34 Key Lessons from International Adult Education Movements

Rajesh Tandan

Content Outline

Ø  Introduction

Ø  Major International Organisations and Networks

Ø  Key Lessons from International Organisations & Networks on Adult Education

Ø  Conclusion

Learning objectives

At the end of this module, the learner will be able to

1.  List major international organisations and networks

2.  Explain the activities of major international organisations and networks

3.  Elaborate on the lessons learnt from International Adult Education Movements.

Introduction

In the context of adult education, “international” suggests, in addition to contractual agreements, people belonging to a cultural awareness that extends beyond national borders and has the potential to foster mutual respect and, thus, peace. Looking at the development of international awareness in adult education leads to the conclusion that the field acquired an identifiable international orientation early on, first in practice and then in academic theory. The dramatic events of World War II brought to the fore the need to learn to live together in peace. This need raised the awareness of the tremendous role international adult education organisations can play on a global level in fostering qualities such as mutual respect, understanding, sympathy, and solidarity, qualities that flourish with education, are destroyed by ignorance, and are crucial for creating an international atmosphere conducive to peace. Thus, the field of adult education and its international dimension gained more recognition and, with it, momentum. In institutional terms, this translated into the creation of international organisations, or specialised bodies within larger ones, dedicated to the education of adults.

1.1  Major International Organisations and Networks

There have been numerous forms of institutional responses, both governmental and non-governmental (NGOs), whose scope includes adult education and lifelong learning. They include, but are not limited to:

• The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO),
• The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD),
• The International Council of Adult Education (ICAE),
• The Asian South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education (ASPBAE),
• The European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA),
• The Latin American Council for Adult Education (CEAAL),

·   The Institute for International Cooperation of the German Adult Education Association (dvv International),

·   The International Association Znanie, and

·    The Global Campaign for Education (GCE).

UNESCO (1945) is the United Nations (UN) agency dedicated to, among other goals, education. It was created with the ambitious purpose of establishing the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind in order to prevent the outbreak of another world war. Its constitution states that “since war begins in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed” (UNESCO, 2009, p. 1).

As of 2005, the organisation had 191 member states and 6 associate members in the fields of education, science, culture, and communication (UNESCO, 2009). Although not meant to deal strictly with the education of adults but with education in general, UNESCO has been a major contributor to the field of adult education in most countries. It is also important to recognise that UNESCO acts in co-operation with other UN agencies, such as UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Fund), the ILO (International Labour Organisation), and the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), to work toward common goals.

By 2015, UNESCO plans to have contributed to achieving the following Development Goals of the UN Millennium Declaration:

·         Halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty

·         Achieve universal primary education

·         Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education

·         Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

·         Ensure environmental sustainability

·         Develop a global partnership for development (UN, 2014)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (1961) is an economic organisation of 30 countries, which achieves a global reach by maintaining active relationships with some 70 other countries, as well as with numerous NGOs and civil societies. In the area of education, the OECD is best known for its publications and statistics and for individual country surveys and reviews. It also produces policy recommendations and offers a library of documents, such as working papers, guidelines, best practices, and legal instruments, based on its research, as well as a statistical database (OECD, 2006).

The Open Society Institute (OSI) (1993) was created by investor and philanthropist George Soros to support his foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. These foundations were established, starting in 1984, to help countries make the transition from communism. The OSI expanded the activities of the Soros Foundations network to other areas of the world1; it now encompasses more than 60 countries. A private operating and grant-making foundation, the OSI aims to shape public policy so as to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform. At the same time, it works to build alliances across borders and continents on issues such as combating corruption and human rights abuses. Most of its initiatives are administered by OSI-New York or OSI-Budapest and implemented in co-operation with Soros Foundations in various countries and regions. These initiatives are grouped around the areas of economic reform, education at all levels, human rights, legal reform and public administration, media and communications, public health, and arts and culture.

The International Council of Adult Education (ICAE) (1973) is a global partnership of adult learners and educators, and their organisations, and others who promote the use of adult learning as a tool for informed participation of people and sustainable development. The ICAE promotes lifelong learning as a necessary component for people to contribute creatively to their communities and live in independent and democratic societies. The council contends that adult education and lifelong learning are deeply linked to:

·               Social, economic, and political justice

·               Equality of gender relations

·               The universal right to learn

·               Living in harmony with the environment

·               Respect for human rights and recognition of cultural diversity

·               Peace

·               The active involvement of women and men in decisions affecting their lives

The Asian South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education (ASPBAE) (1964) constitutes a network of organisations and individuals involved in formal and non-formal adult education, working with and through NGOs, community organisations, government

1  OSI  and  Soros  Foundations’  geographical  areas  are:  Africa,  Asia,  Centr Eurasia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, South Eastern Europe, Turkey and the Middle East, and the United States. agencies, universities, trade unions, indigenous peoples, women’s organisations, the media, and other institutions of civil society across the Asia Pacific. The ASPBAE’s fundamental purpose is to defend and advance the lifelong learning rights of adults throughout the Asia-Pacific region in order to gain control of their destinies.

