Povzetek: Prispevek predstavlja rezultate analize sistemske ureditve izobrazevanja odraslih v Sloveniji. Sistemsko ureditev izobrazevanja odraslih motrim z vidika teoretskih spoznanj, ki jih ...prinasajo studije izobrazevalnih politik ter mednarodne in primerjalne studije v izobrazevanju odraslih. Metodoloski okvir postavlja analiza primarnih zakonodajnih dokumentov in izobrazevalnih politik, ki urejajo podrocje izobrazevanja odraslih in so nastali v obdobju od leta 1991 do 2020. Opravljena analiza pokaze, da so bili v Sloveniji v zadnjih treh desetletjih narejeni pomembni koraki pri urejanju podrocja izobrazevanja odraslih (sprejetje nacionalnega programa, letnih programov in zakona o izobrazevanju odraslih), a ti se vedno niso v zadostni meri zagotovili sistemskega urejanja izobrazevanja odraslih: upravljanja, zakonodaje, financiranja, mreze izvajalcev in izobrazevalnih programov. Prav tako delovanje mreze izvajalcev, ponudba in razvoj izobrazevanja odraslih ostajajo povsem odvisni od kratkotrajnih razpisov in projektnih sredstev Evropskega socialnega sklada. Izhajajoc iz opravljene analize, v zakljucku dajem predloge, ki jih je treba preuciti pri sistemskem urejanju izobrazevanja odraslih v tern desetletju.
Adult education is still regarded as a strategic agent for development and socio-economic transformation in many countries. In Tanzania, a special emphasis on adult education was particularly ...manifested during Julius Nyerere’s presidency (1962–1985), which regarded adult education as a means of increasing popular awareness of political and social realities on the one hand and increasing the potential for social transformation on the other. This theoretical article critically examines Nyerere’s policy on adult education as articulated in his speech on the theme of adult education delivered on the eve of the 1970 New Year and its implications for contemporary Tanzania. In the course of his argument, the author demonstrates how adult education remains of crucial importance, especially for developing countries such as Tanzania.
This article addresses the issue of marketisation in the field of adult education by reflecting on the Europeanisation of education currently taking place through the establishment of European adult ...education policies. The article argues that Europeanisation fosters marketisation of adult education and commodifies valuable knowledge and desirable forms of neoliberal subjectivity. An analysis of Slovene adult education policies from 2004-2015 reveals how a European economised vocabulary is being implemented in Slovene adult education policies and practices. The main argument of this article is that these practices are shaped through financial mechanisms that marketise the adult education field. This results in new relationships between governing bodies within the field, the unstable and decreasing role of public adult education institutions and the prevailing role of private providers of adult education, who offer training programmes to meet labour market needs. (DIPF/Orig.).
This article examines the purposes UNESCO, OECD and EU historically have attributed to adult education and learning. The aim is to explore changes in international adult education and learning ...policies from the 1970s until the present day and outline how different international organisations have pushed for specific conceptualisations of what 'adult education and learning is good for'. The analysis draws on Biesta's domains of educational purpose to demonstrate how the functions of adult education and learning have changed as the welfare state has transformed into a neoliberal competition state. Based on an analysis of key policy documents, the article shows how each of the organisations has sought to set an agenda in line with its founding visions. UNESCO pushing for an agenda centred on su bjectification and the aim of empowering the individual, but also including strong elements of both qualification and socialisation. OECD, on the other hand, having a more narrow understanding, seeing the purpose of adult education and learning as qualification for the labour market as part of a growth ideology. Finally, EU pushing both socialisation of European citizens and labour market qualifications. The analysis shows how, over the decades, adult education and learning policy has narrowed to focus on a primarily instrumental purpose, which creates new attributed meaning for both the purpose of socialisation and subjectification.
This open access book challenges international policy ‘groupthink’ about lifelong learning. Adult learning – too long a servant of business competitiveness – should be reimagined as central to ...democratic society. Young adults, especially from disadvantaged backgrounds, engage more in education and training, and learn more day-to-day at work, if provision is democratically organised and based on enduring and inclusive institutional networks, and when jobs encourage and reward the acquisition of skills. Using innovative qualitative and quantitative methods, the contributors develop a critical perspective on dominant policies, investigating – across the European Union and Australia – how ‘vulnerable’ young adults experience programmes designed to improve their ‘employability’, and how ‘skills for jobs’ policies squeeze out wider – and wiser – ideas of what education and training should do. Chapters show why some provision works for those with poor educational backgrounds, why labour market and educational institutions matter so much, how adult education can empower and expand people’s agency, and the challenges of using artificial intelligence in lifelong learning policy-making. Several investigate the pivotal role of workplace learning in organisational life, and in learning during ‘emerging adulthood’. Important comparative studies of workplace learning in the metals, retail and adult education sectors show the role of management, trade unions and social movements in young adults’ learning.
