As COVID-19 closes schools, colleges and universities around the world, it is critical that educational solutions, such as online and distance learning, do not widen the digital divide, argues Christiana Nikolitsa-Winter
The
COVID-19 developments have urgent implications for educational institutions
worldwide, and ask serious and urgent questions of education ministers, leaders,
teachers and learners.
As closure
notices go up outside schools and other places of formal and non-formal
education, the challenge we face is how to ensure the continuity of learning
through a period of unprecedented disruption.
We need to
offer learners robust, innovative solutions relatively fast and to create opportunities
for online teaching platforms to reach all, rather than only a small
group of learners. Continue reading →
Prioritizing women in ALE funding can be key in overcoming the barriers they face in participating in learning, argues Samah Shalaby
@UNESCO
Providing educational opportunities to girls and women is both a prerequisite and a driver of successful development. The fourth Global Report on Adult Learning and Education (GRALE 4), published in December 2019, highlighted significant global progress in women‘s participation in adult learning and education, with 59 per cent of responding countries reporting improvement since 2015.
On a regional level, however, GRALE 4 data indicate significant disparities in women’s participation in ALE. In some regions, notably the Arab States and sub-Saharan Africa, a large majority of countries (82 per cent and 80 per cent, respectively) reported an increase in the participation of women in ALE. In other parts of the world, Western Europe and North America (37 per cent), for example, progress was significantly slower, albeit from a generally higher base (see Figure 1). What then are the factors driving women’s increased participation in ALE in some regions and why does it appear to be stalling in others? Continue reading →
Espoo, in Finland, was one of 12 cities to receive the UNESCO Learning City Award at the second International Conference on Learning Cities in Mexico in 2015. Annica Isacsson and Annika Forstén explain what makes Espoo special
In 2015, UNESCO recognized the Finnish city
of Espoo for the outstanding progress it had made
in implementing the ‘Key Features of Learning Cities’ since the first International
Conference on Learning Cities in 2013. The Key Features describe a learning city as one that
effectively mobilizes, creates and reinforces individual empowerment and social
cohesion, and economic and cultural prosperity, in addition to sustainable
development. In fact, the United Nations has invited Espoo to become a pioneer of sustainable development by attaining the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) by 2025, five years ahead of schedule.
Espoo aims to ensure that all citizens can
fulfill their potential, succeed in the uncertain world of the future and
participate in the development of their local communities. Learning, creativity
and innovation are fostered from an early age. For example, in 2019, Tapiola
Sinfonietta, the city’s orchestra, invited all expectant parents in the city to
its regular concerts so that their children could experience the positive
influence of music while still in the womb. And Espoo’s systematic approach to
collaboration between artists and schools has been extended to early education
centres, giving all children the opportunity to interact with professional
artists and foster creative minds. Continue reading →
In a world increasingly globalized, multilingualism is becoming the norm rather than the exception. Supported by mother tongue-based multilingual education, linguistic diversity brings a number of benefits to learners but also to society as a whole. Growing evidence suggests that multilingualism can effectively contribute to sustainable development and to peace, argues David Atchoarena
Since the year 2000, the world has been celebrating International Mother Language Day on 21 February. Linguistic diversity is an invaluable part of the heritage of humanity. About 7,000 languages are spoken around the world. Yet, 2,680 of them are in danger of disappearing, and many more are already gone.
In that context, offering education and learning opportunities in the mother tongue is essential to transmitting and preserving traditional knowledge and culture in a sustainable way. Children, youth and adults require learning opportunities that are relevant to their lives and needs. This also includes having access to an education in their own language. Evidence shows that such provision contributes to improving learning and developing confidence and self-esteem. Continue reading →
While everyone agrees that adult education has major social, economic and civic benefits, it remains a marginal concern for policy-makers. How, asks Sir Alan Tuckett, can we convince governments to make policies that live up to their commitments?
Adult
learning and education makes a difference. It enhances people’s dignity and
strengthens civil society. It supports the development of skills for the world
of today’s work and the capacity to address the challenges of rapid
technological, industrial, ecological demographic change. It fosters
inter-generational learning, and enriches learners’ engagement with arts,
respect for diversity and difference. Studies show its positive health impact,
its contribution to the resettlement of offenders, and the way it enriches
later lives. Most importantly adult learning and education gives a voice to
people too often silenced in the debates that shape our future. In the words of
Rethinking Education, adult learning and education fosters the common good.
All this is
endorsed by international conference after international conference. The
International Labour Office calls for universal lifelong learning; the World
Economic Forum argues that lifelong learning is of key importance in responding
to the development of robotics, artificial intelligence and the Fourth
Industrial Revolution. The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult
Competencies (PIAAC) surveys of adult skills, administered by the Organisation
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), are modified to recognise the
breadth of learning relevant to twenty-first century work. Governments sign up
to major commitments to improve literacy, to secure the right to education for
women as well as girls, and to no one being left behind. Continue reading →
As preparations begin for the seventh International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VII) in 2022, Daniel Baril, Chair of UIL’s Governing Board, argues that we need a new generation of adult learning and education policies
In matters
of adult learning and education, we live in paradoxical times. On the one hand,
learning needs are diversifying and adult education resources cover a wide
spectrum of learning possibilities, formal, non-formal or informal. On the
other, adult education policies strive to mobilize all available educational resources
to answer different learning needs. That is why I think that a new generation
of adult learning and education policies is needed, policies that would aim to draw
on all educational resources to answer a wide array of learning needs.
