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 →
We will only achieve the Sustainable Development Goals if we focus more policy attention on adult learning and education. CONFINTEA VII could be a catalyst for this change, argues Rajesh Tandon
Over the
past 12 months of the pandemic, millions of citizens around the world have ‘unlearned’
old ways of being, while learning new behaviours. For rural communities in
India, lockdown created greater reliance on local sources of food, water and preventive
health care. For urban communities, the restrictions caused huge disruption as people’s
very lives and livelihoods depend very largely on mobility, ‘out-sourcing’ and
co-habitation. Millions of workers returned to their families in rural areas as
employment was suddenly cut off. Many millions acquired digital hardware for
the first time and learned to ‘get online’.
Families,
communities and societies continue to learn new ways of being in order to
navigate the changes affecting them. These new ways of being, in effect, create
new changes in communities and societies. If change is inevitable and necessary
for the evolution of life and community, so too is the criticality of learning
to navigate change. Continue reading →
Work on promoting adult learning and education is expanding and there are some encouraging signs. With the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development approaching its half-way point, next year’s seventh International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VII) will be a pivotal moment, writes Christiana Nikolitsa-Winter
This week, more than 300 representatives of civil society organizations and other stakeholders met online to kick off a five-year global campaign to promote adult learning and education (ALE) and make it more visible. ‘We are ALE’ aims to strengthen the voice of ALE and enable civil society organizations to speak with one voice in their advocacy.
It is one of a number of positive interventions
aiming to move ALE up the agenda of national and international education
policy. This is essential, as, across the globe, investment in ALE is shrinking
and action on ALE on the decline, despite what the pandemic has taught us about
its value and usefulness. In many places around the world, the great work of
previous decades in building a strong ALE sector is being undone. Continue reading →
As governments implement plans for post-pandemic recovery, the emphasis on getting children back to school risks further marginalizing adult learning and education. Now, more than ever, it is critical that we preserve a comprehensive understanding of the right to education, argues Daniel Baril
As we try, slowly
and uncertainly, to emerge from the pandemic, governments are defining the
framework for socio-economic recovery. The deconfinement of society, the reopening
of businesses, jump-starting economic growth, mass-producing a vaccine and
preparing for a possible second wave of infection are all priorities.
Education is
on the agenda too, as governments revise and resume school protocols. Restarting
formal schooling for children and young people is, without any doubt, urgent. Last
month, 275 former
world leaders, economists and business leaders
stressed the potentially catastrophic consequences of locking children and
youth out of learning for any longer, particularly for the most vulnerable among
them. Moreover, as economic recovery action plans are implemented, protecting
and increasing funding for education will be fundamental in the months and
years ahead. Continue reading →
The current crisis need not result in a further erosion of social and economic rights and the widening of inequalities – it also represents an opportunity to appeal to global solidarity and rehumanize lifelong learning, writes Maren Elfert
Educators around
the world are alarmed about the consequences of the COVIID-19 crisis. A lively
debate has emerged on what the world might look like in the aftermath of the
crisis in relation to education and more broadly. I would like to add my voice
to those who emphasize that our perspective must be bigger than COVID-19 and
that we should take the crisis as an opportunity to learn from past mistakes
and rethink our approach to education. As a recent article argued in relation
to schools, ‘When the Covid crisis finally ends, schools must never return to
normal’ (Sweeney, 2020), referring to the need to abandon harmful practices such
as deprofessionalizing teachers, excessive testing and the culture of rankings.
This discussion, of course, is related to how we organize our society and how
we deal with the larger environmental, economic, social and political crisis of
which COVID-19 is a symptom.
