capacity-building potential of extension (Pincus et al., 2018). In line with changes to andragogy throughout the world (Yeung et al., 2012), there have been movements within agricultural extension to increase the use of learner- and problem-centred extension design (Cook et al., 2021). However, learner- and problem-centred design requires additional time and recourses of extension organisations. With extension organisations in PNG having long suffered a lack of government funding and support, their ability to effectively work with rural communities is an ongoing challenge. Furthermore, the delivery of learner- and problem-centred education in PNG requires content suited to both farmers as adult learners with a limiting education, as well as extension staff who may also have a limiting education and will be responsible for delivering content.

A limiting education is an orientation to learning by adults who believe they are ill-equipped for learning and have never been made aware of all the knowledge they have developed through their lives, both incidentally and informally (Pamphilon, 2015). The lack of access to education in low-income countries is a well-founded issue, and in PNG it is an ongoing one. The combination of a lack of resources and myriad socio-cultural forces, results in most adult learners experiencing some form of limiting education in PNG (Pamphilon, 2015). This orientation to learning is a persistent mindset among adult learners throughout countries where access to education remains a challenge (Pamphilon, 2015). Although smallholder farmers with a limiting education may be highly intelligent, adaptive problem solvers, when approaching the more nuanced thinking required to understand agribusiness content, agricultural extension has failed to bridge the gap between curricular design and adult learners with a limiting education. Adult learners with a limiting education rely on agricultural extension as it provides one of the few forms of non-formal education in rural areas throughout low- and middle-income countries (Veen & Preece, 2005). Non-formal education channels such as extension are important because they provide a flexibility to respond to context and learner needs (Rivera, 1998; Veen & Preece, 2005). While literature is dominated by agricultural extension research focusing on production challenges, extension literature detailing curricular design for complementary agribusiness skills like financial literacy is critically missing. The focus of this paper is to detail an approach to designing agribusiness curricula for adults with a limiting education to be delivered within agricultural extension.

1.2 Adult learners in PNG

As outlined above, access to education remains an ongoing challenge throughout PNG, despite the ongoing efforts of rural development projects (Pryke & Barker, 2017). While tuition-free education has increased student entry and retention, a chronic lack of funding, capacities and appropriate curricula continues to impact the availability and quality of education (Paraide, 2015). This failing system has resulted in the majority of the population not completing education beyond Grade 10, and education facilities at all levels (from primary schools to universities) experiencing a decline that has lasted for decades (Paraide, 2015; Rena, 2011). Opportunities for adult education are rare in urban areas, and basically non-existent in rural areas. The lack of access to education means that adult learners in PNG:

• approach new content informed by a view that their education is limiting;

• undertake education in a ritualistic manner, rely on mimicry and observation, and follow instructors explicitly;

• believe in a hierarchy of knowledge, where some groups in this deeply collective society have less of a right to access education than others.

Below is an expanded characterisation of the nature of adult learners in PNG and how the nature of learners influenced content development.

As PNG adult learners approach training or learning with a view of their education being limited, they are often cautious about being involved, as they do not feel they have the right to education (Renich, 2007). This is the case both for people with and without a formal education. Indeed, it can be even more so for people with formal education, since their experience of Western education often leaves them with a jumble of disconnected ideas, untethered from their traditional or informal wisdom (Zeegers, 2000). Therefore, local examples and the use of parables and wisdom from PNG communities help place content within a familiar context and build the confidence of those learners often excluded from education.

A limiting education combined with a lack of educational opportunities means adult learners in PNG commonly see training as a ritualised rite of passage. Deference to the trainer, imitation and a glowing evaluation (for the trainer) are outcomes of this ritualistic view of education (Renich, 2007). The ritual of training, and the other rituals of community life that adult learners bring with them, can be changed if the trainer works with the participants to establish new rules for the training ritual, which include encouraging participation, two-way communication and the role of women and youth in community prosperity (Pamphilon & Mikhailovich, 2017). Another feature of this ritualised view is that something tangible equates to achievement. Having training or education which concludes with something learners can take away from the training is preferred by learners in PNG. Having something to walk away from training with also makes marginalised groups feel they too have the right to this knowledge (Pamphilon & Mikhailovich, 2017; Simoncini et al., 2017).

Adult learners in PNG are used to learning new information through observational or experiential learning, or from a story or parable connected to traditional or informal wisdom (Guthrie, 2003; Lawihin, 2018; Simoncini et al., 2017). This traditional way of learning works best when the new learning is practical (easily observed or imitated), or when the new learning has an essential message which is easily captured in a story or parable. If the new learning is complex and abstract, like financial literacy, it needs to be distilled down to an essence that is connected to traditional or informal wisdoms and can be learned through observation or story (Guthrie, 2003).

