Ahead of the Inclusive Lifelong Learning Conference, hosted by the Government of Indonesia and the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning from 3 to 6 July 2023 in Bali, Indonesia, Denni P Purbasari, Executive Director at Kartu Prakerja, Indonesia’s lifelong learning programme, explains how training and upskilling initiatives are changing lives in Indonesia.
Sianny, a 56-year-old administration
worker, found herself struggling financially after the COVID-19 pandemic caused
her office to shut down, leaving her jobless. Despite the challenges she faced,
Sianny was able to support herself by utilizing her cooking skills, gained by
attending free local government training programmes. Ultimately, she was able
to reinvent herself as a micro-entrepreneur, selling food to local farming
groups.
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 →
Lifelong learning has a major contribution to make to helping countries such as Greece rise to the development challenges they face. But, far too often, it is overlooked, writes Christiana Nikolitsa-Winter
In Greece, my native country, high unemployment and the ongoing financial crisis are combining with mass population movements of migrants and refugees to create huge development challenges for the country. Greece is also undergoing major demographic changes, with its ageing population reducing the number of young people entering the labour market and obliging those already in the workforce to work for longer and move between jobs more often.
These facts point to an urgent need for a much stronger investment in lifelong learning, and particularly in adult education. By supporting adult education and adopting lifelong learning as the key educational paradigm for inclusive and sustainable learning societies, nation states can build populations that are resilient, adaptable, creative and highly skilled. Yet, in far too many cases, lifelong learning and adult education continue to be neglected.
A recent report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Getting skills right: Future-ready adult learning systems, shows that Greece’s adult learning system performs poorly across several dimensions of the Priorities of Adult Learning (PAL) dashboard. The PAL dashboard indicates that my country has the weakest overall performance in terms of coverage of job-related adult learning. In addition, according to Eurostat, only a few adults re-skill through adult education courses in Greece. In 2017, less than 5 per cent of 25 to 64 years olds participated in such courses. Where these courses are offered, often they are often under-resourced and ill-equipped to address the challenges faced by these students. Continue reading →
