Developing Adult Learning for Active Citizenship: A Challenging Aspect of University LLL to fight back Social Exclusion.

Dr. Balzs Nmeth Regional Lifelong Learning Research Centre University of Pcs nemethb@feek.pte.hu

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Problem area:

Cartoon: Mester Information on Adult Education in Europe/No 6 2009

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White Paper of the European Commission (1995) and the Learning Society
Priorities for Action: Development of mobility skills; Development of Vocational trainings and Apprenticeship; Fighting back social exclusion (e.g. second chance schooling); Using three community languages; Treating educational investments at an equal basis.

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Definitions
Adult Learning Active Citizenship Lifelong Learning University Lifelong Learning

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Adult Learning
Adult learning is a vital component of lifelong learning. Definitions of adult learning vary, but for the purpose of this Communication it is defined as all forms of learning undertaken by adults after having left initial education and training, however far this process may have gone (e.g., including tertiary education).

European Commission - COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION Adult learning: It is never too late to learn Brussels, 23.10.2006 COM(2006) 614 final p. 2.

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Adult Learning
Main Challenges (for HEIs too*) - Competitiveness* - Demographic Changes* - Social Inclusion* Key Messages (Role for HEIs*) - Lifting the barries to participation* - Ensuring the quality of adult learning* - Recognition and validation of learning outcome* - Investing in the ageing population and migrants*(?) - Indicators and benchmarks*

Why no word on active citizenship?

European Commission COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION Adult learning: It is never too late to learn Brussels, 23.10.2006 COM(2006) 614 final

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Active citizenship
No single definition of active citizenship; Active citizenship is an open-ended process (H. Baert, 2003, 2006); Citizenship education and the building of collective - multiple identities (T. Jansen, 2003); Raising participation in social, political and economic activities (UNESCO 1998, 2001); Part of the learning city learning region model (Longworth, 2003, 2006); Contradiction in between employability leading to citizenship and the desire to be an active citizen (Jarvis, 2004) Organisational and community development through higher education (OECD, 2007; NIACE, 2008)

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Active citizenship
Learning about citizenship; - Learning about citizenship as status Learning through citizenship; - Refelection on experiences(practice) of individual and collective citizenship Learning for citizenship. - Active citizenship
Johnston, R ( 2005.) A Framework for Developing Adult Learning for Active Citizenship In: Wildemeersch, D. Stroobants, V. Bron Jr., M. (eds.) Active Citizenship and Multiple Identities Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, p. 49.

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Active citizenship
Citizenship related to rights (civil, political and social) and participation;
Active citizenship is about conscious practice of rights and recognition of status; Challenge: redefinition of democratic citizenship, social responsibility at risk; Having to ballance between individual freedom and collective interest role of participatory competencies.
H. Baert: Reconstructing Active Citizenship. In: Schmidt-Lauff, S. (ed.) (2003) Adult Education and Lifelong Learning. Verlag Kovac, Berlin. Pp. 55-69.

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Active citizenship

H. Baert: Civic Learning and Active Citizenship (2006) Conference on Adult Learning, Competence and Active Citizenship, Espoo 3.-4.10.2006

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Active citizenship
Citizenship education should focus on competencies of citizens to negotiate the cultural codes and symbols that inform them about their position in the global networks that mark their lives
Three main objectives in citizenship education for adults: - Education to facilitate the critical interrogation of dominant cultural codes and symbols in order to help finding connections between power and culture referring to interest and knowledge; - Education can encourage the exploration of cultural perspectives and codes embedded in different meanings, values and views (Finding alternatives, holistic meaning); - Personalizing the political. Deconstructing dominant codes of information by discovering personal experiences of learning citizenship.
T. Jansen: Citizenship, Identities and Adult Education. In: Schmidt-Lauff, S. (ed.) (2003) Adult Education and Lifelong Learning. Verlag Kovac, Berlin. Pp. 55-69.

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Active citizenship
.. A key purpose of lifelong learning as democratic citizenship, recognizing that democratic citizenship depends on such factors as effective economic development, attention to the demands of the least powerful in our societies, and on the impact of industrial processes on the caring capacity of our common home, the planet. The notion of citizenship is important in terms of connecting individuals and groups to the structures of social, political economic, activity in both local and global contexts.

Mumbai statement on Lifelong Learning, Active Citizenship and the Reform of Higher Education UNESCO, 1998 International Journal of Lifelong Education Vol 17.No. 6. , p. 360.

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Active citizenship

We see a key purpose of lifelong learning as democratic citizenship, Democratic citizenship highlights the importance of women and men as agents of history in all aspects of their lives.
The Cape Town Statement on Characteristic Elements of a Lifelong Learning Higher Education Institution. UNESCO, 2001.