In addition to a widespread lack of access to education, there are also persistent gender disparities in accessing education in PNG (Ryan et al., 2017). Moreover, female farmers have been historically neglected in agricultural extension programs (Pamphilon et al., 2014). Women learners are often given ‘permission’ to go to training, provided they compensate their husbands or fathers in some way, such as by handing over their training allowance or by learning something which their husbands can also use (Pamphilon et al., 2014). In this hierarchical context of learning, it is often better for both husband and wife to attend training, because this avoids suspicion and jealousy, and makes it more likely they will support each other to put the new learning into practice (Pamphilon & Mikhailovich, 2017). At the very least, both husband and wife need to be involved in deciding that the training is necessary.

The focus of this paper is to detail an approach to designing agribusiness curricula for adult learners which doesn’t amplify a limiting education and focuses on the greater inclusion of the marginalised. This approach challenges the traditional notion of insider and outsider community perspectives and blurs the boundaries between them. In this emerging perspective of community membership, content expertise and deep anthropological insights into the learning culture are combined to envision new ways to design learner- and problem-centred curricula for vital agribusiness skills.

2. Background and the theoretical framework

Of all the agribusiness capacity gaps that smallholder farmers face, the inability to access credit or financial assistance from local institutions remains the most restrictive to livelihood improvements throughout low- and many middle-income economies (IFC, 2014; Sherzad & Martyn, 2015). Although agriculture provides the predominant form of employment in most low- and middle-income economies, lending to agriculture remains low (Langyintuo, 2020). In PNG, employment in agriculture is one of the highest anywhere in the world, and yet lending to agriculture is less than 2% of total lending, and financial exclusion in rural areas is as high as 92% (ADB, 2019; Eves & Titus, 2017). Although no silver bullet, accessing financial services remains one of the most widely promoted strategies to lift rural communities out of poverty, due to agriculture being a fundamental link in rural enterprises throughout low- and middle-income countries, which results in gains from agriculture being realised by farm and non-farm sectors (Cervantes-Godoy & Dewbre, 2010). Without access to financial services, capital to lift rural enterprises into profit generation remains out of reach. As Cremer (2019, p. 1) explains, it is the central role that money plays in all aspects of farming households that makes it such a crucial part of improving rural livelihoods:

One of the most effective tools for improving livelihoods is, put simply, money. Access to capital is a major barrier for smallholders. and one that creates a number of subsequent problems. Without money, the technologies and mechanisation that could turn subsistence farming into viable, even profitable, operations remain frustratingly out of reach.

However, accessing financial services relies on complex, nuanced content being matched to adult learners with a limiting education. The lack of research and documented approaches to bridge content continues to impede projects and efforts to connect farmers to credit (Chandio et al., 2020; Pamphilon, 2015). One possible way to bridge content is by using an emerging community perspective known as the space between. The space between offers a unique perspective on community membership and engagement, and this perspective provides new insights into how extension curricula can be designed to be more learner- and problem-centred and be adapted to adult learners with a limiting education.

While there has been a persistent narrative that believed that insider perspectives are best placed to understand the experiences and needs of groups in which they are members, this perspective is also criticised for its potential biases and an inability to separate personal experiences from those of research participants (Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). In practice, authors note that, in very few cases, a researcher can be characterised as a complete insider or complete outsider (Breen, 2007; Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). Moving away from the rigid views of insider and outsider, and inspired by Bhabha’s hybridity (Bhabha, 1994), the space between has emerged as a ‘third’ perspective of community membership, one which provides a more accurate description of the relationship between the researcher and the community. In this multidimensional space, a dialectic approach helps to preserve the complexities of communities and relies on researchers understanding and acknowledging how they are similar, and how they are different from the groups that they are working with or representing (Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). The space between offers a unique perspective when engaging with communities or groups, and it has been found that partnerships between practitioners who can genuinely inhabit insider and outsider perspectives can balance the advantages of those positions while minimising their disadvantages (Breen, 2007; Pugh et al., 2000).

Driven by the potential of this partnership approach the space between was used by combining content matter expertise (financial literacy) with a community education expert with deep anthropological insight into the adult learning culture in PNG to design a series of coursebooks that guide adult learners through the process of applying for finance. While subject matter experts in finance are common, previous approaches to financial literacy in PNG adopted a subject-centred approach which was largely ineffective and did little to place new content within the local knowledge systems familiar to farmers (Pamphilon & Mikhailovich, 2017). This article aims to make clear an approach to curricular design that could see vital agribusiness skills become embedded into agricultural extension to complement production improvements and help rural enterprises thrive. In detailing the adult learning theory of the approach and how the theories were used to increase the learner- and problem-centred nature of extension content, this article makes a significant contribution to the theorisation of curricular design for financial literacy within agricultural extension.