The European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA) (1953) is a NGO with 120 member organisations in 41 countries. Originally known as the European Bureau of Adult Education, its purpose is to link and represent European organisations that are directly involved in adult learning; the majority of them are national NGOs dedicated to adult education, either formal, non-formal, informal, or a combination of these. The EAEA’s overall goal is to support and disseminate its members’ engagement in activities, partnerships, policy and curricula development, research, and provision of social inclusion and cohesion that encourages democratic participation and combats poverty and discrimination (EAEA, 2014).

The Latin American Council for Adult Education (CEAAL) (1982) was formed as an association of 195 NGOs and other civil organisations from 21 Latin American and Caribbean countries. Although the NGOs affiliated with it are free to develop various forms of educational activities, they all have a strong commitment to strengthening civil society. CEAAL is identified with the popular adult education movement throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and as a pillar of civil society in the region. Its principal mission is to foster and strengthen the training and professional development of popular educators and contribute to the building of democratic societies in the region. CEAAL functions as a platform for collaboration and for the launch of policy initiatives (CEAAL, 2014).

The Institute for International Cooperation of the German Adult Education Association (dvv International) (1953) was established as an umbrella organisation for the provincial associations of adult education centres. These centres derived from the historical German Folk High Schools (Volkhochschulen), their roots going back to the workers’ adult education movements of the late 19th century; today, they are public continuing education centres. The institute operates both nationally and internationally. Internationally, it co-operates with state, civil society, and university partner organisations engaged in adult education in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe. Their broad aim is to enable people to participate more fully in social, cultural, and political life at all levels, from local to international. To this end, adult education is viewed as an integral part of lifelong learning and as a tool for advancing democracy, combating poverty, and strengthening self-help initiatives (dvv International, 2014).

The International Association (IA) Znanie (1947) unites republican, regional, urban, and local societies, Znanie, of the Russian Federation.2 It inherited the all-union society, Znanie, which was formed in 1947 and eventually boasted 200 million members through out the ex-Soviet Union; its main purpose was the popularisation of science. Today, it is an international union of about 30 NGOs from around the world and is considered the most authoritative NGO in the field of knowledge dissemination. Its members are educational organisations from the United States, Italy, Japan, Mongolia, China, Vietnam, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, and other countries. The activity of the IA Znanie and its member organisations is focused on the popularisation and dissemination ofhumanities and technical knowledge  ( International Association Znanie, 2014).

The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) (1999) is an international networking campaign to promote education as a human right and to mobilise public pressure on governments and the international community to fulfill their promises to provide free, compulsory public basic education. Although its main focus is on children, adults — especially women and the disadvantaged — are also within its mandate. The GCE is not an organisation in the main sense of the word, but rather a campaign and, thus, a movement. However, given how its membership is conceptualised, it can also be seen as an international network committed to promoting education. Membership in the GCE is open to independent civil society organisations or coalitions, international or regional organisations, and coalitions or networks of national organisations.

Members, which include Action Aid, CEAAL, and ASPBAE, meet every three years in a world assembly to determine the future direction of the campaign. Tandon (1987) has argued that “a network is the most efficient and flexible mode of sharing information, experiences and ideas across like-minded persons, groups and organisations spread geographically and working on diverse issues” (Tandon, 1987, p. 5).

1.2 Key Lessons from International Organisations & Networks on Adult Education

These organisations play a crucial role in promoting and supporting adult education on an international level. In practice, no organization serves only one role and roles permeate and blend to form a unitary working system.

2  Znanie unites organisations from Azerbaijan Republic, Republic of Armenia, Republic of Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Republic of Moldova, Republic of Tajikistan, Republic of Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and Estonia

A prominent role of any international organisation working to promote adult education is to identify the social needs in this area and then draw attention to them. These needs are always in organic contact with the major social issues of the day, be they the struggle for a more democratic society, for literacy, for human rights, for environmental protection, for gender equity, or against HIV/AIDS. In raising awareness about the educational needs of adults, these organisations also raise awareness about critical global issues and how they 

interconnect. International organisations give visibility to these issues and may serve as an important advocate for them. Most often, this awareness raising is performed in conjunction with seeking funds for programme support.

The collaborative work of various international organisations in the sphere of literacy exemplifies awareness raising. Adult illiteracy has been long identified as one of the great social problems of our time. As early as 1946, UNESCO drew attention to this issue at its first General Conference.

At the second World Adult Education Conference, organised by UNESCO in Montreal in 1960, participants put forth a recommendation that led to the launching of a vast campaign against illiteracy in 1964 in Teheran, known as the Experimental World Literacy Program (Belanger, 1995).

