Developments in artificial intelligence are driving change in education and pose new questions of educators and learners. Annapurna Ayyappan cuts through the noise to identify the core issues for lifelong learning
From television and radio broadcasts and podcasts to social media platforms, massive open online courses and open educational resources, technology has greatly expanded the horizons of informal and non-formal learning (UIL, 2022). It has also presented learners and educators with new challenges, as well as opportunities for empowerment and exploration. Now, with the advent of generative artificial intelligence and other AI applications, this trend is set to accelerate even further, as highlighted by Oleksandra Poquet and Maarten de Laat (2021), who describe AI as a ‘transformative force reshaping how individuals encounter information, navigate their surroundings, and make decisions’.
The Inclusive Lifelong Learning Conference gave critical impetus to the implementation of the Marrakech Framework for Action and reinforced CONFINTEA VII’s view of adult learning and education as a condition for a hopeful future, writes Daniel Baril, Chair of the Governing Board of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning
In
my closing remarks to last week’s Inclusive Lifelong Learning Conference in
Bali, I tried to capture the spirit of the work undertaken by the UNESCO
Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) and its partners in shaping the
conference and its outcome document, the Bali Manifesto. Reflecting on the
moral and policy challenges of inclusive learning and education throughout life
I recalled that adult learning and education has always been about hope: hope
for each individual to be able to complete basic education successfully and,
most importantly, to learn to read and write; hope for each adult to be able to
learn what each person must know in order to fulfill their responsibilities,
grow as a human being and engage in society and the world of work. In a sense,
adult learning and education is a condition for hope.
In 2022, UIL marked the 70th anniversary of its foundation. Looking ahead to 2023, the Institute’s Governing Board chair, Daniel Baril, reflects on its founding mandate and its continuing relevance to the challenges the world faces today
UIL’s 70th anniversary was an opportunity to celebrate not only the foundation of UIL as an organization, but also of an educational project valuing the right to education for all and the lifelong learning perspective.
With the UN’s Transforming Education Summit just days away, Daniel Baril, chair of the committee responsible for the final declaration of CONFINTEA VII, reflects on its important commitment to better financing of adult education and why Member States need to start delivering on it
At the
closing session of the seventh UNESCO International Conference on Adult Education
(CONFINTEA VII) in June, representatives of UNESCO Member States adopted by
acclamation the Marrakech Framework for Action (MFA). Commitments expressed through
the MFA will guide the international debate on adult education for the next 12
years and will be among the measures by which national policies will be evaluated.
Implementing the MFA is now the task awaiting national governments.
Before its
final adoption, the MFA had been submitted to an extensive consultative
process. First, the CONFINTEA VII consultative committee made recommendations on
a preliminary draft. Second, an online public consultation gave all
stakeholders the opportunity to comment on a modified draft. Finally, before
being tabled at the conference, Member States had the chance to comment on a
final draft. This consultative process validates the MFA as the legitimate
expression of an international consensus on priorities in adult learning and education
(ALE). Continue reading →
The understanding of adult learning and education affirmed in GRALE 5 and at CONFINTEA VII is only the start – we must continue to make our voices heard, writes Christiana Nikolitsa-Winter
GRALE 5 shows that although progress has
been made, notably in the participation of women, the picture overall remains
uneven. Vulnerable groups, those who stand to benefit most from learning
opportunities, are the least likely to access them. The education of migrants,
refugees and displaced people remained a low priority for most countries, while
around two-thirds of countries reported no improvements in the participation of
people with disabilities or prisoners. Some countries reported that participation
of rural populations had declined, while participation of older adults had decreased
in 38 of the 159 surveyed countries. Continue reading →
Lifelong learning can empower individuals, support sustainable economic growth and contribute to just societies. That is why the EU is focused on making it a right for all, writes Maya Ivanova of the European Commission
The right
to lifelong learning is an investment in our future – an investment that pays
dividends many times over by helping people to maintain and acquire skills, to
participate fully in society and to manage successfully transitions in the
labour market. Today, European Union (EU) countries are firmly committed to
making the right to lifelong learning a reality for all. The road ahead hides hurdles,
but also opportunities. Having embarked on a journey towards universal access
to lifelong learning, the EU can offer insights valuable beyond the continent.