2.1 The context of the project and the theoretical framework

The research presented here forms part of a multifaceted five-year research for development project aimed at supporting commercial sweet potato production in the highlands of PNG and was funded by the Australian Centre of International Agricultural Research (ACIAR Hort/2014/097). An integral part of the larger project is closing capacity gaps that farmers face as they transition into commercial sweet potato production through agricultural extension. There has been a long-identified need for culturally relevant training on financial literacy and accessing finance throughout community organisations, development agencies and PNG civil society (Arek, 2005; Sitapai, 2012).

The purpose of the coursebooks detailed in this paper was to provide culturally appropriate, step-by-step guidelines to allow rural farmers and enterprises to access finance. The coursebook curriculum was designed to provide external trainers, or any organisation working in community training or development in PNG, with content that aligned with the culture of adult learning without amplifying the limiting education experienced by learners throughout PNG society.

2.1.1 The theoretical framework

Our content was designed to be relevant to adult learners with a limiting education, to reflect the culture and knowledge systems of PNG communities, and to be focused on the task of applying for finance. As a result, the content necessitated a cultural responsiveness emphasising practical application. To achieve this, our theoretical framework drew upon an emerging post-colonial theory known as ‘the space between’ (Dwyer & Buckle, 2009), the concept of lifelong learning (Pamphilon, 2015) and the theory of situated learning (Hedegaard, 1998).

2.1.1.1 The third space and the space between

Central to our theoretical framework was the space between (Breen, 2007; Dwyer & Buckle, 2009), a multidimensional space that has evolved within post-colonial theory. The space between has its roots in Bhabha’s third space in which ‘in-betweenness’ was seen as a central part of his idea of hybridity (Bhabha, 1994). Hybridity within Bhabha’s third space deconstructs the bipolar notion of human subjectivity and envisions community membership as more nuanced than the dichotomous views of self and other or researcher and subject. Bhabha believes that culture does not exist in isolation and is instead created by the interactions between people which overlap within a multidimensional or hybrid space (Bhandari, 2020). The core idea behind Bhabha’s concept of hybridity is that it posits human subjectivity in both the research process and political discourse as emerging from the in-between space of self and other (Bhabha, 1994; Bhandari, 2020).

In this project, the space between was used to realise an ‘in-betweenness’ or hybridity in the development of coursebook content. The space between preserves the complexities of communities through a dialectic process and challenges the dichotomous thinking of insider versus outsider community perspectives by allowing researchers to occupy the position of both insider and outsider (Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). By accepting that neither insider nor outsider perspectives are absolute, researchers inhabiting the space between accept their position in the process as constantly shifting (Breen, 2007; Dwyer & Buckle, 2009). In our project, a partnership approach combining content expertise and deep anthropological insights into the learning culture was used to identify ways to translate the complex and abstract ideas of financial literacy into learner- and problem-centred curriculum for vital agribusiness skills.

In literature, it is argued that the space between could also overcome some of the issues stemming from the typical fly-in/fly-out engagement common in development projects, where community insights are only skin deep (Dwyer & Buckle, 2009; Pugh et al., 2000), and therefore hold significant potential to improve the capacity building outcomes. Although the partnership approach using the space between is relatively new, community-focused researchers are adapting the space between to develop hybrid versions suitable for qualitative inquiries (Paechter, 2013). To date the space between has been successfully leveraged in public health studies using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach in Fiji (Singh et al., 2022), in the exploration of grief (Breen, 2007), and in research into multiculturalism and race (Dwyer & Buckle, 2009).

2.1.1.2 Lifelong learning

The closing of capacity gaps faced by farmers through education has been a central tenet of development projects since the 1950s, anchored in a desire to improve rural livelihoods (Cook et al., 2021; Norton & Alwang, 2020). Although a majority of programs were undoubtedly well-intended, the success of the approaches to educating learners, whose knowledge systems and culture differ greatly from content developers or facilitators has been mixed (Cook et al., 2021; Haug, 1999). This has led to a growing focus on effective adult education systems and the creation of spaces and approaches that respect smallholder farmers as adult learners from culturally embedded contexts (Cook et al., 2021; Pamphilon, 2015).

Central to this new focus is the concept of lifelong learning, which acknowledges that learning continues throughout one’s life. Lifelong learning further identifies that knowledge in the context of rural communities can come from many sources, and the meaning of education is then filtered through many of their own frameworks of beliefs which are again culturally embedded (Pamphilon, 2015). Although there is widespread acceptance of lifelong learning and the use of the concept is informing policy and literature, there is an absence of it being embedded into projects directed at capacity gaps in low- and middle-income countries (Pamphilon, 2015). What is often overlooked is the orientation of adult learners in many low- and middle-income countries. Learners in these countries are often informed by the idea of their education being limited and therefore limiting to them as learners and are not aware of the many knowledges they have developed through ‘informal and incidental learning’ (Pamphilon, 2015, p. 110).

