News

11 November 2005

International Adult Learners Week IALW 2005 – Education for All in an Era of Increasing Mobility: The Implications for Adult Learning
Oslo, Norway, 24 – 26 October 2005

Beautiful sunshine glistening on snow-white trees welcomed the 150 participants, representing more than forty countries from all world regions, to the 2005 International Adult Learners Week (IALW) in October in Oslo. Hosted by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research and the UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE), and organized in cooperation with the Norwegian UNESCO Commission, the Norwegian National Institute for Adult Education (Vox) and the Norwegian Association for Adult Education (Vofo), the event was opened on Monday morning, 24 October, by representatives of the host organizations. In his welcome address, the Norwegian Minister of Education and Research, Mr Øystein Kåre Djupedal, recalled that learning festivals are advocacy instruments for learning and participation, and expressed his hope that the IALW conference 2005 would provide a trans-national forum for exchange and policy dialogue on the importance of adult and lifelong learning.

And indeed it was! Following the focus on literacy and citizenship of last year’s IALW meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, “Education for All in an Era of Increasing Mobility: The Implications for Adult Learning” had been chosen as the 2005 IALW theme in Oslo. A multi-dimensional understanding of mobility (geographical, social, and cultural, but also personal and spiritual) provided the overall background against which participants explored the role of adult learnin

g, clustered around three major thematic threads:

1) Education for All,
2) Life Skills, and
3) Diversity and Participation.

Each theme was introduced through one or more keynote addresses in a plenary session, followed by parallel workshops where concrete experiences and best practice from different countries were presented and further discussed.

A culturally and institutionally diverse group of keynote speakers introduced the respective thematic foci in the plenary sessions. The President of the Asian and South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education (ASPBAE), Ms Sandra Lee Morrison from New Zealand, highlighted the view of the NGO community on the Education for All agenda and the gaps to be filled, and explained the strategies and alliances undertaken by civil society organizations to make their contribution. She was preceded by the Vice-Minister for Continuous Education, Literacy and Diversity of Brazil, Mr Ricardo Henriques, who presented a national programme that aims at reaching out to all in a highly diverse society, and passionately argued in favour of quality and equity when discussing access to education.

The theme of life skills was opened by the renowned scholar in adult learning and literacy from USA/India, Mr Harbans S. Bhola, reflecting on the implications for research in studying and developing life skills approaches in transitional and diverse societies. He paired up with the Education Professor Mr Egil Gabrielsen from the University of Stavangar in Norway, who explained the thinking of OECD on life skills with respect to the two important trans-national surveys the organization had undertaken in recent years. The ground for the thematic focus on diversity and participation was prepared by Mr Santosh Kumar Mahadeo, the Director of the Ministry of Education and Human Resources of Mauritius, who reiterated the complexity and the high demands for communicative skills in modern societies and strongly advocated for educational approaches which help learners develop competencies to cope with these complex contexts.

Following these stimulating speeches in plenary, the thematically linked workshop sessions provided the space for hearing about concrete experiences and enabled the direct inter-action between presenters and participants. With a view to EFA, the issues explored in the workshops ranged from policies in adult & non-formal learning and international cooperation patterns to aspects of ensuring diversity, inclusion and gender equity. In the area of life skills, notions and practices as well as national strategies and mechanisms for recognizing life skills were examined in the second set of workshops. Finally, aspects of diversity and participation taken up in the last round of workshops included the integration

of different populations, the mobilization potential of learning festivals and the growing role and networks of learners.

Of course, International ALW celebrations are not the same as learning festivals at national or local level, which are dominated by public events, informal exhibitions and learner-centered activities. IALW aims to increase the intern

ational visibility and recognition of the international learning festivals movement by bringing together different stakeholders from different countries: high-ranking national and international education officials, lifelong learning experts from diverse contexts, and the protagonists of the international learning festivals scene - namely coordinators and learners. It is for this group of people to meet, exchange, discuss and network. IALW 2005 for instance provided the opportunity for the inter-regional steering group of the Adult Learning Documentation and Information Network ALADIN to get together in a face-to-face meeting and to mobilize new members. Accordingly, the conference character of IALW 2005 was dominant. However, the time and location of the meeting had not been chosen at random; IALW 2005 took place in conjunction with the national Norwegian Adult Learners Week. A full morning was reserved for study visits to a variety of learning sites in and around Oslo. IALW also provided the space to honour and celebrate adult learners who have made a remarkable journey through learning and to outstanding adult learning initiatives from Norway!