The world of work is undergoing a
fundamental shift. Although it is not easy to picture exactly the jobs of the
future, understanding the driving forces
that shape our tomorrow can help us prepare for the challenges ahead. Continue reading →
The challenges facing education demand responses that are genuinely transformative. But how should we understand transformative education and what can we do to promote it, asks Katarina Popović
The crises
caused by the COVID-19 pandemic inspired a wave of new and revived concepts, ideas
and practices in education. The need for a new approach had been highlighted in
response to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and our likely
failure to deliver against Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on
education by 2030. Continuing educational disparities and exacerbated gaps and
setbacks underscore the urgent need to promote adult education and lifelong
learning for all.
One of the
ideas born out of this sense of urgency is ‘transformative education’, which
UNESCO defines as teaching
and learning ‘geared to motivate and empower happy and healthy learners to take
informed decisions and actions at the individual, community and global levels’.
The concept dominates discussions about post-crises education and is perceived
as a panacea for many of today’s problems in education.
Without robust, high-quality and relevant adult learning and education programmes, we are in danger of neglecting our workforce and reducing the chances of a sustainable future, argues Paul Comyn of the International Labour Organization.
Adult learning and
education (ALE) serves multiple
purposes in many different local and national community contexts, one of which
is to support adults to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will
enable them to look for and find work, either in paid employment or through
other livelihoods. Employability is a key concept that underpins the work of
the International Labour Organization (ILO), which it defines
as the ‘portable competencies and qualifications that enhance an individual’s
capacity to make use of the education and training opportunities available in
order to secure and retain decent work, to progress within the enterprise and
between jobs, and to cope with changing technology and labour market conditions.’
Repairing our broken relationship with the planet means radically rethinking how we understand the process of education and formation, argues Timothy D. Ireland
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Grand international conferences such as CONFINTEA provide
an opportunity for the international community to weigh up what has and has not
been achieved in the previous decade or more and, on that basis, to agree to
new signposts and guidelines for the coming years. CONFINTEA VII will perhaps
go down in history as the conference which took place at one of the most
delicate and critical moments in recent history, since the beginning of the
series in 1949. While the sanitary crisis caused by COVID-19 has gained more
space in the press, the unravelling crisis which refuses to go away is that of
climate change and global warming. At times like this, education is generally
indicated as part of the solution. In 2022, there is a feeling that education
is no longer part of the solution but a major part of the problem: more of the
same will only deepen the crisis and aggravate our problems.
Over the last decades, we have seen what Paul Stanistreet calls the ‘depoliticization of education and the grim instrumentalism of neoliberal conceptions of its purpose and value’, in which the focus of education has no longer been that of preparing people for life but only for the world of work. In a similar vein, José Mujica, the former president of Uruguay, describes the process as that of transforming people into consumers and not into citizens, despite the ongoing discussion on global citizenship. The crux of the question is the relationship between the human and natural worlds, or between humanity and other forms of life. For the Brazilian Indigenous leader and philosopher Ailton Krenak, ‘Everything is nature. The cosmos is nature. Everything that I can think of is nature’. The world into which Indigenous people have resisted being incorporated is a world which has converted nature into ‘resources’ to be exploited in such a way that the market becomes ‘everything that is outside/beyond us’. Krenak returns to one of the concepts to which we have delegated the power of attempting to reduce human aggressions on the planet – sustainable development – which he describes as ‘a myth invented by the major corporations to justify the assault which they penetrate on our idea of nature’. The COVID-19 pandemic is not an externality but an organism of the planet, a virus, which has launched an attack on ‘the form of unsustainable life which we have adopted by our free choice’: a living example perhaps of what the English poet Tennyson called ‘Nature, red in tooth and claw’. We have developed a style of life which has become divorced from the living organism – Earth – characterized by its attempts to suppress diversity and to deny the plurality of forms of life, existence and habits. Continue reading →
On World Book Day 2021, the German Prison Library Support Group
(Förderverein Gefängnisbüchereien e.V.), in cooperation with the UNESCO
Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), the Ministry of Justice of the
German State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the German reading
project KonTEXT in Munich, implemented its first nationwide
writing contest for prisoners. They were invited to write up to three
pages on one or more of the following topics: life, freedom or hope. In the
following months, prisoners submitted personal reflections, autobiographical
writings, fiction, poetry, accounts of traumatic experiences, song texts, and
more.
I was part of the small organizing committee and jury, reading and judging
the nearly 400 entries from more than 300 inmates from 80 prisons and five juvenile
detention centres from all over Germany. I can say for the whole jury that we were
deeply touched by the contributions. Some made us laugh, some made us cry – but
they all gave us an insight into the hopes, feelings and dreams of the authors and
the reality of life in prison. We are grateful to the authors for sharing their
life experiences, thoughts of freedom and hopes. It was moving to hear the
silenced voices of people that society decided to lock away. Continue reading →