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Active citizenship
Encouraging active citizenship means that celebrating learning is connected with active citizenship by individuals, families organizations and communities.
That is why the Commission, under the R3L programme for Promoting active involvement in local governance, raising awareness of individual rights and duties as members of society, encouraging social solidarity and intergenerational learning in the local community, harnessing the experience of senior citizens for lifelong learning, protecting the local environment or cultural heritage as a dimension of lifelong learning.

N. Longworth (2006) Lifelong Learning in Action. Kogan Page. London. Pp. 86-88.

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Active citizenship
Active citizenship in the learning city
A successfully implemented consultation system should inspire citizens to do more than just deliver an opinion. ..One of the most important indicators of succesful learning cities and regions is the extent to which their citizens participate in active citizenship programmes that enhance community living, learning and social cohesion.

N. Longworth (2006) Learning Cities, Learning Regions, Learning Communities. Kogan Page. London. p. 153.

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Active citizenship
However, the key to the door of citizenship in contemporary society, according to EC policy documents, is employability that, paradoxically, can produce life, which might udermine the desire to participate in active citizenship. Citizenship is now a responsibility rather than a right and, there is still a fundamental conceptual difference between citizenship and active citizenship the one about rights and the other about the excercise of responsibility, although this need not occur only in traditional sphere of national citizenship. Territory and playing a role in the political/public domain are no longer the basis of active citizenship but being members of communities of interest whether local, regional, national or international. (p. 12.)

P. Jarvis (2004) Lifelong Learning and Active Citizenship in a Global Society. JACE, NIACE-Leicester. Vol 10., No1., Pp. 3-19.

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Closed model of HEI/region interface

HEIs Region

Education

Skills

R&D

Innovation

Service to Community

Culture Community and Sustainability

Active citizenship
OECD IMHE-CERI (2007) Higher Education and Regions. Globally Competitive, Locally Engaged. OECD, Paris. p.40. upon Goddard and Chatterton (2003)
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Lifelong Learning
Lifelong learning is about interaction between learners, educators, and diverse knowledges. As the construction, understanding and sharing of knowledge is the most fundamental purpose of universities and other HEIs, so a full understanding of lifelong learning calls us to examine many assumptions. Lifelong learning supports the decolonization of the mind by encouraging the reexamination of relationships between scientific, often understood as official knowledge, and the specific diverse knowledges of local communities, cultures and contexts.
Mumbai statement on Lifelong Learning, Active Citizenship and the Reform of Higher Education UNESCO, 1998 International Journal of Lifelong Education Vol 17.No. 6. , p. 361.

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Lifelong Learning
Lifelong learning can be approached by the market and can be seen as a means of control.

The value of the phenomenon depends on what aspects of lifelong learning are being analysed and the perspective that is being adopted in the analysis. Three market values of lifelong learning: An economic return on lifelong learning; An educational value given to personal learning through the accreditation of experimental and prior experimental learning; skills, competencies, qualifications become currency in the labour market.
P. Jarvis (2007) Globalisation, Lifelong Learning and the Learning Society. Routledge Falmer, London. Vol. 2. Pp.132.-134.

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Lifelong Learning
New Educational Order Five elements of a future strategy: rethinking the role of schooling in a learning society University LLL (?) widening participation in adult learning EC communications (?) developing the workplace as a site of learning HRD (?) building active citizenship by investing in social capital - HEI (?) pursuing the search for meaning - HEI (?)

J. Field (2007) Lifelong Learning and the New Educational Order. Trentham Books, Stoke on Trent. p.148.

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University Lifelong Learning

The pedagogical relations of academics to their students have been transformed in the client-driven, user-pays university that utilizes new learning technologies. The new instrumentalism and vocationalism, together with the managerialist desire for control and emphasis on image management in market-driven systems of education, means intensified public srutiny. The performative university has responded by intensifying internal pressure for quality assurance and improved outcomes, largly measured through the capacity to attract and retain students, but also through input measures of research monies and output performance indicators of publications and commercial benefits. This new focus on outcomes linked to funding and consumer satisfaction has placed effective teaching and learning at the center of of managing the postmodern university and has increased surveillance over academics.
J. Blackmore (2001) Universities in crisis? Knowledge economies, emancipatory pedagogies, and the critical intellectual. Educational Theory, 51(3), Pp. 353-371.

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University Lifelong Learning?

University departments of adult, continuing and community

education have always stood on the edge of the academy as marginal, potentially creative, but vulnerable places. Historically, perhaps what distinguished them most clearly has been their role as agents of civic mission of the academy. In this sense, they have worked as instruments of the democratic intellect and sought to sustain some connection between the idea of the university and the ideal of an educated public. It is very much against the odds, therefore, that we have tried to reinvent elements of the civic mission of the university, understood as a public institutions, in some of our work.
J. Crowther, I. Martin, M. Shaw: Re-inventing the Civic Tradition: In and Against the State of Higher Education. In: R.V. de Castro, A.V. Sancho, P. Guimaraes (eds.) (2006) Adult Education. New Routes in a New Landscape. University of Minho, Braga. Pp. 135-147.

