what is the importance of adult education

The right to lifelong learning: Why adult education matters

There are 771 million illiterate adults globally today, according to UNESCO’s Institute of Statistics . And many more do not have the adequate skills and knowledge needed to navigate through our increasingly digital 21 st century demands. How is this still possible in this day and age?

While participation in adult education is improving in some places, access to learning opportunities remains profoundly unequal, and millions continue to be left out.  

From the pandemic to the climate crisis, to the digital revolution and mass movements of populations around the world, we know that today, more than ever, it is critical to ensure access to quality education and learning opportunities throughout life for everyone, everywhere.

Here’s what you need to know about adult education and learning.

Why is adult education crucial?

The speed of today’s changes calls for opportunities to learn throughout life, for individual fulfilment, social cohesion, and economic prosperity. Education can no longer be limited to a single period of one’s lifetime. Everyone, starting with the most marginalized and disadvantaged in our societies, must be entitled to learning opportunities throughout life both for employment and personal agency. 

In order to face our interconnected global challenges, we must ensure the right to lifelong learning by providing all learners - of all ages in all contexts - the knowledge and skills they need to realize their full potential and live with dignity.

This call was highlighted in UNESCO’s flagship Futures of Education report ‘ Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education ’ published in November 2021. The right to lifelong learning will also be echoed at the Transforming Education Summit in September 2022, building upon the UN Secretary-General’s call for formal recognition of a universal entitlement to lifelong learning and reskilling in his report “Our Common Agenda”.

What is the situation of adult learning and education today?

The main challenge for adult learning and education across the globe is to reach those who need it most. That is the core message of UNESCO’s latest Fifth Global Report on Adult Learning and Education (GRALE).

The report shows that while there is progress, notably in the participation of women, those who need adult education the most – disadvantaged and vulnerable groups such as Indigenous learners, rural populations, migrants, older citizens, people with disabilities or prisoners – are deprived of access to learning opportunities.

About 60% of countries reported no improvement in participation by people with disabilities, migrants or prisoners. 24% of countries reported that the participation of rural populations declined. And participation of older adults also decreased in 24% of the 159 surveyed countries.

How can we guarantee the right to lifelong learning?

The GRALE report details the crucial steps needed to guarantee the right to lifelong learning.

Greater participation and inclusion are key : Vulnerable groups, such as migrants, indigenous learners, older citizens and people with disabilities, are too often excluded from adult education and learning.

More financing is needed : Investment in adult learning and education is currently insufficient. Countries must live up to their commitment to seek investment of at least 6% of GNP in education, increasing the allocation to adult learning and education. There is wide diversity in terms of public funding devoted to adult learning and education, with only 22 out of 146 countries spending 4% or more of their public expenditure for education on adult learning and education, and 28 spending less than 0.4%.

Stronger policies are essential : Effective policies are key for adult learning and education across the globe. 60% of countries have improved policies since 2018. But we need further efforts to transition education systems to lifelong learning systems.

Progress in governance : Partnerships and cooperation between ministries, the private sector and civil society are essential for adult learning and education to thrive. Almost three-quarters of countries reported progress in governance, particularly in low-income and upper middle-income countries, and in both sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and the Pacific.

Improved quality : Effective teacher training and the professional standards for adult educators are essential to the quality of earning. Most countries reported progress in relation to quality of curricula, assessment and the professionalization of adult educators. Over two-thirds reported progress in pre-service and in-service training for educators, as well as in employment conditions, though this progress varies considerably by region and income group.

The importance of citizenship education : Responding to contemporary challenges, such as climate change and digitalization, demands citizens who are informed, trained and engaged, active, who recognize both their shared humanity and their obligations to other species and to the planet. Citizenship education is a key tool in this endeavour to empower learners to take action and help transform our collective future.

What has been the impact of COVID-19 on adult learning?       

During the COVID-19 pandemic, most countries reported rapid transitions to online, digital and distance learning or modifications of in-person learning arrangements. The widespread adoption of digital technology, including televisions, radios and telephones, has supported educational continuity for millions during lockdowns.

