Session Information
23 SES 04 C, Adult Education
Paper Session
Contribution
This study addresses the functionality and the effectiveness of the European Second Chance Education systems, whose importance is expected to grow in the years to come, especially in the light of globalisation. In fact, the recent economic downturn has determined that many governments included re-qualification and re-training to re-enter the labour market for those who missed their “first chance” as a priority in their political agenda. Because of the ageing work force in Europe, the increased labour market’s flexibility and dynamics make more profitable to focus on the way adult learners may get a “second chance” to adapt to the new global economy and to be/keep being competitive.
Education reforms have resulted in a significant shift to a knowledge-based economy where knowledge is now regarded as a nation’s key resource, while flexibility for the workers becomes a must. Being flexible and able to adapt to the changing needs of an organisation – and to the labour market in general – qualify as soft skills, as do being able to collaborate with others and influence situations through lateral and more creative thinking. However, despite 2009 is the European year of Creativity and Innovation, the soft skills are still rarely mentioned in the national learning curricula, especially in European countries’ Adult Learning systems.
The weak implementation of EU policies on Adult Learning in the Member States seems to be connected, at a first glance, to the general weakness of the EU in the field of Education because of the subsidiarity principle. Despite the strong effort the European Commission is undertaking in order to create a European framework in the Adult Learning sector, the top-down approach is not very well describing what is happening in the reality. As a matter of fact, Second Chance Education is specifically characterised by its heterogeneity: the competences for the provision of SCE within the European countries are notably divided into a wide range of stakeholders and fragmented at different levels: several ministries (Ministry of Education, Ministry of Labour…), in-house or external governmental bodies, regions/provinces/municipalities, independent AE institutions, and so on. And, like in this case, when a competence overlap engenders a responsibility deadlock, the institutional gap is normally filled at a lower level.
Another main question of this study is how the E.U. is shaping the Adult learners’ upskilling, as it seems to be giving more emphasis to the hard/basic/core skills in order to train people to the new jobs of the global economy rather than taking into account the soft skills for a pro-active European citizenship in the perspective of a better social cohesion.
The aim of this research is to investigate how skill standards for learning development are weighted in this framework in order to show the difficulties of implementation of the European Second Chance Education policies in the Member States, to analyse the nature of the obstacles they encounter, eventually extending such empirical evidence to the whole Adult Learning sector.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Auer, P., Fortuny, M. (2000) Ageing of the Labour Force in OECD Countries: Economic and Social Consequences, Employment paper 2000/2002, International Labour Organization, Geneva. CEDEFOP (2008) The Shift to Learning Outcomes. Conceptual, Political and Practical Developments in Europe, Luxembourg. Checkel, J.T. (2005) “It’s the Process Stupid! Process Tracing in the Study of European and International Politics”, paper prepared for Audie Klotz (Ed.) Qualitative Methods in International Relations, Arena. Crossley, M., Watson, K. (2003) Comparative and International Research in Education. Globalisation, Context and Difference, Routledge/Falmer, London. EUROSTAT (2005) Task force Report on Adult Education Survey (AES), European Communities, Luxembourg. Leigh, W.A., Deitra H. Lee, Lindquist M.A. (1999) Soft Skills Training: An Annotated Guide to Selected Programs, Joint Centre for Political and Economic Studies, Washington, D.C. Maniscalco, R.S. (2008) La competenza interlinguistica e interculturale per la cittadinanza globale (Inter-linguistic and cross-cultural competence for the global citizenship), in Label Lingue Europeo: dialogare premia, I quaderni del LLP, 5/2008, ANSAS-Agenzia Nazionale Scuola, Florence. MPI-INDIRE (2006) L’educazione degli adulti in Europa, I quaderni di Eurydice, 25/2006, Italian Ministry of Education & INDIRE-Unità Italiana di Eurydice, Florence. NCVER (2003) Assessing and certifying generic skills. What is happening in vocational education and training?, Australian National Training Authority, Adelaide. OECD (2003) Beyond Rhetoric: Adult Learning Policies and Practices - Highlights, Paris, Retrieved Nov. 17, 2009 from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/18/57/18466358.pdf. OECD (2006) Live Longer, Work Longer, Paris. Kallo J., Rinne R. (Eds.) (2006) Supranational Regimes and National Education Policies – Encountering Challenge, Finnish Educational Research Association, Research in Educational Sciences, 24, Turku. Rinne R., Heikkinen A., Salo P. (Eds.) (2007) Adult Education – Liberty, Fraternity, Equality? Nordic Views on Lifelong Learning, Finnish Educational Research Association, Research in Educational Sciences, 28, Turku.
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