In addition and exceptionally, the 2005 IALW meeting also allowed for the presentation of UIE’s International Award for Literacy Research. The Ambassador of Nigeria to UNESCO, Mr Michael Omolewa, handed over the certificates to the two authors who will share the 2005 Award for their studies on adult literacy, Ms Sofia Valdivielso Goméz from Spain and Mr Harbans S.Bhola from USA/India.

However, apart from being celebrated, adult learners played an active role in the IALW conference as both plenary and workshop speakers – making the case for themselves and partnering with other learners and with providers to form networks and learners’ forums across countries and regions. The meeting concluded with Mr Jan-Helge Svendsen, an adult learner from Norway, who gave an account to all participants of his learning journey and involvement in the first European learners’ forum. His intervention was the last of three advocacy speeches on the value of learning festivals and the importance of self-organization of learners delivered by Ms Katarina Popovic, the learning festival coordinator from Serbia & Montenegro and by Ms Susan Nielson, the Director of the first sustainable adult student association in Canada.

A synthesis of the conference discussion was finally presented by Ms Anne Katahoire from the University of Makere in Uganda, speaking on behalf of a group of four conference participants who had kindly agreed to wrap up the reflections and discussions. And finally, IALW 2005 was closed by the recently appointed Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO, Mr Peter Smith, who demonstrated his recognition for the value of IALW by presenting an outlook of UNESCO’s future education strategies – including a prominent place for adult and lifelong learning as essential elements. (For a full copy of selected speeches and presentations, please check the website of VOX: www.vox.no/ialw-conference)

1 August 2005

International Adult Learners Week 2005 –
Education for All in an Era of Increasing Mobility: The Implications for Adult Learning
Oslo, Norway, 24 – 26 October 2005

Following the tradition established by Brazil in 2002 and South Africa in 2004, International Adult Learners Week this year will be hosted by Norway, in conjunction with the national Norwegian Adult Learners Week. Jointly organized and supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research and the UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE), and in cooperation with the Norwegian UNESCO Commission, the Norwegian National Institute for Adult Education (Vox) and the Norwegian Association for Adult Education (NAAE), the event will take place in Oslo, Norway, on 24 - 26 October 2005.

The theme chosen for the event is “Education for All in an Era of Increasing Mobility: The Implications for Adult Learning”. It aims to provide a forum for exchange, policy dialogue and advocacy on the importance of adult and lifelong learning. Mobility will serve as the overall background against which the role of adult learning will be examined, on the one hand, through the lenses of the EFA agenda – with a focus on life skills – and, on the other hand, in the perspective of increasing participation as embedded in the CONFINTEA framework.

While the notion of mobility refers to geographical movements of individuals and groups – both undertaken on a voluntary basis as well as with a view to forced migration – mobility here also includes social, cultural and economical fluctuations and the rapid transformations of our physical and societal environments. From an educational perspective, mobility is marked by a constant path of learning and re-learning within a context of growing complexity. This means above all learning to change, and thus requires the acquisition of learning skills and access to ongoing learning opportunities for all.

Three major thematic blocks will be tackled during the meeting:
1) Bridging Gaps through EFA in the Context of Mobility,
2) Acquisition, Recognition and Transferability of Life Skills in the Perspective of Increasing Mobility, and
3) Shaping Mobility: Adult Learning for Diversity and Participation.

Aside from presentations and debates, the event aims to strengthen the international movement of learning festivals as advocacy instruments for learning and participation. Learners, being at the heart of learning festivals, will take part in the meeting, and their achievements will be honored. Together with policy-makers and education stakeholders, they will present, discuss and analyze experiences in EFA and adult learning.

For further information, please contact: Bettina Bochynek, UIE, b.bochynek@unesco.org

15 November 2004

International Adult Learners Week 2004 Commemoration took place in South Africa in September!

International Adult Learners Week, launched by UNESCO in September 2000 as a transnational advocacy framework to promote literacy and lifelong learning for all, has recently taken on renewed importance in mobilizing for the goals of the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) and the Education for All (EFA) agenda. International Adult Learners Week helps to nurture cultures of lifelong learning and to reinforce capacity-building and increased participation of citizens as well as more cooperation between all stakeholders in education.