Lifelong learning is a concept that recognises that learning will continue throughout life and has become a central concept in progressive education projects throughout low- and middle-income countries (Pamphilon, 2015). Lifelong learning also respects and acknowledges the multiple forms of knowledge developed within rural communities and how new knowledge will be filtered through existing cultural lenses.

2.1.1.3 Situated learning

In creating content that was both culturally responsive and problem-centred, the design of content also borrowed from the theory of situated learning. Situated learning conceives learning as a socio-cultural phenomenon, where knowledge and skills are learnt within the contexts in which they will be applied (Hedegaard, 1998). A key premise is that learning is not separated from the world but exists in complex social environments. PNG is a collectivist society, where Wantok reciprocities and obligations control much of daily life and will supersede business or project obligations (Floyd, 2019; Hukula, 2017) and therefore coursebook content needed to acknowledge the complex rules which govern society and thus learning in PNG. Wantok refers to an informal and complex organisation of community reciprocity that was originally based on a shared language, but can be based on location, kinship, social/religious affiliation or simply in a shared belief of reciprocity (Hukula, 2017).

The focus of the content in situated learning is on application rather than retention (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Learning about upstream supply chain management, for example, was for the purpose of understanding the supply chain of their own business to complete a section of the loan application, rather than for learners to retain the supply chain knowledge simply to be more educated farmers who may use that knowledge in the future. Situated learning also incorporates a community of practice in its approach. The adult learners in the PNG context are communities of farmers, coming together in a collective way to learn and reflect. Group identity and community functioning trump individualism (Floyd, 2019), and a benefit from this shared identity is that communities of practice form intuitively, although facilitation remains a challenge (Radcliffe et al., 2016). Recent literature has reported that communities of practice in PNG can aid the effectiveness of education programs and agricultural extension because learning occurs in a social setting through dialogue with others in the community (Floyd, 2019; Hainzer et al., 2021).

Our approach leveraged the established networks and communities of practice that have been built and nurtured over five years as part of the larger project. With community already such a central tenet of PNG society, a focus of the larger project and our financial literacy curriculum was encouraging informal learning through collaborative interactions with farmers and embedding the idea of the right to lifelong learning through ongoing engagement with members of their community (of practice).

3. The curricular design approach and the development of learner-centred content

The larger project in which this curriculum was designed focuses on building smallholder capacities within a complex cultural context to develop sustainable rural livelihoods. This section describes the intentions of the curriculum design and how its elements sought to achieve its livelihood outcomes. This section also outlines the positionality of the authors.

3.1 Author positionality and the relationship to the space between

Positionality is an important part of the space between, and the approach relies on active reflexivity into how the researcher’s position is influencing the development of the curriculum. As the coursebook authors are embedded within a research-for-development project, they came to the design of content as both researchers and practitioners, aligned by the common experience of delivering research outcomes while working towards development outcomes on the funded project targeting rural farming communities in PNG.

Author Gard occupies a unique space to translate the inside out and effectively bridge content to adult learners in PNG with a limiting education. Australian-born and educated as an anthropologist and teacher in Australia, he has worked in PNG for the last 25 years. His first experience with adult learners in PNG was incredibly formative. As a volunteer adult trainer in a very remote corner of Eastern Highlands Province, he spent two years working on education projects where the cultural reflexes that influence adult learners remained visible and uncomplicated. He then worked in the urban centre of Madang as a volunteer High School teacher and adult trainer, where the same cultural reflexes continued to influence how adults learned, although buried deep enough beneath the rites and rituals of formal education and urban experience as to be almost invisible to someone without experience of adult learners in their rural communities.

Author Gard now has a lifetime of experience working directly with and inside communities, training other people to work with and inside communities, and developing training materials for communities covering content on organisational capacity, health and infectious disease management, the PNG National Standard for Community Development Workers, participatory approaches, and family team planning. In addition to being fluent in the constantly evolving Melanesian lingua franca Tok Pisin, author Gard’s expertise in the language makes him one of the few PNG practitioners who understand how the evolution of Tok Pisin influences the thinking of adult learners. Through a lifetime of experience, fluency in Melanesian Tok Pisin and a deep knowledge of traditional and informal wisdoms, author Gard has continued to accumulate ethnographic insights into how to translate the inside out and the outside in, from the space between.

Author Hainzer came to the development of content with experience in corporate finance in Western organisations and agricultural projects supported by government agencies in Southeast Asia. His experience with PNG farmers and communities has been built over a relatively short timeframe of three years with multiple visits in-country. His experiences have shown him the enormous capacity of rural communities and smallholder farmers, inspiring him to advocate for community-centric solutions that respect local practices and knowledge. Born in Australia, his view of the content was captured through an educated Western male perspective. Through a partnership of deep content knowledge (Hainzer) and deep cultural insights (Gard), the authors were able to inhabit the space between to explore how to best communicate the complexity and nuance in the process of applying for finance for adult learners in PNG.

