International Adult Learners Week
in Europe

Network of Learning festivals

First Meeting of IntALWinE

4 – 6 December 2003
UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning(UIL), Hamburg, Germany

The objective of the First Working Meeting of IntALWinE was to bring together the partners of the network in a face-to-face meeting in order to establish the working relations between partners, to review the planned activities and structure of the network, and to concretize the tasks and functioning of the network. All (orginal) thirteen partners participated in the meeting, hosted by UIE, the coordination institution of the network:

  • Sonja Euller (Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture - BMBWK, Austria)
  • Hilde Vandeurzen (Ministry of the Flemish Community - MVG, Belgium)
  • Maria Todorova (Institute for International Cooperation of the German Adult Education Association, Office Sofia, Bulgaria - IIZ/DVV-Sofia, Bulgaria)
  • Klitos Symeonides (Cyprus Adult Education Association - C.A.E.A., Cyprus)
  • Sirje Plaks (Association of Estonian Adult Educators ANDRAS - AEAE ANDRAS, Estonia)
  • Eeva-Inkeri Sirelius (Finnish Adult Education Association - FAEA, Finland)
  • Gyða Dröfn Tryggvadóttir (EDUCATE - Iceland)
  • Vilija Lukosuniene (Lithuanian Association of Adult Education - LAAE, Lithuania)
  • Annelies Dickhout (Centre for Innovation of Vocational Education and Training - CINOP, Netherlands)
  • Berit Mykland (Norwegian Association for Adult Education - NAAE, Norway)
  • Ileana Boeru (The Popular University of Bucharest/IIZ-DVV, Romania)
  • Zvonka Pangerc Pahernik (Slovenian Institute for Adult Education - SIAE, Slovenia)
  • Sica Martinez (National Institute of Adult Continuing Education - NIACE , UK)
  • and Bettina Bochynek & Lari Kuhanen (UNESCO Institute for Education - UIE).

Expectations voiced by the partners during the first working meeting referred the prestige coming from an EU-funded network operating at European level, and the learning results to be derived for each partner by sharing and cooperating. Both factors were believed to strengthen national festivals. It was assumed that the international reputation would assist the lobby activities vis-à-vis national policy makers and would provide new arguments in the struggle for support. It was also believed that the network would help develop fresh ideas and concepts, and would reinforce the motivation to engage in ongoing battles within the respective countries as well as at transnational level.

The working meeting included three presentations from the participants: A) on a parallel Grundtvig1 project on Learning Festivals, B) on the Learners Forums in UK, and C) on the coming Finnish Adult Learners Week (ALW), including a proposal for the agenda of the next IntALWinE Study Visit in April 2004:

A)

Widening and Strengthening the European Dimension of the Lifelong Learning Week Movement (LLW5)

A Grundtvig1 Project on Learning Festivals
This Grundtvig-1 project linked five European countries (Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Spain and Germany). While the former three countries were already partners in IntALWinE, the latter two were later invited to join the network. LLW5 stated in October 2002, and built up an impressive data base on lifelong learning in the participating countries. It has also produced a range of reach-out materials and useful tools available on the project’s website (http://www.llw5.org/), among them a questionnaire for evaluating national learning festivals.

B)

The Rationale and Development of Learners’ Forums in the UK

With a View to the International Learners’ Forum to be organized in September/October 2004
The first learners’ forum in the UK was created in 1999 with the support of NIACE (the National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education), mainly drawing on previous ALW Award winners. Today, the forums (in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) provide space for current and potential new learners to discuss issues of learning from their own perspective and to lobby on behalf of their own interests (“representative”). The forums equally enable learners to assess the quality of learning provision and to make recommendations (“evaluative”), and to develop more confidence and skills and, thus, ultimately improve the employability of their members (”formative”). A number of activities related to the learners’ forums have been carried out in recent years (national seminars, training courses, employing members of the forums as “learning champions”). However, “giving a voice to learners should not be an end in itself”; on the long run, the forums are meant to lead to more learner-centered policy and provision and to more democracy.

C)

Adult Learners Week (ALW) in Finland – Including a Proposal for the First Study Visit of IntALWinE in April 2004
Over the years, the Finnish ALW, which receives annual funding from the Ministry of Education, has sought to link the themes of the respective ALW with education policies (for instance on the “Information Society”). Awards are given in order to create a human touch and human interest, which has resulted in quite good relations with media. The Finnish ALW is based on the belief that it is important to be present in the capital of the country in order to achieve national visibility, while activities also need to take place at local level in order to reach out to learners and to foster a culture of cooperation between (local) providers.

In April 2004, Finland’s ALW was going to focus on skills development and active citizenship (including the publication of a book, two national Awards to be given for each of the thematic foci). The official opening (19 April) was going to entail a seminar on active citizenship and include the ceremony for granting both Awards. Fairs and performances on the subject of "skilful people" were to be carried out in Helsinki (train station, libraries) on 22 – 24 April.

The study visit of IntALWinE was proposed from 21 – 25 April. It would consist of a combination of a closed IntALWinE working meeting and the possibility for the IntALWinE partners to take part in the ALW activities in Helsinki as well as in selected local communities. The working session, including separate thematic reviews and collective discussions, was meant to start early on 22 April (Thursday) and end in the afternoon of 23 April (Friday), to be suspended on Thursday for 2-3 hours to allow for the network’s attending the Opening of the Finnish ALW Event at the Main Railway Station. On Friday evening, the network partners would embark (in small groups of two or three persons) to selected local communities outside of the capital in order to take part in ALW activities and special events set up by local providers. The group would return to Helsinki on Saturday evening for a collective reporting session and depart on Sunday to their respective home countries.

The Three Thematic Working Groups

Following these presentations and planning, the IntALWinE partners discussed the content-related work to be done in the next three years, which was going to be orgnaized in three working groups.

The three working groups were going to form the bulk of the substance work of IntALWinE, each one providing a separate forum for reflection and discussion but, more importantly, preparing and coordinating concrete activities and outputs of the network.

NB: The numbering of the working groups was later revised in order to respect the chronological and development order. See: Working Scheme.

Working Group 1

on the instrumental value of ALWs was to employ a strategic perspective; it would demonstrate the mobilization and advocacy potential of learning festivals for learning and democracy building (it would later become Working Group 3). The results of WG1 would draw on the overall results of the network activities, in particular on the work done in working groups 2 and 3, and directly input into the final publication, which would include goals, benchmarks, evaluations and policy recommendations.

Working Group 2,

addressing the operational improvement of ALWs, would concentrate on the operational level of learning festivals, identifying best and worst practice, developing methods for data collection and suggesting models for cooperation with partner agencies and the media. WG2 was to be in charge of the technical support tools of the network to be installed on this website.

Working Group 3

would equally look at the operational level of learning festivals, focusing on the voices of learners and trying to extract their experiences and aspirations (it would later become Working Group 1). WG3 was going to be responsible for coordinating the collection of voices of learners in the partner countries, and for preparing the International Learners Forum and the International Study Tour as well as the related publication on the “ Learning Journeys.”

Outlook

The next meeting and first study visit of IntALWinE took place in Helsinki on April 22 - 24, hosted by the Finnish Association for Adult Education, and in conjunction with the Finnish Adult Learners Week. It provided the space for the network to present to each other the first results of the working group, and to further develop conceptual and pragmatic issues.