The recent research is Part 4 “Quality of adult education and its provision” of the study 2012-2014 initiated by the Ministry of Education and Science (MOES) of Latvia “Implementation of the European agenda for adult learning” and supported by European Commission (2012-3753/001-001). The main aim of the MOES study: to promote collaboration and create a network between all stakeholders involved in adult education in order to enhance adults’ skills, competencies and raise their qualification.

Research question: What does “quality in adult education” mean for adult learners?

Purpose: research adult learners’ perceptions of quality in adult education within the government’s current policy of lifelong learning context.

Theoretical framework of this research applies the following main categories: “adult education”, “quality of adult education”, “learning outcomes approach”. Learners in adult education are socially situated, with the potential to use their experience and learning as a basis for social action and social change: "Adult education is the process by which men and women (alone, in groups, or in institutional settings) seek to improve themselves or their society by increasing their skill, knowledge, or sensitiveness; or it is any process by which individuals, groups, or institutions try to help men and women improve in these ways. The fundamental system of practice of the field, if it has one, must be discerned by probing beneath many different surface realities to identify a basic unity of process (Houle,1996,p.41). The main stream of adult education is transformed into an instrument for developing human resources of industry: “Adult education denotes the entire body of ongoing learning processes, formal or otherwise, whereby people regarded as adults by the society to which they belong develop their abilities, enrich their knowledge, and improve their technical or professional qualifications or turn them in a new direction to meet their own needs and those of their society” (UIE,1997,p.1). Adult education is frequently ignored in debates about education quality (EFA GMR, 2005). To improve the quality of adult education offer in practice and research, one must first know what quality is and how to assess quality in adult education. A framework for understanding education quality characterizes: learner characteristics dimension; contextual dimension; enabling inputs dimension; teaching and learning dimension; outcomes dimension (EFA GMR, 2005). Nowadays EFA goals focus on improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of  all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all (EFA GMR, 2013-2014). In adult education tradition, experience and critical reflection in learning is an important aspect of quality (EFA GM, 2005). The most important quality dimension in adult education is the relevance of provision to learners. Relevance means that learning in programmes must represent an effective route to, and support for, personal and social transformation – a source for improving the quality of life (UIL, 2010).Learning outcomes approach to education can be defined as meaningful (Entwistle, 2005, Nygaard, Højlt, & Hermansen, 2008, Nygaard, Holtham, Courtney, 2009) and learner-centred approach (Harden, 1999), where learning outcomes are descriptions of what a learner knows, understands or is able to do at the end of a learning process. Identification of learning outcomes is important to increase transparency, flexibility and accountability of systems and institutions; to facilitate learning and support the individual learner; and clarify the objectives and aims for learners as well as for teachers and administrators (Bjørnåvold, 2008). Majority of adults believe that the single most important factor that assures the quality of adult education is their tutor, through his/her knowledge, skills, qualifications, preparation and delivery of the course, and through her/his efforts to keep up-to-date with subject knowledge and professional development (Boshier, 2006).  

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