In designing and developing a curriculum relevant to adult learners with a limiting education, we drew inspiration and guidance from Chambers and Conway (1992). According to Chambers and Conway (1992), sustainable rural livelihoods can be achieved by enhancing capacities, improving equity, and fostering social sustainability.

3.2 Enhancing capacities

In enhancing livelihood capacities, the goal is to equip learners with the ability to be adaptive and versatile in the face of stress and shocks, while having the skills to identify and exploit diverse and constantly changing resources and opportunities (Chambers & Conway, 1992). To achieve this goal, Chambers and Conway (1992) recommend both ‘flexible credit for small enterprises’ and ‘education for livelihood-linked capacities’ as practical outcomes for enhancing capacities. In this research project, the focus of the curriculum was on content designed to be relevant to adult learners with a limiting education, to be learner-centred to reflect the culture and knowledge systems of PNG communities and to be problem-centred on the task of applying for finance. Therefore, in aligning our approach with the objective of enhancing livelihood capacities and the broader aims of the project, content needed to be culturally responsive, with a focus on practical application. In this regard, the concept of lifelong learning (Pamphilon, 2015) and the theory of situated learning (Hedegaard, 1998) were well suited.

Lifelong learning is a concept that recognises that learning will continue throughout life and has become a central concept in progressive education projects throughout low- and middle-income countries (Pamphilon, 2015). Lifelong learning also respects and acknowledges the multiple forms of knowledge developed within rural communities and how new knowledge will be filtered through existing cultural lenses. Furthermore, as the intended outcome of the coursebook content was the completion of a practical task (livelihood-linked capacities), the approach used to develop content was guided further by situated learning and its foundation of learning as a socio-cultural phenomenon and its focus on application rather than retention of knowledge (Hedegaard, 1998; Pamphilon et al., 2014)

3.3 Improving equity and increasing social sustainability

Efforts to improve equity involve promoting a more equitable distribution of assets and capacities, with a specific focus on prioritising the inclusion of marginalised groups such as women and young people (Chambers & Conway, 1992). Connected to improving equity, increasing social sustainability focuses on improving livelihoods while maintaining or enhancing the relationships and assets on which livelihoods depend (Chambers & Conway, 1992). Increasing social sustainability recognises that there is no simple correlation between education and capacity; enhancing one person’s capacities may inadvertently reduce another person’s capacities or ability to engage with capacity building. Promoting social sustainability, therefore, requires a careful consideration of the broader social and cultural context to ensure all individuals benefit from capacity-building activities.

Although the coursebook content has a strong focus on application (in line with the focus of Chambers and Conway (1992) on education for livelihood-linked capacity), it also integrates principles of equality, participation, and inclusion which are necessary for building trust within the business and between the business and their supply chain. This is crucial because a lack of finance is a barrier that agribusinesses face in PNG, but on its own, more finance will not address the barriers that prevent marginalised people, especially women, from improving their livelihoods (Kosec et al., 2021). As identified by a female community educator in PNG, ‘until we break through the attitudes, we are not ready for other training such as financial literacy’ (Pamphilon & Mikhailovich, 2017, p. 188).

The coursebook content targeted communities and included practical ways to encourage participation and group equality. Women’s inequality of opportunity is a major barrier to sustainable development in PNG (Kosec et al., 2021); however, addressing this inequality requires renegotiating traditional and informal wisdom. If development projects support women or women’s groups, in isolation from men (or without men at least agreeing that it will help their community of practice), then outcomes for women will be dismissed as irrelevant by men, and ultimately will not lead to the renegotiation of traditional and informal wisdom required to address women’s inequality (Kosec et al., 2021).To build sustainable rural livelihoods, it is not enough to enhance capacities in isolation. Content covering vital agribusiness skills needs to include practical, formalistic advice on how to improve equity and increase social sustainability. By doing so, learners can acquire the necessary skills to improve their own livelihoods and those of the wider community.

Utilising the space between provided the bridge between translating our theoretical framework and livelihood objectives into a learner-centred curriculum. Our space between combined content expertise with deep anthropological insights into the adult learning culture of PNG. In inhabiting the space between author Hainzer identified the essential knowledge required to understand the application process while guiding farmers through the process of accessing finance. Having lived and worked in remote villages and urban centres throughout PNG, author Gard has been able to embed himself within communities that have offered him a multitude of anthropological observations into learners and the culture of learning in PNG. Directed by author Gard, the authors then identified culturally relevant methods to effectively communicate content with adult learners informed by a limiting education.

