Appraising the image of formal education by informal educators

Discussion about the need for professionalization has accompanied the development of informal education from its very early stages. Some people believe informal education is staffed by temporary players whose main value derived in part from the fact that their work embodies the principles of altruism, hence they need no professional training. In contrast, others believe that work in this field is complex, hence appropriate training settings should be set up for those working in informal education as well. The aim of this research was to evaluate the perception of formal education by informal education educators. The research methodology is qualitative; it employs a structured interview of the participants and a semiotic analysis of pictures that participants were asked to provide that they felt represented the formal education system. The main findings of the semiotic analysis clearly show that the pictures chosen raise connotations of rigidity, emptiness, loneliness, sadness, insufficiency and boredom. Those images are strongly connected to the debate of recruiting resourceful and capable teachers to formal education systems in the era of accountability.