During the last few decades, international organisations have employed various instruments to raise public awareness about the basic learning needs of millions of adults and to mobilise financial resources. In 1982, the ICAE proposed an international literacy year; its subsequent awareness raising and collaboration with other international organisations and networks led to an International Literacy Year (ILY) being proclaimed at the 1990 World Conference on Education for All (WCEA), which was organised by UNESCO. This conference was particularly important to the theory of adult literacy because it expanded the vision of literacy from the generic skills of reading and writing, and calculating to include the human right of lifelong learning, thus eliminating the term’s stigmatizing connotation. Moreover, the conference participants adopted a programmaticdocument known as the World Declaration on Education for All: Meeting Basic Learning Needs. Ten years later, the international community met again at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal. Because many countries were still far from reaching the goals of the previous conference, the Education for All (EFA) commitment was reaffirmed and six key educational goals were identified in a document known as the Dakar Framework

for Action, Education for All: Meeting our Collective Commitments. Since then, UNESCO, as the lead agency, has continued its efforts to mobilise and harmonise international efforts to transform the EFA into a global movement that provides quality basic education for all children, youth, and adults.

In addition to the EFA and the ILY, the most important awareness-raising instruments are:

·   International Literacy Day — chosen to be September 8, it is a reminder to the world of the importance of literacy. On this day, events are organised worldwide to raise public awareness and support.

·  International Literacy Prizes

·   The UN Literacy Decade (UNLD) — under the slogan “Literacy as Freedom,” the UNLD is attempting to achieve a 50% improvement in adult literacy by 2015.

·    The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development

·    The Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE) — aims to create learning opportunities for illiterate adults, with a particular focus on women, in 34countries where the literacy rate is under 50% or the illiterate population is larger than 10 million.

·   The Non-Formal Education Management Information System (NFE-MIS)

·    The Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Program (LAMP)

·    The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

·     The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Other examples of normative instruments are:

·    UNESCO’s Fauré Report (1972) and its Recommendation Concerning Education for International Understanding, Cooperation and Peace, and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, adopted in 1974 (Belanger, 1995)

·   The Right to Learn Declaration, adopted in 1985 in Paris at the fourth World Conferences on Adult Education (WCAE)

·  The Hamburg Declaration, from the 5th International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA V) in 1997

·     The Dakar Framework for Action, from the World Education Forum in 2000 in Senegal

·     The Lifelong Learning Programme developed by the EAEA for the 2007-2013 period and adopted in October 2006 by the European Parliament; it is built on four pillars — the Comenius, the Erasmus, the Leonardo da Vinci, and the Grundtvig programmes — and united by the “transversal” programme

Several functions — programme development, the training of adult educators, support for regional and national programmes, advisory services, the development of conceptual tools, financial support, action research, pilot projects, evaluation, and monitoring — can be grouped under the term “technical knowledge.” All or some combination of these constitute a significant and resource-savvy role of international organisations, a role that may facilitate co-operation among them in these areas.

The major international organisations have proven to be prolific laboratories of ideas that were seminal to the subsequent development of theory and practice of adult education. Examples are the ICAE’s contribution to the concept of popular education and participatory research, Action Aid’s “Reflect” concept, and UNESCO’s view on literacy and lifelong learning. In these ways, they have contributed to the field’s philosophical foundation through policy and its general advancement through research.

During the 1960s and the 1970s, the technical aspect of adult education had less a collaborating aspect and more the character of one-way assistance. Many organisations from the industrialised and rich countries stepped in to try to help newly independent countries start their adult education programmes. Financial aid was provided mainly by UN organisations, bilateral government efforts, the World Bank, church organisations, and NGOs; these donor agencies also developed programmes, established guidelines and then trained and sent out staff to carry out these programmes. In short, they wanted to be responsible for the expenditure of funds and accountable for programme evaluations. This philosophy of aid has since made way for a new approach: collaboration. It is now recognised that not all innovative programmes and methods implemented by industrialised countries are necessarily successful and that developing countries are an equally rich source of expertise and valuable ideas.

The commandment of learning and the aspect of solidarity require the field of adult education and lifelong learning to develop into a global effort in order to realise a fairer world, improve global governance, and attain the goals of poverty alleviation, sustainable development, and the reduction of global unemployment (EAEA, 2014). International adult education organisations provide fecund soil for promotinginternational co-operation; through small, medium, or large meetings, seminars and conferences, and publications, they expand their networks and alliances, exchange experiences, disseminate good practices, build new partnerships, and create knowledge.

In the field of international co-operation, the ICAE has distinguished itself by linking the field’s most important international actors to attain a true global scope. Currently, the council not only represents more than 700 literacy, adult, and lifelong learning associations but also has national and sectoral members in over 50 countries and has united 8 regional member organisations, specifically, the North American Alliance for Popular and Adult Education (NAAPAE); the Caribbean Regional Council for Adult Education (CARCAE), CEAAL, EAEA, the Arab Network for Literacy and Adult Education (ANLAE), the Pan-African Association for Literacy and Adult Education (PAALAE), ASPBAE, and the Chinese Adult Education Association (CAEA).

Conclusion

Adult education is not merely a set of tools and methods but education is a practice in everyday life. Education can perpetuate the status quo, can exploit, domesticate, devalue human being. But education is also liberty, empathy, challenging and transforming development. The history of international adult education movement around the world and India will resonate if each of us, apart from being experts in our relevant subject/education, also act as facilitators of reflection and learning by others. It is in that role that we can be true champions of adult education.

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