There are many examples of countries responding innovatively to the crisis to ensure the continuation of adult learning by adopting new policies and regulations to support this process, or by adjusting existing quality standards and curricula.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has also caused some regions and population groups, particularly in parts of the world where resources and infrastructure are scarce, to lag even further behind.

How does UNESCO support adult education and learning?

The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning strengthens the capacities of Member States to build effective and inclusive lifelong learning policies and systems, in line with Sustainable Development Goal 4. It aims to develop learning ecosystems that work across life, in every setting and benefit everyone through building capacity at local and national levels, strengthening partnerships, and offering data and knowledge.

To advance the world’s commitment to the right to lifelong learning, UNESCO is convening the Seventh International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VII) in Marrakech, Morocco from 15 to 17 June 2022. Participants from across the globe will come together to take stock of achievements in adult learning and education, discuss challenges, and develop a new framework for action to make adult learning and education a reality around the world. CONFINTEA VII is hosted by and co-organized with the Kingdom of Morocco.

• More about CONFINTEA VII
• Access the GRALE Report
• More about the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning

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Adult education matters

The COVID-19 pandemic showed the importance of adult education. Only if everybody – young and old – is able to learn can we solve global challenges such as COVID-19 together. Only if all of us have the chance to adapt to new developments and acquire the knowledge necessary to act jointly to solve global challenges will we be able to create fairer, more just and sustainable societies. A rapidly developing world does not allow for learning to finish with the end of compulsory or higher education. It requires lifelong learning for all.

As a core component of lifelong learning, adult learning and education (ALE) comprises all forms of education and learning, ensuring that adults participate not only in the world of work, but in society as a whole. It is an essential instrument in working towards the achievement of all SDGs and plays a significant role in tackling current and future skills challenges, as well as in supporting personal development and social cohesion.

We are far from providing learning opportunities to all. In one-third of countries worldwide fewer than

of adults aged 15 and above participate in education and learning programmes.

At the midway point of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 4, which specifically calls for learning opportunities for adults, it is clear that we must redouble our efforts!

Moving adult learning and education up on the policy agenda

As we anticipate further disruption caused by the effects of climate change, demographic shifts and the growing influence of digital technologies in every aspect of our lives, it is critical that adult learning and education as an integral part of lifelong learning moves further up the policy agenda. The seventh International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VII) provided the perfect ground for this endeavour.

Since adopting the Belém Framework for Action (BFA) at CONFINTEA VI in 2009 and following the adoption of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda in 2015, Member States have shown increasing interest in tracking ALE, as reflected in the growing number of countries responding to the Global Report on Adult Learning and Education (GRALE) survey. The global community of ALE, brought together through the cycles of CONFINTEA roughly every 12 years, has increased steadily in diversity while enabling a more concerted approach in promoting more equitable and inclusive education outside formal settings. According to GRALE, the key recommendations of the BFA’s and the 2015 UNESCO Recommendation on Adult Learning and Education (RALE) are well-reflected in Member States’ national legislation and education policies, with 81 per cent of 159 countries reporting that the BFA and RALE are translated into national laws. 

Using RALE and BFA as a reference, UIL has been providing targeted technical assistance to countries in the development and national implementation of ALE strategies. See below to learn more about how different countries implemented their ALE strategies.

A UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning CONFINTEA fellowship programme success story – Susan Berdie. 

A UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning CONFINTEA fellowship programme success story – Nadia Salama Hashem Hassan. 

A UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning CONFINTEA fellowship programme success story – Yoseph Abera. 

A UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning CONFINTEA fellowship programme success story – Hassène Slimani.

A UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning CONFINTEA fellowship programme success story – Gertrude Niles. 

A UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning CONFINTEA fellowship programme success story – Yohan Rubiyantoro. 

A UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning CONFINTEA fellowship programme success story – Mary Malunde Watugulu. 

A UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning CONFINTEA fellowship programme success story – Imelda Kyaringabira Engabi. 

A UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning CONFINTEA fellowship programme success story – Lien Anh Tongi. 

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Types of adult education

Adult-education agencies and institutions.

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adult education , any form of learning undertaken by or provided for mature men and women. In a 1970 report, the National Institute of Adult Education (England and Wales) defined adult education as “any kind of education for people who are old enough to work, vote, fight and marry and who have completed the cycle of continuous education, [if any] commenced in childhood.” Adult education comprehends such diverse modes as independent study consciously pursued with or without the aid of libraries; broadcast programs or correspondence courses; group discussion and other “mutual aid” learning in study circles, colloquia, seminars or workshops, and residential conferences or meetings; and full- or part-time study in classes or courses in which the lecturer, teacher, or tutor has a formal leading role.

(Read Arne Duncan’s Britannica essay on “Education: The Great Equalizer.”)

Types of adult education can be classified as follows:

1. Education for vocational , technical, and professional competence. (Such education may aim at preparing an adult for a first job or for a new job, or it may aim at keeping him up to date on new developments in his occupation or profession.)

2. Education for health, welfare , and family living. (Such education includes all kinds of education in health, family relations, consumer buying, planned parenthood, hygiene, child care, and the like.)

3. Education for civic, political, and community competence. (Such education includes all kinds of education relating to government, community development, public and international affairs, voting and political participation, and so forth.)

4. Education for “self-fulfillment.” (Such education embraces all kinds of liberal education programs: education in music, the arts, dance, theatre, literature, arts and crafts, whether brief or long-term. These programs aim primarily at learning for the sake of learning rather than at achieving the aims included in the other categories.)

5. Remedial education: fundamental and literacy education. (Such education is obviously a prerequisite for all other kinds of adult education and thus, as a category, stands somewhat apart from the other types of adult education.)

In reference to the fifth category, adults frequently need to compensate for inadequacies of earlier education. If these inadequacies are not remedied, they inhibit recourse to modes of education that are “adult”—adult, that is, in terms of sophistication in modern society and not in terms of age. Such remedial education is required most extensively in societies changing rapidly from a subsistence to an industrial economy and concurrently changing politically and socially. Mass literacy acquires a new importance in these nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America , and the establishment of universal primary education becomes a social imperative . To prevent a “generation gap” in reading skills and education while an effective school system is being created for the young, governments must attempt to provide parallel facilities for adults. Even in countries with mature systems of childhood education, however, opportunities for higher or even sometimes secondary education are unequal among various regional, occupational, and social groups. Hence there are adult programs for completing high school or preparing for examinations normally taken at the end of secondary school.

Any classification of agencies and institutions involved in adult education must necessarily be arbitrary, given the great variety found not only among nations but within single nations. The following are the general types.

The folk high schools , first established in Denmark and now found in all Scandinavian countries, are residential schools in which young adults who have completed formal schooling and usually have had some subsequent work experience pursue at least several months of study. The study aims at furthering both moral and intellectual development and instilling an understanding of local and national traditions and conditions. Although at first they were independent or separate institutions, they are now frequently promoted or supported by communal boards of education. Although rarely exported with success in their pure form, the folk high schools have influenced the development of residential forms of adult education in countries as diverse as Canada, Kenya, India, and The Netherlands.

Nonresident adult-education centres, which are the most widely distributed specialized institutes for adult education, are represented by such organizations as “ workers’ academies” in Finland, “ people’s high schools” in Germany and Austria , “adult education centres” in Great Britain, and “ people’s universities” in The Netherlands , Italy , and Switzerland . The distinguishing characteristics of these institutions are that they are independent of the general education authorities, at least in terms of programming; that student attendance is voluntary and part-time; and that teachers and administrators are either volunteers or professionals offering mainly part-time services. Traditionally these schools do not prepare students for examinations or offer training in advanced vocational skills. Typically the curriculum includes instruction in practical and domestic crafts, fine arts, music and drama, familial and social problem solving, and modern languages, as well as instruction designed to reinforce primary and secondary education.