To paraphrase
Charles Dickens, there is potential in this crisis for the best of times or the
worst of times. The crisis could offer us an opportunity to rethink and
innovate our societies or to move further down the path of dehumanization of
education in terms of ‘one size fits all teaching’ in schools and lifelong
learning as a market commodity. Among the questions and issues that are raised
in the current debates are: In light of the public health and ensuing economic
crisis, will global inequalities in access to
education widen, disrupting progress towards
Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) (UNESCO/IIEP, 2020)? Distance education is being pushed by
corporate interests (Williamson,
2020), but it bears
the risk of further marginalizing disadvantaged students who do not have access
to technology and who depend on teacher-student relationships (Srivastava, 2020; Parramore, 2020). For many students, school represents a place to
socialize and often get the only meal of the day (UNICEF, 2020). Higher education institutions around the world are
preparing for significant drops of international students, and quite a number
of them will probably not survive. Will this lead to a reconsideration of
education as a market model, or just to even more tightened competition? Some
thinkers, such as the Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben (2020a; 2020b), are concerned about the de-humanization of human
beings as a consequence of ‘social distancing’. Arjun Appadurai, in a recent
keynote panel of UNESCO’s ‘Futures of Education’ initiative, warned of the risk
that education might be considered unimportant in these times of crisis (UNESCO, 2020). This might translate into cuts to education. Continue reading →
While everyone agrees that adult education has major social, economic and civic benefits, it remains a marginal concern for policy-makers. How, asks Sir Alan Tuckett, can we convince governments to make policies that live up to their commitments?
Adult
learning and education makes a difference. It enhances people’s dignity and
strengthens civil society. It supports the development of skills for the world
of today’s work and the capacity to address the challenges of rapid
technological, industrial, ecological demographic change. It fosters
inter-generational learning, and enriches learners’ engagement with arts,
respect for diversity and difference. Studies show its positive health impact,
its contribution to the resettlement of offenders, and the way it enriches
later lives. Most importantly adult learning and education gives a voice to
people too often silenced in the debates that shape our future. In the words of
Rethinking Education, adult learning and education fosters the common good.
All this is
endorsed by international conference after international conference. The
International Labour Office calls for universal lifelong learning; the World
Economic Forum argues that lifelong learning is of key importance in responding
to the development of robotics, artificial intelligence and the Fourth
Industrial Revolution. The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult
Competencies (PIAAC) surveys of adult skills, administered by the Organisation
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), are modified to recognise the
breadth of learning relevant to twenty-first century work. Governments sign up
to major commitments to improve literacy, to secure the right to education for
women as well as girls, and to no one being left behind. Continue reading →
As preparations begin for the seventh International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VII) in 2022, Daniel Baril, Chair of UIL’s Governing Board, argues that we need a new generation of adult learning and education policies
In matters
of adult learning and education, we live in paradoxical times. On the one hand,
learning needs are diversifying and adult education resources cover a wide
spectrum of learning possibilities, formal, non-formal or informal. On the
other, adult education policies strive to mobilize all available educational resources
to answer different learning needs. That is why I think that a new generation
of adult learning and education policies is needed, policies that would aim to draw
on all educational resources to answer a wide array of learning needs.
In my view,
in our new century, two phenomena are shaping adult education. First, we are
witnessing a new social demand for knowledge and competencies. In all
countries, literacy and basic skills remain a major educational need and, overall,
work-related training is prioritized. But, beyond those important learning
domains, we can observe a wider demand stemming from many spheres of people’s
daily life. In its research and normative work, UNESCO has referred to some of
those growing learning needs: education for health and well-being, education for sustainable
development,
education for citizenship, digital skills and human rights education. The so-called twenty-first century skillsare also an example of an expanding social
demand for learning. Continue reading →
As he begins his first term as Chair of the UIL Governing Board, Daniel Baril reflects on the implications of technological transformation for adult learning and education
In my first
contribution to the UIL blog, and as I reflect on global issues for adult learning
and education as new Chair of the UIL Governing Board, I would like to share a
high-level analysis of what I consider a major and new educational challenge.
In my view, we are entering a new learning frontier, principally characterized
by the fact that human and machine are learning side by side and together. This
‘human-machine learning interface’, as it was described in a recent UNEVOC document, is characteristic of the so-called
fourth industrial revolution that is dawning upon us.
In this
context, the education landscape is being rapidly and deeply transformed before
our eyes by technological forces, and especially by the computational and
digital dimensions of those forces. Among other things, new technological means
are widely distributed within the population and social arrangements are being transformed
by them. In our world now, any two learners are just a click of the mouse away.
The questions of the place and pace of artificial intelligence (AI) in
education are symptomatic of those changes pressuring our educational world. In
a recent forum on this topic, organized by UNESCO in June 2019, parameters for
the policy debate were proposed. They are testimonies to the nature and the magnitude
of the changes taking place. In particular, AI has the potential for ‘reshaping the core foundations of
education, teaching and learning’. Unlocking that potential will move the
frontier of our learning world. Continue reading →
