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.
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 →
As preparations begin in earnest for CONFINTEA VII, it is critical that Southeast Asia continues to contribute to the global movement for adult education and lifelong learning as part of a sustainable future, writes Ethel Agnes Pascua-Valenzuela
Lifelong learning plays a significant role
in building a learning society and, therefore, supporting a nation’s economic
development. Because of this, there is growing awareness in Southeast Asia of
the importance of lifelong learning and of engaging stakeholders on issues of sustainable
development.
Interest in
developing lifelong learning systems took root in Southeast Asia in the early
2010s, when the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO)
established the SEAMEO Regional Centre for Lifelong Learning in Ho Chi Minh
City, Viet Nam. The centre functions as a setting for countries in the
region to share knowledge, strengthen national educational strategies, train teachers,
and expand cooperation between universities and civil society in order to
enhance literacy and lifelong learning opportunities for all. Continue reading →
Adult education has a critical role to play in combatting climate change, not only in supporting changes in behaviour but also, and much more crucially, in giving people the means to challenge, change and galvanize political will, argues Paul Stanistreet
You know that moment
in a disaster movie when a TV anchor conveys the terrible news that the world
is facing a catastrophic threat and hope is all but lost. Well, it happened
yesterday for real. The funny thing is, hardly anyone noticed.
4 April 2022 may go
down as one of the darkest days in the late history of humanity, a marker not
only of our inhuman treatment of one another, the harrowing cruelty of war, but
also of our failure to act on climate change, despite a mountain of evidence
and the starkest warnings yet from climate scientists that we are passing the
point of no return when it comes to staving off its worst effects. Continue reading →
The next
year will be formative for the field of adult learning and education (ALE).
Preparations
are underway for the seventh International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA
VII), in all likelihood in summer 2022. Meanwhile, the fifth Global Report on Adult Learning and
Education (GRALE) is being
finalized, to be published in late spring next year. Add to this UNESCO’s
Futures of Education commission, which will report at the end of this year, and
the fast-approaching midway point in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, and it is clear that this is a moment of potential change in
education, and in adult education in particular, which I believe we need to
grasp. The enormous challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the changing
work environment, demographic shifts and, most critically, the climate crisis,
mean that more of the same is no longer an option we can responsibly pursue. Continue reading →
The largest remote learning experiment in history has taught us many lessons, among them the need to embrace change and apply our new understanding of the benefits of blended learning to foster a more equitable future, writes Niamh O’Reilly
Urgent calls to return to on-site learning neglect the
potential of blended learning to increase and widen access. While education
systems are notoriously resistant to change, the COVID-19 pandemic, almost
overnight, forced a seismic shift to remote learning across further and higher
education. This change brought issues of educational inequality into sharp
focus; those with resources and skills had an advantage in taking the step into
uncharted digital learning territory. Marginalized learners, meanwhile, faced
not only existing obstacles stemming from structural inequalities but also new
challenges arising from online learning.
Yet, emerging data from Ireland’s National Further
Education and Training (FET) Learner Forum suggest that thanks to Irish state investment
in addressing digital poverty, support needs and improved pedagogy, many marginalized
learners now want a future in which blended learning, a mix of both online and
in-person learning, is prevalent. Given the scale of the impact of COVID-19 on existing
educational disadvantage, it is prudent to pause and take stock, lest we waste
the insights gained from this global online learning experiment. At this
pivotal point, we must grasp the opportunity to create a more equitable
education system by building on lessons from those who experienced this
monumental change, the learners. Carving out a new, diverse, more inclusive
landscape is possible if the education system is open to learning. Continue reading →