The paper offers new insights into the Europeanisation of adult education, as an area of intervention and a component of the European education policy and sector, by tracing routes and processes that ...underpinned this pathway. The analysis provides some original findings, by pointing to four moments (thematisation; lifelong learning dimension; European agenda; political centrality/absence of policies; a new opportunity?) and two trends: on the one hand, one points out the creation of a European Education Area which has regulatory processes and instruments typical of a market; on the other hand, it is against this backdrop the European Agenda for Adult Learning set out action lines around quality and participation. The 2015 mid-term review states it is unlikely that pursuing the political choices made thus far will lead to the achievement of such a goal. Some recent developments, New skills agenda for Europe or Upskilling pathways: new opportunities for adults, may become associated with significant steps to stronger commitment and sustainable policies to increase adult participation in education or, in contrast, and underlining one of the main arguments here advanced, with the continuity of the dual condition of political centrality and fragility of Adult Education, which goes back a long way.
Quantitative and qualitative findings on barriers to participation in adult education are reviewed and some of the defining parameters that may explain observed national differences are considered. A ...theoretical perspective based on bounded agency is put forth to take account of the interaction between structurally and individually based barriers to participation. The Bounded Agency Model is premised on the assumption that the nature of welfare state regimes can affect a person's capability to participate. In particular, the state can foster broad structural conditions relevant to participation and construct targeted policy measures that are aimed at overcoming both structurally and individually based barriers. Features of the Nordic model of adult education and empirical results from the 2003 Eurobarometer are discussed in relation to this theoretical perspective.
Peerness is a common approach to learning, especially in Nordic adult education, but is increasingly adopted by European Union (EU)-funded projects that aim to improve migrants’ employability. This ...article discusses action research that evaluated an ESF-funded project, run by a Finnish popular adult education association in collaboration with vocational adult education institutes, NGOs, and a trade union. The project trained migrants to become peer group guides and empower migrant-background participants for employment. The training prepared guides to become experiential experts, but increased the distance between the participants and themselves. The guidance could even strengthen the otherness of participants when the peerness was based solely on sharing a migrant background. Voluntary peer guidance may reinforce this separation, but dependence on ESF funding also shapes mainstream adult education; therefore, the empowerment of migrants should build on collaboration between experiential experts and guidance professionals as part of the regular adult education system. (DIPF/Orig.)
Denmark has a strong and versatile tradition of adult education. Over a long historical period, adult education for public enlightenment and leisure, for continuing study and for vocational and ...professional competence have been developed, been made part of state policy and been used by citizens. But in recent years the public and political presence of Danish adult education has changed. While education policy issues generally abound in public and political debates, adult education is given much less attention than earlier. In this article, we trace the causes of this and conclude that it reflects a turn towards focusing on vocational types of adult education and a relocation of adult education policy to networks linking the state and the social partners. Drawing on theories of policy streams, policy networks and the competition state, we provide a historical analysis of Danish adult education reforms during the past two decades and document how the vocational turn has manifested itself.
The European Union (EU) has significantly influenced the formation of European adult education policy in the last decade. By raising the importance and visibility of adult education, the EU has ...become an influential actor in the norm and standard setting for adult education and lifelong learning. However, as previous research has shown, the EU strengthens primarily the economic, instrumental and vocational perspectives of adult education and lifelong learning. We supplement this critique by analysing the values, normative presumptions and ideology of the EU's adult education policy. We analysed the core official EU policy documents on adult learning in 2000-2016 using documentary analysis as well as the theoretical framework of the political sociology of adult education and postmodernism-related theories in education. Our findings indicate that the EU conceptualises adult education not as an independent policy field but as a form of 'crisis knowledge', which aims to solve a variety of social, economic and political problems. Moreover, the EU's adult education policy functions with the typical ideology of modernity that generates old myths in today's rather late modern European societies.
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