The Fellowship Programme in Social Management, run by a non-governmental organization, aims at training development workers. It can be located within the tradition of non-formal educational experiments which try to develop a 'pedagogy of the oppressed'. The paper describes the model of education developed by the programme – the pedagogical assumptions, the integration of theoretical knowledge and the affective elements of learning in the context of both the individual and the group, and the development of the curriculum. The paper concludes that such experiments, while not providing solutions to the problems of the formal educational system, open up dialogue on the creation of a democratic theory of education. Such a theory implies an open teacher-taught relationship, and highlights the need for reflective educational institutions. Finally, the paper stresses the need for a democratic system of education to promote academic excellence and social justice, from the primary level upwards.
