International Adult Learners Week
in Europe

Network of Learning festivals

Agust Thorlaksson: Participant at the International Adult Learners’ Study Tour in May 2005

I was born in Reykjavik on 6 February 1970. I am the middle child of three, from a working class family. My father is a worker at Samskip Transport Company and my mother, having gone to school in her 40s, is a Chief Accountant in three administration departments at the Icelandic Aviator Centre. I dropped out of primary school before I finished the 9th grade in December 1984. I left school because I thought I did not need any education and because it bored me. I started working with my father at Mercantile storage for a year and then I went to Eimskip (Icelandic Steamship Company) also for one year. Then I went to work in a carwash for a couple of months and from there I went back to Eimskip where I stayed for seventeen years in many departments such as Stevedoring, Equipment Fleet, Export and Container yard. I also did some work for Dagsbrun General and Transport Workers Union as a Union Representative and I was in the Board of Directors of Dagsbrun for three years. In September 2003 I changed my field of work from a manual worker to an office worker. I now work for Efling-trade union with educated people. My colleagues were the ones who encouraged me to go back to school.

I went back to school after nineteen years and now I am in primary education for those who did not continue with education after primary school first time round. The experience is giving us extra courage to go and study some more. With this education we can receive a matriculation certificate from college or go to university if we want to. We are studying Icelandic, English, mathematics, IT and self-confidence, which is building our confidence. It is a great opportunity to be able to learn the basics before jumping in the swimming pool. I am thirty-five years old, a father of three great sons and I have a baby on the way. I think that the time is now for me to build myself up for the future. My belief is that we cannot change our past but we can change our future.

Helga Osp Johannsdottir: Participant at the International Adult Learners
Forum in October 2004

My name is Helga Osp Johannsdottir. I was born in a town called Akureyri in the north of Iceland. In Akureyri there are about 15,000 people which makes it the biggest town in that part of Iceland. I am almost thirty two years old, I have a boyfriend, I have an eight-year-old girl, I am expecting a baby in May 2005 and I am the second oldest of six sisters who are my best friends. I was sixteen years old when I dropped out of school because I told myself that I was not a good student. I did not go back until I was thirty. It was very difficult, but I went to school for adults who have not been in school for many years like me which helped me very much.

In the beginning of January 2000 I started to work in a pre-school. I liked it a lot so my ambition was to go back to school to learn more. In Spring 2003 I decided to send an application to the Iceland University of Education and I was accepted. Presently I am completing a three-year course, learning to be a pre-school teacher at the Iceland University of Education in Reykjavik. I am in my second year so I am hoping to graduate as a pre-school teacher in one and a half or two years’ time.