Agricultural extension services, though almost wholly an American development, are conducted on a scale great enough to rate separate mention. The extension service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture conducts agricultural, home economics, and even public affairs programs in every county in the United States . It has had special significance in developing “demonstration” as a method of adult education and in emphasizing the adoption of new farming practices.

The open university , a recent British institution, is significant for its new dimension and sharp break with previous degree programs for adults. In some educationally advanced countries—such as Australia, New Zealand , Canada , and the United States—adults have long had opportunities to pursue part-time education leading to university degrees, but these programs have usually been carbon copies of programs offered to regular undergraduates. The open university, in theory at least, aspires to a kind of universal higher education . It is intended to serve only mature or older adults studying part-time; it has no standardized entry requirements; and it attempts to combine various educational technologies and techniques—correspondence instruction, mass-communication media, personal counseling , and short-term residential courses.

Commercial enterprises have provided correspondence courses or class instruction (part- or full-time) for adults who are usually seeking some form of vocational qualification (but who may, however, be simply seeking “self-improvement,” as in speed-reading programs). Such schools may be licensed or supervised by state agencies (as in Sweden and The Netherlands), or they may be self-policing through associations offering accreditation. Some schools are nonprofit organizations.

Extension services include both public-school programs for adults and the university extensions mentioned earlier. The school programs are administered by the public-school systems, and they are popularly termed night schools because ordinarily they are housed in the same school buildings used in the daytime for school-age youth and also because some of the same teachers are often involved. (Much of the teaching , however, is also done by subject specialists not employed as schoolteachers.) Though often originating in efforts to remedy or supplement inadequate childhood education, many of these programs now cater to the same range of interests served by the “nonresident adult-education centres” cited previously. They often retain elements of vocational preparation at a less specialized level, generally for younger adults—for example, in commercial and trade skills.

The extension services offered by institutions of higher learning are of two broad types. The British tradition, influential in most Commonwealth countries and former colonial territories, has emphasized the provision of noncredit courses of “liberal” studies. The North American tradition, found in countries influenced by the United States and Canada, places a larger emphasis on credit programs duplicating courses offered to regular undergraduates; such programs are offered via television or correspondence or in separate urban colleges. Both traditions seem in the process of modification—the British in the direction of offering more credit-earning and vocation-related refresher courses, the North American toward a wider acceptance of the provision of general liberal studies for the public at large and for specialized vocational groups. It is everywhere apparent that universities are assuming more responsibility for the continuance and renewal of education for the highly educated.

In addition to the various schools or services listed above, there are countless organizations whose main purposes may not be adult education but that offer some kind of instruction or leisure-time activities for adults. They include such bodies as the Young Men’s Christian Association , the Young Women’s Christian Association , political parties and labour unions, women’s organizations, and temperance organizations. Other agencies for which adult education is a related rather than a primary function are libraries, museums, botanical gardens, and the like. Not only do these agencies provide the means of individual self-education but also they frequently promote group activities or put their accommodations and resources at the disposal of adult-education agencies. Finally there should be mentioned the advisory and instructional services offered by various social and welfare agencies in the fields of health, safety, marital guidance, family planning , and so forth.

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When we think of education, we usually associate it with the formal education of children, adolescents, and young people. Although they are the primary beneficiaries of education under international human rights law, adults are also recognised rights-holders. The right to education is, like all other human rights, universal and applies to everyone, irrespective of age.

According to international law, the aims of education include the ‘full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity’ and to ‘enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society’. These aims (and the other aims of education under international law) cannot be met through education delivered exclusively to children. The right to education, therefore, recognises the importance of education as a lifelong process. The early years are considered foundational for lifelong learning, where each level of education lays the building blocks for further education throughout a person’s life.