One of the pioneer countries of this mobilization campaign and a strong supporter for the international movement was South Africa, having mobilized for its first national Adult Learners Week in 1996. South Africa has also been celebrating Ten Years of Freedom this year. On this occasion, UIE and the South African Department of Education, cooperation with the national Adult Learning Network, co-hosted the commemoration of the 2004 International Adult Learners Week on 6-11 September in Cape Town. (For more information on the former and current ALW campaings in South Africa, click.) The meeting was opened by the South African Minister of Education, Ms Naledi Pandor, and included a forum for policy dialogue on “Adult Learning and Literacy for Democracy and Citizenship” among educators, practitioners from civil society and policy makers.

Together with approximately 200 national participants from South Africa, fifty international experts and coordinators of learning festivals analyzed the relation between adult learning, literacy and lifelong learning and the building of diverse, inclusive and democratic societies, as well as the potential of learning festivals and the role of partnerships. (Have a look at the programme of the policy dialogue and the profile of speakers.) They also took part in the awarding of prizes to learners and providers from different provinces of the country, and had a chance to visit a range of learning sites in the Western Cape region.

As the policy dialogue underlined, democracy entails accountability and the input and contributions of people themselves. However, while the importance of an active, inclusive and participatory civil society has been internationally acknowledged, most societies, despite their rhetoric and constitutional rights, are not functioning democratically. Human rights are still violated, and large segments of societies continue to be marginalized and disenfranchised. Democracy is also challenged by the shift of responsibilities from the public to the private sector, and growing political and religious fundamentalisms. Finally poverty and the denial of equal access to resources – one among them being education - need to be solved if genuine democracy is to be achieved. At the end of the forum on policy dialogue, resource persons and participants came up with a set of policy and programme recommendations addressed to policy makers, programme designers, networks, organizations of Civil Society and governments.

12 January 2004

International Adult Learners Week in Europe
Being based, among other pillars, on stimulating the demand for learning, International ALW matches the priority issues of the Socrates/Grundtvig programme of the European Commission. The Commission, hence, decided to fund a special European network of ALW coordinators. The kick-off meeting of this network took place at UIE in December 2003.
The aim of the meeting was to bring together the partners in a face-to-face meeting in order to review the planned activities and structure of the network, and to concretize the tasks and functioning of the network. The main themes of the network during its three year duration, namely, 1. the instrumental value of ALWs, 2. the operational improvement of ALWs and 3. the voices of learners, will be dealt with by working groups within the network. More...

6 November 2003

The First Adult Learners Week in Spain!
In November 2003 the I Festival of Lifelong Learning and Adult Education will be launched all across Spain. The introduction of the festival in Spain is part of the project Widening and Strengthening the European Dimension of the Lifelong Learning Week Movement - a network of five European ALW organisers. More...

22 October 2003

Refugee Week in Australia 20 - 26 October 2003
The Australian ALW coordinator, Adult Learning Australia (ALA), is calling for attention to the Refugee Week 2003 activities in Australia. The Refugee Week is an annual event coordinated by AustCare, which is an organisation dedicated to rights for refugees and other displaced people, and to tolerance and understanding across cultural borders. The Executive Director of ALA Francesca Beddie states "It is crucial that the importance of adult education in empowering refugees and developing communities is recognised, and that the Australian government acts in a humane and just way to provide adequate educational resources to all recent arrivals, as well as in its international humanitarian programs." More...

7 October 2003

More than 300 participants from over 90 countries took part in the CONFINTEA V Midterm Review Conference held in Bangkok, Thailand, 6 -11 September 2003. The conference was organized by the UNESCO Institute for Education in collaboration with the UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education and with support from the Department of Non-formal Education of the Ministry of Education of Thailand, to follow up on the implementation of commitments and recommendations made at the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA V), held in July 1997 in Hamburg, and to prepare the ground for CONFINTEA VI, which will take place in 2009. The International Adult Learners Week brochure, reporting on the growth of the network and prepared with contributions and material from the network members was disseminated to all participants. More...

7 October 2003

International Adult Learners Week in Europe (IntALWinE), a three-year network project will be launched in November 2003. The new network will bring together learning festival coordinators from across Europe. It will largely run on the basis of support from the European Commission, the SOCRATES/Grudntvig-4 programme, and be coordinated by the UNESCO Institute for Education. Learn more...

22 September 2003

Hungary joins the International Adult Learners Week Network!
After several years of educational and cultural events succesfully organized by a variety of cultural and educational institutions, the different organisers have united to create Adult Learners Week in Hungary. "A Week for Culture - the Celebration of Learning" takes place for the second time on 26 September - 3 October 2003. The special topics of the year include the issues of a Learning Society as well as the upcoming membership by Hungary in the European Union. Learn more...