3.4 Overcoming a limiting education with learner-centred content

The limiting education experienced by adult learners in PNG means learners do not read unless required to and find it challenging to engage with complex or nuanced ideas which are explained through text. Therefore, to minimise the apprehension to large amounts of text-based information, the essential financial content was broken down into five manageable steps which follow the process of completing an application for finance (see Table 1 for an overview of coursebook content). Each coursebook follows the same layout for consistency and practical exercises related to the content are used throughout each coursebook. Essential content was designed and communicated through a common example of a family business familiar to PNG adult learners and further explained through observations, stories, parables, analogies, metaphors, catchphrases, and examples familiar and accessible to rural communities of PNG.

Table 1. Overview of each coursebook.

	Content half steps (Tok Pisin translation)
Coursebook 1
Step 1: Research the business ideas	Make a list of all the possible business ideas (Bungim ol bisnis aidia) Complete market research (Raun na wokim wok painimaut) Select the most promising ideas for the next stage of analysis (Skelim gut ol bisnis aidia long paini wane mol aidia wok long go pas)
Coursebook 2
Step 2. Analyse the best business ideas	Conduct the business analysis for the best ideas (Glasim gut ol bisnis aidia we I wok long go pas) Bring together the members for a meeting to decide (Singautim ol manmaeri memba long kam bung)
Step 3. Decide on the best business idea	Explain the reason for the meeting (Tokim ol manmeri wanem as bilong kibung) Work through the market research together (Kliarim ol manmeri long wanem bisnis aidia wok long go pas) Decide together on which idea is best (Ol manmeri memba wokim disisen long wanem bisnis long mekim) Make a plan for the next steps (Toktok long wanem ol neks step)
Coursebook 3
Step 4. Complete the business plan	Complete the business plan (Wokim bisnis plen) Bring members together for their input (Singautim ol manmeri memba long kam bung)
Step 5. Confirm the business plan	Explain the purpose of the meeting (Tokim ol manmeri wanem as bilong kibung) Work through the business plan together (Putim bisnis plen long ples klia) Develop a consensus between the group (Kisim tok orait long ol manmeri memba long gohet na mekim) Make a plan for the next steps (Toktok long wanem ol neks step)

A unifying metaphor of a fruit tree is used throughout the coursebooks to provide a broad overview of the ideas central to financial planning and accessing finance. For example, in the coursebooks, business income and savings are represented as roots of the fruit tree as they help stabilise the tree and give it nutrients. The broad overview of content is combined with a specific example of a married couple wanting to analyse their dress-making business to provide a real-world example of the new content in application. Following a married couple and their business provides a way of tying familiar knowledge (a fruit tree) with the unfamiliar knowledge of financial literacy. In one example from the coursebooks, the couple is planning their business so that money will flow through it each year in the same way that nutrients flow through a strong and healthy fruit tree. The unifying metaphor of a fruit tree translates the essentials of financial literacy, which is often beyond the grasp of most people in rural PNG, into something more familiar which provides them with the confidence to approach the new content. It leverages a widespread familiarity with gardening and natural systems and in essence, it makes financial literacy a physical thing, which can be communicated and negotiated within a community of practice, and over time become a base upon which new knowledge can be introduced.

A limiting education and the subsequent apprehension to reading means that images and summary pages provide an effective way to essentialise text-based content. Visual aids and summary pages not only assist in memorisation but can also bridge language barriers, which is vital in PNG with over 850 local languages (Simoncini et al., 2017). For this reason, the coursebooks also utilised several memory aids, featuring local illustrations created for the coursebooks which summarised content or messages for participants at the end of each section (see Figure 1 below for an example). These summaries were also available as a single page to take home, which ties into the tangible nature of achievement for adult learners in PNG.

Figure 1. Example of local images used as memory aids.

As an expert in Melanesian Tok Pisin Author Gard has found PNG adult learners with a limiting education prefer to hear information in Tok Pisin. However, those PNG adult learners who can read prefer to read in simple English, as Tok Pisin is a phonetic language that is constantly evolving, and its written form can vary. In previous capacity-building projects, Author Gard has found it is easier for adult learners to connect new information to traditional or informal wisdom if essential messages are also written in Melanesian Tok Pisin. Therefore, coursebook content was written in simple English, and the essential messages were also written in Tok Pisin, so that essential content can more easily be connected to traditional and informal wisdom (see Figure 2 below for an example). The power of dual language content, in combination with rich illustrations, was key to fostering learning in another agricultural learning project in PNG targeting women farmers and their families (Simoncini et al., 2017, 2019).

Figure 2. Example of essential messages written in Tok Pisin and English.

A limiting education, and the view that the right to knowledge is hierarchical, are also why coursebooks were designed to be a single book, rather than having separate trainer and participant coursebooks. Hierarchical structures of power continue to permeate PNG society (Roscoe, 2000), including the classroom (Burke, 1996), and in the experience of author Gard having two coursebooks amplifies the limiting education of the adult learner participants. From the adult learner’s point of view, the trainer’s handbook must have specialist and hidden knowledge which they themselves do not have the right to know. If there is no hidden knowledge, the participants are more likely to use the one coursebook to deliver training themselves or pass on its messages, as they now have all the information and feel like they have the right to.