Adult education and learning is an integral part of the right to education and lifelong learning, and comprises ‘all forms of education and learning that aim to ensure that all adults participate in their societies and the world of work. It denotes the entire body of learning processes, formal, non-formal and informal, whereby those regarded as adults by the society in which they live, develop and enrich their capabilities for living and working, both in their own interests and those of their communities, organisations and societies’ (UNESCO  Recommendation on Adult Learning and Education  [2015]: Para. 1).

Adults may (re)enter education for a number of reasons, including to:

• replace missed or neglected primary and/or secondary education
• develop basic education skills, such as literacy and numeracy
• develop new vocational skills and expertise to adapt to changing labour market conditions or to change career, or for continued professional development
• continue learning for personal development and leisure
• participate fully in social life and in democratic processes

As well as the benefits accrued from the above, adult education benefits the individual, by:

• being instrumental in the enjoyment of other human rights, for instance, the rights to work, health, and to take part in cultural life and in the conduct of public affairs
• empowering economically and socially marginalised adults  to understand, question and transform, through critical awareness, the sources of their marginalisation, including lifting themselves out of poverty
• building the skills and knowledge necessary to participate in society
• facilitating active citizenship

Further, adult education and learning has wider economic, social, political, and cultural benefits, most notably recognised in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development  (2015) which has numerous targets on adult education, and to which all states have committed.

Yet, despite states’ commitments to adult education, efforts to implement and realise the right to education for adolescents, young people, and adults have been neglected. This failure to fully implement adult education compounds historical marginalisation because those most likely to benefit from adult education are those who did not receive primary and/or secondary education in the first place.

At present, adult education, particularly non-formal education, including literacy programmes, is generally the most underfunded level of education with few countries spending the recommended 3% of their national education budget on adult literacy and education programmes (UNESCO [2016] Reading the Past: Writing the Future ). As a consequence, adult education and learning is not generally provided for free, the cost of which must be borne by the individual, which acts as a prohibitive barrier in accessing adult education or is a financial burden on already marginalised adults who have to pay to access an education that was previously denied to them.

A fundamental element of the right to education is that it is accessible to all which is why primary and lower secondary education is generally provided for free by most states. The same principle applies to adult education and learning. However, for adults it is different in that in addition to the state, there are market providers (everything from yoga classes and cooking, to computer programming will be offered by private providers), companies train and develop their staff, community organisations create learning opportunities for their members, and the web offers a range of free (MOOCs) and charged for learning programmes. A key responsibility of states is to establish a legal and regulatory framework that secures access to adult education and learning opportunities, particularly for those from marginalised groups. Further, states have obligations under international human rights law in relation to certain forms of adult education and learning.

This page explores the various forms of adult education and lifelong learning for which the state has specific legal obligations under international human rights law, including: fundamental education, basic education, adult literacy programmes, technical and vocational education and training, and higher education. It also explores the right to education of older persons and adult education as articulated in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

For the international normative framework that provides guiding principles for adult education policy and practice, see UNESCO Recommendation on Adult Learning and Education (2015) and the Belém Framework for Action (2009) from the 6th International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA 6).

Adult education forms an important element of lifelong learning. While ‘lifelong learning’ is not strictly part of the right to education, it is a concept that represents the continuity of the learning and educational process, and this is reflected in the right to education by the fact that it begins at birth and continues throughout life.

The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) provides the following definition:

‘In essence, lifelong learning is founded in the integration of learning and living, covering learning activities for people of all ages (children, young people, adults and elderly, whether girls or boys, women or men), in all life-wide contexts (family, school, community, workplace and so on) and through a variety of modalities (formal, non-formal and informal) that together meet a wide range of learning needs and demands’ (UIL [2014] Literacy & Basic Skills as a Foundation for Lifelong Learning ).

For more information, see the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education’s 2016 report on lifelong learning and Report of the International Commission on Education for the 21st Century (Delors Commission) to UNESCO (1996)  Learning: The Treasure Within .

Around the world, countless people have been - and continue to be - denied their right to free and compulsory primary education. Currently, it is estimated that there are 61 million children out of school at the primary level .