12 June 2003

It’s Time to Change – and to Act
Another campaign to lobby for education and to create awareness on issues of quality learning is enriching the learning festivals scene. Under the leadership of the German Trade Union for Education and Science (GEW), educators and learners are mobilized to take part in and create debates during a nation-wide Day of Education on June 27. Kindergardens, schools, universities and adult education centers are called upon to present their work, initiate joint future projects, and organize a dialogue between researchers, young people training for jobs, artists, teachers and workers. All participants in learning processes – children youth, adults, pupils, parents and teachers – will give input to the agenda of the day in their communities. Being the experts of their own learning environments, they will get underway the process of a “reform of education from below.” Find out more (in German only).

21 May 2003

ALW 2002 in the UK - sharing the value of Learning Adult Learners' Forums
The ALW movement is developing and spreading a new form of more participative and democratic forms of involving learners themselves in the debate and design of learning opportunities: Adult Learners' Forums. Already in 1999, the first such forum was established by UK's National Institute for Adult Continuing Education (NIACE). The 2003 ALW, carried through for the 11th time UK-wide on 10 - 16 May, provided an opportunity to strengthen this initiative in all parts of Britain, including first steps for a national learners forum in Scotland. Find out more.
If you are interested in the background of the UK learners forums, check out http://www.niace.org.uk/projects/Forum/Default.htm. More learners forums or associations in the UK and in other countries already exist: the Adult Learners' Forum in Edinburgh ALFIE, Scotland, http://www.alfieforum.edin.org/ , the Toronto Adult Student Association TASA in Canada, http://www.tasa2000.com/ , or the Kenya Adult Learners Association KALA (contact: kala@kenyaweb.com).

11 April 2003

Hands Up for Girls Education The World's Biggest Lesson took place on 9 April as part of the third annual Global Week of Action (6 – 13 April 2003) of the Global Campaign for Education. World leaders are called upon to keep their promise, and take immediate steps to open the doors of learning to women and girls. It was a resounding success with almost 1,500,000 taking part, according to latest estimates. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan released a special message for the “World’s Biggest Lesson”. http://www.campaignforeducation.org

18 March 2003

UIE is embarking on a CONFINTEA V Mid-Term Review as a systematic effort to monitor the recommendations and commitments made by the Fifth International Conference on Adult Learning held in Hamburg in 1997 (CONFINTEA V). The overall aim of the review, including an international meetingin September in Bangkok, is to create the momentum to bring adult learning back on the agenda of countries, of UNESCO and other international agencies. The meeting will review developments since 1997 and identify new trends and issues in adult basic education, adult literacy and adult and lifelong learning – at policy, programme and institutional level, including the perspective from Civil Society. The purpose of the exercise is also to link the CONFINTEA agenda with the EFA movement and the UN Literacy Decade, particularly by including lifelong learning as an overarching framework, and to prepare a profound assessment for the CONFINTEA VI in 2009. http://www.unesco.org/education/uie/news/CONFVReviewSummary.shtml

13 March 2003

All for Girls Education! All for Girls' Education! is UNESCO's slogan for this year's Global EFA Week to take place on 6 – 13 April 2003. It is celebrated to commemorate the anniversary of the World Education Forum which took place in April 2000 in Dakar, Senegal, and decided on six major goals to drive forward the Education for All (EFA) agenda in the world. The Global EFA Week in 2003 is intended to recall the EFA goal No 5 and the Millennium Development Goal No 3, namely that gender disparities in primary and secondary education should be eliminated by 2005. For more information on the Global EFA Week, check out http://www.unesco.org/education/efaweek.

19 February 2003

Very sad news have reached us from Mexico: Our colleague and Literacy Week coordinator from the Mexican National Institute for Adult Education (INEA), Mr Enrique García Arista, has passed away in January! The news are a great shock to all of us! Those of us having participated in the International Adult Learners Week celebration in São Paulo, Brazil, last September will certainly remember very vividly his presence. Mr García was also the Director of the Department of International Affairs at INEA, and responsible for the UNESCO/UIE/NGO/GO Latin American Regional Meeting on Education and Lifelong Learning carried out in Mexiso in September last year.

17 February 2003

Literacy is about more than reading and writing – it is about how we communicate in society. It is about social practices and relationships, about knowledge, language and culture. In this spirit, the United Nations Literacy Decade (2003-2012) was officially launched on 13 February 2003 at United Nations headquarters in New York. Read more at: http://www.unesco.org/education/litdecade/

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