4. Discussion of the challenges in delivering content in PNG

The experiences of participants have not been captured in this paper; instead, the following section explores the observations of the authors in delivering the coursebooks and discusses some of the ongoing challenges in delivering rural education in PNG.

4.1 Finding available and supported community development workers

Development has a long history in PNG and learning within development projects has become a significant source of education and capacity building for rural communities (Pamphilon & Mikhailovich, 2017; Pryke & Barker, 2017; Simoncini et al., 2021). However, a practical challenge for our financial literacy curriculum, and indeed for all training in PNG, is the delivery mechanism. Many projects and international development agencies are targeting capacity improvements throughout PNG society. However, those primarily reasonable for delivering capacity-building projects are community development workers (CDWs). CDWs are employed throughout community development projects in PNG and occupy a unique space between or hybridity of community memberships as they regularly work within communities of which they are not direct members. As CDWs occupy a space between they play a vital role in the capacity development of rural communities as they provide a bridge between capacity development and the livelihood outcomes sought by farmers and projects. As identified throughout development organisations and PNG civil society, better equipping CDWs to perform their role is important, because they are best placed to work with groups and communities to promote development that is participatory, inclusive, and community-led (Konobo et al., 2015; Robinson, 2018).

Our coursebooks were designed to be delivered by CDWs. The CDWs employed in the larger project in which this research is embedded have a long history of working within PNG communities of which they are not direct members and have confidence in approaching new communities. However, CDWs throughout PNG are also informed by their own limiting education, and therefore the focus on content needs to build the confidence of CDWs when performing their role. As CDWs play such a crucial role in knowledge diffusion within PNG communities, our coursebooks were developed to better equip CDWs with content that was not only desired by communities but was also culturally adapted using informal wisdoms and stories with which CDWs are likely to be familiar in order to increase the CDWs’ authority to talk and therefore build confidence.

A challenge going forward will be finding qualified instructors or CDWs, who receive sufficient support and training from their organisations. Although capacity building forms a central part of rural development, a lack of available and supported CDWs is an ongoing issue in PNG faced by most extension projects and educational institutions that are focused on capacity development (Renich, 2007; Sitapai, 2012). Developing the skills of community members to take on the role of community educators is also a challenge (Pamphilon & Mikhailovich, 2017). This widespread heterogeneity in the quality of education and educators stems from the deep inequalities still present throughout PNG society (Guthrie, 2003; Renich, 2007; Ryan et al., 2017; Sitapai, 2012).

An additional unforeseen challenge that impacted the delivery of the financial literacy curriculum was the COVID-19 Pandemic. Our response to COVID-19 was to adjust the coursebooks into workbooks, to allow learners or groups to follow the steps without the need for a trainer or CDW. This solution is not ideal. In PNG, adults learn more effectively within a community of practice rather than from self-directed learning through reading. Communities of practice in PNG have been proposed to improve literacy rates in any age group (Floyd, 2019) because adult learners in PNG do not read unless they must and struggle with complexity or nuance explained through text. Web-based audio-visual training may prove to be a more successful delivery mechanism for some groups, as technology in PNG is catching up with this possibility; however, extension delivered by information and communication technologies can run into similar issues to those of face-to-face extension and this only further amplifies access inequalities (Nakasone & Torero, 2016).

This trade-off between pragmatic self-directed learning without a community of practice and finding available and supported CDWs or external trainers to deliver complex content such as agribusiness skills presents a significant challenge for delivering capacity projects in PNG. Finding a balance between these two approaches will be crucial for the success of capacity-building initiatives moving forward.

4.2 Social equality and reflected authority

Adult learners in PNG weigh the value of new information based on the trainer’s authority to talk. The authority and right to talk come from age, status, reputation, and educational attainment. In most situations, it is very difficult for women or the young to have (and to feel they have) the right or authority to talk (Spark, 2010). One way to overcome this as identified by author Gard is using reflected authority. Having two trainers working together (normally a man working with a woman or younger person) means they can jointly shoulder the burden of expectations, and this also amplifies the authority of one or both to talk, which allows women or young people to speak with the reflected authority of the other trainer.

Our coursebooks are written to be facilitated by two (or more) co-trainers working together. Using a modified tag-team or traditional co-teaching approach (Villa et al., 2013), content is delivered by one trainer through a short 5-minute presentation, after which there is a practical activity or task where the participants must use the content (situated learning). As one trainer is taking their turn, the next trainer is getting ready for theirs. The co-teaching approach builds the confidence of the trainers, who also have a limiting education. It gives the trainers more authority to talk because the authority of one amplifies the other.

