Adult Learners Week

Adult Learners Week in Finland is organized annually, but always with a different thematic focus and under the coordination of a different institution.

In 2005, the eigth ALW took place in Finland. The topic of that year was “Learning difficulties among adults and different ways to learn”, and the slogan for the week was “ In the shadows of the Pisa-research”. In the Pisa-studies carried out by OECD, Finnish pupils always range at top positions for their reading skills. However, it is estimated that approximately 20% of the Finnish population has some kind of learning difficulties which may prevent them from taking part in lifelong learning.

Target groups

As learning difficulties are a very wide field and many professionals should have the basic information on learning difficulties and how to identify them, there were many target groups for ALW in 2005: teaching and education professionals, labor market professionals, members of the social and health care sector, library staff, and of course diverse learners (dyslexic people) and people they are close to.

Main partners, sponsors etc.

In 2005, the main organiser of ALW was Finder, the Finnish Diverse Learners’ Association, which is a nation-wide dyslexia organisation. ALW was financed by Ministry of Education. A support group had been set up which helped marketing and implementing activities. The support group included representatives from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Labor, Summer Universities, the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, the Finnish Library Association, the Finnish Association of Evening Schools, the Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions, the National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health, the Finnish Adult Education Association FAEA, the Finnish National Board of Education and the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities

The week and the main seminar

ALW started around International Literacy Day on 7 - 8 September 2005 with a national seminar in Helsinki and then continued on 3 - 9 October with local events and campaigns. The main seminar reached about 500 people. During the two days, ten main lectures about the topic were given and tens of workshops took place on teaching and learning strategies, testing, rehabilitation and music, sports and art as support for learning.

In October there were more than 60 different events ranging from movie-happenings to an Adult Education Ball and quick dyslexia-testing all over Finland, in more than 130 municipalities. According to a survey carried out later, most of the local coordinators were satisfied with the week. All together there had been about 8000 persons participating in ALW in 2005. The festival had reached reached quite a lot of publicity, more than 100 newspaper articles and radio programs. As campain material we had produced a t-shirt, a poster, a quick test on dyslexia and learning styles, a booklet about learning difficulties and learning styles and even beer coasters.

Contacts

Leena Peisa
leena.peisa@erilaistenoppijoidenliitto.fi

Riita Hamalainen
riitta.hamalainen@lukihero.fi

Adult Learners Week
www.aoviikko.org