In my view,
in our new century, two phenomena are shaping adult education. First, we are
witnessing a new social demand for knowledge and competencies. In all
countries, literacy and basic skills remain a major educational need and, overall,
work-related training is prioritized. But, beyond those important learning
domains, we can observe a wider demand stemming from many spheres of people’s
daily life. In its research and normative work, UNESCO has referred to some of
those growing learning needs: education for health and well-being, education for sustainable
development,
education for citizenship, digital skills and human rights education. The so-called twenty-first century skillsare also an example of an expanding social
demand for learning. Continue reading →
Global citizenship education should be central to efforts to encourage people to take ownership of the Sustainable Development Goals and make the next 10 years a true ‘Decade of Action’, writes Christiana Nikolitsa-Winter
The start of the last decade of the 2030 Agenda
for Sustainable Development provides an important moment for reflection on what
we have achieved to date and how far we have still to go in achieving the 17
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Secretary-General of the United
Nations, António Guterres, took the opportunity to call for a ‘Decade of
Action’ to accelerate sustainable solutions to ‘the world’s biggest challenges,
ranging from poverty and gender to climate change, inequality and closing the
finance gap’. He emphasized action on three levels: global, securing
greater leadership and resources for the SDGs; local, embedding
solutions in policies, budgets and regulatory frameworks; and people, in
order to generate an ‘unstoppable movement’ for transformation.
Progress has been made on many fronts since the
SDGs were launched in 2015, with governments integrating them into national
strategies, and civil society and young people, in particular, increasingly
involved in lobbying for change. The opportunities are enormous, but there remain
some substantial challenges. Among these are social and economic exclusion, poverty,
violence, radical extremism, cybercrime and fake news, pollution and climate
change. Responding to these challenges demands individuals who are tolerant and
able to live cooperatively with others, who judge critically, who are ethical
users and producers of digital information, and who are actively involved in
finding solutions to these problems, both locally and globally. This is why the
importance of global citizenship education (GCED) is increasingly recognized.
It represents a means for individuals to learn to be active in a culture of
human rights, justice, democratic values and sustainability. Continue reading →
As we mark International Day of Education, David Atchoarena urges countries to redouble their efforts to ensure no one’s right to education is denied
Today is International
Day of Education, a moment not only to celebrate education’s
powerful contribution to sustainable human prosperity, progress and peace, but
also to assert its wider value – as a human right and as an important public
good.
It is an
opportune time to consider both what we have achieved in realizing the right to
education and how far we have to go to ensure this right is realized for every
woman, man and child, wherever they live in the world, whatever their
background or personal circumstances.
The global
challenges we face are enormous. Some 258 million children and youth still do
not attend school, four million children and youth refugees are out of school,
and 773 million adults around the world cannot read or write, most of them
women. In too many cases, disadvantaged and marginalized groups remain excluded
from participation in adult learning and education, as the new UNESCO
Global Report on Adult Learning and Education points out. Their
right to education is being denied. This is unacceptable. Continue reading →
Adult learning and education has the potential to address a wide range of agendas, but too often its effects are limited by a narrow understanding of its purpose, argues EAEA President Uwe Gartenschlaeger
An annual survey conducted by the European
Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA) among its members provides
evidence that European ALE has the potential to deliver services and formats to
tackle the key challenges the continent and its people face. However, enabling
frameworks are lagging behind and are still caught in a narrow understanding of
ALE as a tool for vocational up-skilling. In contrast, EAEA members demand more
attention (and funding) for holistic ALE provision, including, especially,
civic education, education for sustainable development and digital literacy.
Besides, ALE is perceived as a vaccination against xenophobia and a powerful
instrument to enable citizens to act and transform their communities and
societies.
Since 2014,
the EAEA has
been collecting outlooks from across its membership in 43 European countries on
the adult education sector: recent developments, strengths, challenges and how
national policy reflects international policies and initiatives relating to
adult learning at present. These country reports present a unique civil-society
perspective from all over the continent. Continue reading →
As he begins his first term as Chair of the UIL Governing Board, Daniel Baril reflects on the implications of technological transformation for adult learning and education
In my first
contribution to the UIL blog, and as I reflect on global issues for adult learning
and education as new Chair of the UIL Governing Board, I would like to share a
high-level analysis of what I consider a major and new educational challenge.
In my view, we are entering a new learning frontier, principally characterized
by the fact that human and machine are learning side by side and together. This
‘human-machine learning interface’, as it was described in a recent UNEVOC document, is characteristic of the so-called
fourth industrial revolution that is dawning upon us.
In this
context, the education landscape is being rapidly and deeply transformed before
our eyes by technological forces, and especially by the computational and
digital dimensions of those forces. Among other things, new technological means
are widely distributed within the population and social arrangements are being transformed
by them. In our world now, any two learners are just a click of the mouse away.
The questions of the place and pace of artificial intelligence (AI) in
education are symptomatic of those changes pressuring our educational world. In
a recent forum on this topic, organized by UNESCO in June 2019, parameters for
the policy debate were proposed. They are testimonies to the nature and the magnitude
of the changes taking place. In particular, AI has the potential for ‘reshaping the core foundations of
education, teaching and learning’. Unlocking that potential will move the
frontier of our learning world. Continue reading →