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Ministry of Education and Culture, 2005.

Overall improvement of the quality of life

Improvement of competitiveness

Strengthening social, economic and regional cohesion

Sustainable growth

The strategy for lifelong learning in Hungary

Strengthening the links between the education and training system and the labour market
Career guidance, counselling and monitoring Recognition of nonformal and informal learning Harmonisation of the development of labour market and education and training systems Supporting vulnerable groups in the labour market

Equal opportunities

New governance

Enhancing the efficiency of the education and training system and increasing related public and private investment
Encouraging the introduction of procedures facilitating the efficiency of education and training (partnership) Promoting individual and employer investment in education and training

Improving the quality of education and training

Enhanced support to the learning opportunities of the socially disadvantaged Improving access to education and training opportunities at a regional level Expansion of learning opportunities

Promoting and ensuring sustainability of innovation

Developing of assessment, evaluation and quality management systems New teaching and learning culture Developing basic skills and key competences Improving the infrastructure of education

Strengthening social partnership and intersectoral coordination

Making use of opportunities opened by international (European) cooperation

The Learning Revolution

Buliding a culture of learning; - Empowerment, participation of citizens, Commitment/engagement; Increasing access to Informal Adult Learning; - Supporting the learning of older and of disadvantaged people; Development of community learning; Promoting informal learning at work; Transforming the way people learn through technology; -Developing skills for using new technologies; Promoting new froms of partnerships; Making it happen!
Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills (2009) The Learning Revolution. www.dius.gov.uk
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Education and training 2020

Strategic objective 1: Making lifelong learning and mobility a reality
-Benchmark: By 2020, an average of at least 15 % of adults should participate in lifelong learning (3.8 HUN)

Strategic objective 2: Improving the quality and efficiency of education and training
- By 2020, the share of low-achieving 15-years olds in reading, mathematics and science ( 3 ) should be

less than 15 %. - By 2020, the share of early leavers from education and training ( 5 ) should be less than 10 %. (13.9 HUN and not wanting to reach the proposed 8.9%)
European Council (2009) Conclusions of 12 May 2009 on a strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (ET 2020) 2009/C 119/02) http://eur-lex.europa.eu

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Education and training 2020

Strategic objective 3: Promoting equity, social cohesion and active citizenship
- By 2020, at least 95 % of children between 4 years old and the age for starting compulsory primary education should participate in early childhood education.

Strategic objective 4: Enhancing creativity and innovation, including entrepreneurship, at all levels of education and training
European Council (2009) Conclusions of 12 May 2009 on a strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (ET 2020) 2009/C 119/02) http://eur-lex.europa.eu

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Education and training 2020

Further thoughts referring to the Central-Eastern European environment in accordance with the roles of cities and regions:
NEGATIVE IMPACTS and issues for discussion or for reaction:

- Relatively low commitment to second chance schooling in the

region( a second chance secondary schooling programme will be shortly introduced in Hungary); - Dominant (Reductionist) approach towards vocational adult learning and marginalised attention to non-vocational adult learning; - Limitied focus on the development of mobility strategies and instruments for adult learning (e.g. information, counselling and guidance services; flexibility of learning trajectories; quality assurance management; outreach work to specific target groups and communitybased learning environments; acknowledgement of prior (experiential) learning) and economic instruments);
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Education and training 2020

Further thoughts referring to the Central-Eastern European environment in accordance with the roles of cities and regions:
NEGATIVE IMPACTS:

-Relatively low participation of adults in lifelong learning; - Limited involvement of cities and regions (and their associations) in the formation of education and training and employment policy and approaches, relations to policy-development and programing, like the EU-2020 at national and EU-levels; - Lack of applicable and legitimate lifelong learning policies; -Lack of the debate over the impacts of the Lisbon-process and of the Education and Training 2010 programme at national and regional levels; - Very small-scale discussion on the impact of ageing, migration and integration, and about the challenges of the development of LLL-skills.

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Problem areas
Issues for further development with elements to social inclusion:
- HE helping policy (national educational reforms) to develop Adult Learning and Education; - Improve the quality of AE provision; - Increasing the possibility for adults to go one step up;
- Speeding up RPL/VPL; OBSERVAL project: http://www.observal.org/observal/

- Monitoring the ALE sector;

-Examples of some EU-funded adult learning projects:

DILLMULI - http://www.dillmuli.feek.pte.hu/ ADD-Life - http://add-life.uni-graz.at/ LILARA - http://www.lilaraproject.com/

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Project Europe 2030

Human capital is the key strategic instrument for ensuring success in the global economy. And yet, Europe has lost considerable ground in the race to a knowledge economy. Catching up will require a coordinated effort. Member States must mobilise the resources they agreed to invest in R&D, with the help of the private sector, and reform all aspects of education, including professional training.

A report to the European Council by the Reflection Group on the Future of the EU 2030 May 2010

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