Lifelong learning in Sustainable Development Goal 4: What does it mean for UNESCO’s rights-based approach to adult learning and education? (original) (raw)
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Аbstract. The article is based on an integrated analysis of key UNESCO documents (Recommendations of the International Conference on Adult Education CONFINTEA (1985, 1997, 2003, 2009), Global Reports on Adult Learning and Education (2009, 2013, 2016, 2019) that outlines the impact of evidence-based research on educational policy in supporting the development of educational policy in adult learning in the global educational environment at the end of the XX and at the beginning of the XXI century. It is found that the development of adult education is necessary due to the dynamics of social, scientific and technological improvement; changes in the content and nature of work and social activities of people; increased free time and opportunities for its effective use; labor market demands, the main requirements of which are to increase the competence and skills of the professional. Adult involvement in lifelong learning not only encourages meeting own needs, but also ensures self-fulfil...
UNESCO’s Global Reports on Adult Learning and Education
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 2022
Since 2009, UNESCO has published Global Reports on Adult Learning and Education (GRALEs), integrating an analysis of member-states' reported national data, policies and best practices. These reports focus on five action areas adopted in the Belém Framework for Action (policy, governance, financing, participation and quality), constructing adult learning and education as a policy object on a global level and strengthening UNESCO's role in the field of adult learning and education policy, particularly in terms of conceptualisation and in setting political priorities. Using the policy analysis framework by Lima and Guimarães (2011), this paper analyses the conceptual elements and political priorities of the four GRALEs and the latest national reports of Nigeria, Russia and Slovenia. Main findings indicate a discrepancy between conceptual elements and political priorities at both global and national levels, where GRALEs are observed to be closer to the democratic-emancipatory approach and national reports to the modernisation and state control approach.
International Review of Education
Despite general agreement that a 21st-century learning society must also be a literate society, there is still a long way to go to achieve a broad consensus on how to achieve this within an explicit lifelong learning vision. The Seventh International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VII-June 2022) is an excellent opportunity to rethink literacy from a lifelong learning perspective in order to fully tap its transformative potential in the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). By using a theoretical framework of lifelong literacy, this article analyses the main challenges associated with applying the lifelong learning principle to literacy, in particular in the context of aligning CONFINTEA's review and improvement of adult learning and education (ALE) strategies with SDG processes. The authors demonstrate that a limited understanding of literacy as part of lifelong learning still prevails, and that literacy promotion suffers from ambiguity and dissonances. They also provide analyses of literacy policies, strategies and programmes that have been successful in adopting a lifelong learning approach, drawing out some important lessons on how this can be achieved. In particular, the authors argue, more attention needs to be paid to the demand side of a literate environment and to motivation, enabling continuity of learning by making literacy part of people's broader learning purposes. To contribute to the ongoing discussion on reframing literacy from a lifelong learning perspective in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the potential development of a new "framework for action" during CONFINTEA VII, this article offers three fundamental considerations that should inform policy and strategic planning with regard to conceptual orientation, programmatic responses and institutional connections.
Global Report on Adult Learning and Education
Unesco Institute For Lifelong Learning, 2010
While the programmes of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) are established along the lines laid down by the General Conference of UNESCO, the publications of the Institute are issued under its sole responsibility. UNESCO is not responsible for their contents. The points of view, selection of facts and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily coincide with official positions of UNESCO or the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning. The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO or the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning concerning the legal status of any country or territory, or its authorities, or concerning the delimitations of the frontiers of any country or territory.
Adult Education and Sustainable Development Goals
This paper critically examines some key documents published towards formulating a set of post-2015 development as well as educational goals. The paper argues that even though ‘lifelong learning for all’ has been recommended as an overarching post-2015 educational goal adult education is not considered important. The paper identifies three major factors— overemphasis on measurements and comparisons, overreliance on corporate financing, and transnational governance of education—creating roadblocks for setting more holistic goals of education. The paper concludes that despite the importance of providing equitable educational opportunities especially to the adults of the most impoverished nations of the global South—known as the Least Developed Countries—adult education sector is completely neglected in the documents shaping post-2015 educational agendas.
Adult Education and International Organizations (UNESCO): Contemporary Policies and Strategies
In a rapidly changing world with its diverse spectrum of social characteristics that are currently defining our present period, its continual influx of migrating populations, the growing development of technology as well as the continual increasing rate of unemployment makes it more now than ever, necessary to develop not only international but also national policies that aim to support the viability and advancement of its citizens. International organizations constitute the corner stone of public policy for the confrontation of these challenges. More specifically, UNESCO and the institutions of the European Union (EU) should be called on to play a decisive role in the implementation of Agenda 2030 using the
2008
This article exposes precisely what ideological influences have been situated as authoritative and as marginal within UNESCO’s lifelong learning policy discourses over time, periodizing those discourses in terms of their politicaleconomic contexts. As such, analysis reveals UNESCO’s continuous commitment to extending social democratic liberalist lifelong learning discourses of global educational development in the interest of global justice. Implications for realizing good policy and global justice, distorted by the current neoliberal capitalism, are discussed in-depth. The Rise of International Organizations in Global Educational Development Over the last half century, the fast-growing number of international organizations addressing various global problems has been a salient global phenomenon (Union of International Associations, 2005). The field of global educational development is no exception. Specifically, among many of international bodies, four particular international agenc...