The power of reflected authority has also been observed in other education projects (Pamphilon & Mikhailovich, 2017) and in providing sexual health and well-being information in PNG (Neuendorf et al., 2021). In spite of a number of projects in different fields are attempting to overcome gender and age biases in PNG (Gua, 2021; Pamphilon et al., 2014), the marginalised voices of women and young people present an ongoing issue for the delivery of content within PNG.

4.3 Formalism vs learner-centred delivery

This paper argues that effective agricultural extension to equip adult learners with vital agribusiness skills in PNG needs people from the space between. People from the space between move back and forth between farming communities and outside organisations and have deep experience in PNG translating foreign content into the knowledge systems familiar to farmers. Pursuing partnerships of people who can genuinely inhabit the space between offers a powerful way to design and deliver learner- and problem-centred extension curricula. However, in moving away from didactic top-down outside-is-right approaches, bottom-up inside-out approaches to education have historically struggled in PNG (Guthrie, 2003). This is largely because the new bottom-up approaches often took an emancipatory focus that aimed at surfacing assumptions and uncovering power structures and less on the more ideologically loaded challenge of abiding by the reality of learners with a greater familiarity with formalistic education (Guthrie, 2003). Previous education research has further found that learner-centred curricula do not align with the culture of education in PNG and in some cases are culturally inappropriate (Guthrie, 2003; Hahambu et al., 2012). Guthrie (2003) proposes that improvements made to formalistic approaches to education will be more effective in improving the quality of teaching in PNG, rather than replacing it with emerging education theories.

The approach presented in this paper is inspired by the participatory, bottom-up view of development long championed by Chambers (Chambers, 1989) and promoted by PNG-based practitioners (Ravulo et al., 2019; MacDonald, 2008; Pamphilon, 2015). In borrowing from Chambers and Conway (1992) our approach focused on enhancing capacities in ways that aligned with adult learning culture using lifelong and situated learning theories, while also progressing principles of equality and social sustainability that are necessary to sustain enhanced capacities. Furthermore, the partnership approach detailed in this paper where deep anthropological insights into the learning culture combine with content expertise holds the potential to acknowledge a familiarity with formalism, while still pursuing bottom-up approaches to curricular design and delivery. Although bottom-up approaches are still met with a legacy of formalism amongst adult learners, recent education projects in PNG are introducing bottom-up approaches with increasing success (Caffery et al., 2022; Hill, 2021; Simoncini et al., 2020, 2021).

Although a greater familiarity with formalism and top-down education persists in PNG, the space between is offering insight into how new ways of curricular design can incorporate the current learning culture while still focussing on improving access to extension and its capacity-building outcomes. In habiting the space between, the role of the researcher in this action research process relies on constant reflexivity, akin to the adaptive pluralism identified by Chambers (2010). The reflexivity in this process requires an ongoing assessment of whether curriculum design and delivery were delivering on the intended livelihood outcomes and community focus. Although a relatively straightforward idea, constantly putting each stage of curriculum development through a community-based filter required additional time and a commitment to community-based education. The additional resources and skills required to meet this reflexivity are often unavailable within projects due to many complex reasons based on resource scarcity and a lack of familiarity amongst practitioners in working from a space between. This is arguably why such a promising approach continues to be underutilised in the design of extension curricula.

5. Conclusion

The coursebooks described in this paper were designed to overcome one of the largest agribusiness challenges facing smallholders – accessing capital. The lack of access to capital continues to impede the financial viability of smallholder farming systems throughout low- and middle-income counties. However, agricultural extension has continued to rely on subject-centre circular design focussed technology transfer and production challenges, whereas vital agribusiness skills needed to get the most from production improvements have been long neglected due to the nuance and complexity required to communicate these skills to adult learners with a limiting education.¹

The approach to curricular design described in this paper utilises education theory entwined with local and informal knowledge so that learners and trainers have greater confidence in tackling complex content. Although the COVID-19 pandemic curtailed the rollout of the financial literacy coursebooks, one application and business plan has been funded by a financial institution in Goroka, and the second application and business plan is currently awaiting finance.² That farmers have received finance is arguably a measure of success for the training; however, the extent to which the approach helped the farmer groups embed financial literacy and principles of democratic governance as moral values into their custom requires further research. With inroads being made to overcome the foremost agribusiness challenge facing smallholders throughout low- and middle-income countries, this speaks to the power of the space between to place the complex content within the context of the adult learners it targets and provides optimism that further livelihood improvements are also within reach.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) under Grant [HORT/2014/097]

Notes

1. This article focused on the process of developing the coursebooks, and only briefly summarised the details of the content within each coursebook. Full access to the coursebooks is at: https://pngcdwstandard.com/resources-for-use-by-cdws-working-with-wards-communities-groups-and-smes/.

2. The definition of a smallholder farmer varies by country. Smallholder farmers in PNG who participated in the training typically farm an area from half a hectare to five hectares.