Australia
2003
Literacy - Understand Your World
Adult Learners Week in Australia was organised for the ninth time on September 1 - 7, 2003,
under the overall theme of literacy. With this theme, the Australian Adult Learners Week is
both marking the first year of the
United
Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) 2003 - 2012, and, more importantly, it is aiming to
face one of the most notable challenges Australia is facing today: According to
the International Adult
Literacy Survey (IALS) carried out in 1999, as many as 20% of Australian adults are functionally illiterate and
46% do not have adequate literacy and numeracy skills they need for coping with everyday life in the society they are living. Organising Adult Learners Week under the theme, the main
organiser Adult Learning Australia highlighted the importance of literacy skills in its all forms
for both providers and sponsors of adult education, and for learners and potential learners all
across Australia.
During the week hundreds of activities took place in all territories. Aimed both at policy makers
and professionals as well as for raising public awareness, a series of discussions and
a serie of Great Literacy Debates
were arranged. They were organised to promote renewed concepts of literacy and the meaning of
literacy skills and lifelong learning for modern society - to demonstrate 'that literacy is the
cornerstone of a democratic nation'. In the discussions and debates, specialists in adult education
argued together with famous personalities and politicians how different
literacy skills - cultural, financial, information, IT, media, etc. - can be consequential for both lives
of individuals and entire communities. It came clear in the debates that literacies are not only skills
of reading and writing, but instrumental components for democracy and participation, as well as for
decision making both in professional and everyday lives.
As is already a tradition during the festival, the most outstanding achievements in adult learning
were awarded both at state and national levels. This year, special awards were
given to indigenous learners,
new immigrants and volunteers.
Literacy was also the theme of the year for the short story writing competition, which is one of the
distinctive features of Australian ALW.
ALW 2003
also saw a new initiatives in pursue for more learning possibilities. Already
successfully implemented in the UK and the United States, Learn @ Work Day was
introduced in Australia. The
aim of the programme is to draw attention to strategic importance of learning in
the workplace, and to generate a positive attitude towards learning throughout
life. Learn @ Work Day was celebrated on 5 September all over Australia as a
part of the overall ALW campaign.
The Australian Adult Learners Week is coordinated by Adult Learning Australia (ALA) with
financial support from Australian National Training Authority
(ANTA). The website of Australian Adult Learners Week can be found at http://www.adultlearnersweek.org/.
2002
Australia's adult learners week took place in 2002 from 2 - 8 September,
based on a two-pronged approach: first of all as a generalized celebration
of all forms of adult learning, and secondly to focus particularly on a
key target adudience that is under-represented in learning activities:
men aged 45 and over, with an emphasis on rural communities.
Background...
Being among the pioneer countries to invent and further develop the
concept of a learning festival, the first Adult Learners’ Week in Australia
took place in 1995. The week is a national campaign that seeks to celebrate,
promote and advance all forms of adult education for all Australians. From
its onset, a large (and growing) number of organizations including museums,
libraries and cultural institutions have been contributing to the week
in a variety of fields ranging from community education, health and environmental
issues, indigenous perspectives, to workplace training.
The organisational structure of the week has three tiers: national,
state/territory, and community level. Each state/territory has an Adult
Learners Week co-ordinator employed by the state/territory government.
The state/territory co-ordinators organise events - such as dinners, public
lectures, award ceremonies, launches - as appropriate for the needs and
audience in that state/territory. The majority of events during the week
are organised at the local level. These activities take a number of forms
(open days, shopping centre displays, local media events and award ceremonies)
and are aimed at inviting members of local communities to discover what
their local learning providers have to offer. Funds for the week are provided
by the Australian National Training Authority, a Federal governement body.
In consultation with the Adult Learners Week coordinators from the states
& territories and with a national coordinating committee uniting key
adult learning stakeholders, the overall coordination of the week at national
level is under the responsibility of the Australian Association of Adult
and Community Education, which became Adult Learning Australia (ALA) in
1998.
Adult Learners Week is considered as the national flagship celebration
and promotion of lifelong learning opportunities in Australia, and celebrates
the concept of adult learning in the broadest possible sense, encompassing
the full diversity of formal and informal learning options, outcomes and
learning pathways available. Its purpose is to increase the profile of
lifelong learning, to celebrate and promote the value of learning for the
community and for individuals, to display the diversity of learning opportunities
for adults, to reach out to those who are marginalised from learning, to
forge relationships among learning providers, and to encourage further
investment in learning. Given the limited funding made available to the
adult education sector in Australia, and given the limited formal recognition
of lifelong learning in Australian society at large, Adult Learners Week
provides the only opportunity to raise the profile of community-based and
less formal adult learning opportunities.
In 2001, the week was carried out on 2 - 8 September under the theme
of Make the Connection. The notion of connectivity expressed by this slogan
is many-fold: to get connected to learning, and, with a broader perspective,
to connect to the world, to the nation, to local communities, and to family.
Issues such as globalisation and online learning, but also intergenerational
andintercultural learning, and the relationships between individual activities
and national agendas are included in this concept.
Contact:
| Updated 10 February 2004 |
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