The right to free and compulsory primary education is considered a ‘minimum core obligation’ of the right to education. Effectively, primary education is prioritised given its importance to the individual. Obligations to realise primary education extend beyond provision to primary school-aged students. Under international law, states must also provide education for all those who have missed all or part of their primary education.

Article 4(c) of the UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education (1960) obliges States parties: ‘To encourage and intensify by appropriate methods the education of persons who have not received any primary education or who have not completed the entire primary education course and the continuation of their education’.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) goes further: ‘Fundamental education shall be encouraged or intensified as far as possible for those persons who have not received or completed the whole period of their primary education’ (Article 13(2)(d)).

‘Fundamental education’ (also known as ‘second chance education’) replaces primary education. However the right to fundamental education is far broader in scope. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) provides the following interpretation of fundamental education ( General Comment 13  [1999]: Para. 24):

‘It should be emphasised that enjoyment of the right to fundamental education is not limited by age or gender; it extends to children, youth and adults, including older persons. Fundamental education, therefore, is an integral component of adult education and lifelong learning. Because fundamental education is a right of all age groups, curricula and delivery systems must be devised which are suitable for students of all ages.’

The last point is crucial. As is the case for the right to education more broadly, the elements of availability, accessibility, acceptability, and adaptability also apply to fundamental education (CESCR, General Comment 13: Para. 21). This means that traditional methods and practices of teaching child learners (pedagogies) may need to be substituted for methods and practices that are more appropriate and respectful of adult learners and their already accumulated knowledge and experience.

Both fundamental education and primary education are intended to satisfy ‘basic learning needs’. However, it is important that the distinction is clear. Primary education is delivered to primary school-aged children, usually in formal settings. Fundamental education, on the other hand, is not age specific and therefore its delivery must be adapted to the recipient, and is usually delivered outside of the primary school system, for example through non-formal educational programmes. It should be emphasised that fundamental education, as understood to ensure the satisfaction of basic learning needs, is not just confined to those who have missed primary education, but to anyone whose basic learning needs have not been satisfied (CESCR, General Comment 13: Para. 23).

The term ‘fundamental education’ has fallen out of use in recent times and has been replaced by the nomenclature ‘basic education’. CESCR has noted that fundamental education in general terms corresponds to ‘basic education’, as outlined in the World Declaration on Education for All (Jomtien Declaration, 1990) (see CESCR, General Comment 13: Para. 22).

The term ‘basic education’ has no strict legal definition - although, in addition to being used synonymously with ‘fundamental education’, it is sometimes used to refer to the combination of early childhood, primary, and lower secondary education.

There are limited references to the right to basic education under international human rights law. The ILO Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (1999) makes provision for access to free basic education (Article 7(2)(c)), as does the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990), which requires states to: ‘provide free and compulsory basic education’ (Article 11(3)(a). In addition, the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ‘Protocol of San Salvador’ uses the term ‘basic education’ instead of ‘fundamental education’: ‘Basic education should be encouraged or intensified as far as possible for those persons who have not received or completed the whole cycle of primary instruction’ (1988, Article 13(3)(d)).

In defining ‘fundamental education’, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has stated that in general terms it corresponds to ‘basic education’ as set out in Article 5 of the World Declaration on Education for All (Jomtien Declaration, 1990) which defines it as  action designed to meet ‘basic learning needs’. Article 1 defines basic learning needs as:

'[...] essential learning tools (such as literacy, oral expression, numeracy, and problem solving) and the basic learning content (such as knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes) required by human beings to be able to survive, to develop their full capacities, to live and work in dignity, to participate fully in development, to improve the quality of their lives, to make informed decisions, and to continue learning.’

Basic education is an expansive concept which includes the content and learning tools essential to satisfying basic learning needs. The most important component of basic education is primary education (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment 13  [1999]: Para. 9) but also includes fundamental education (for further information, see UNESCO [1977] Fundamental Education and Basic Education ).

In relation to adults, basic education should satisfy basic learning needs and prepare adults for lifelong learning. For example, literacy programmes may be implemented to address low levels of literacy, whereas other learning needs may be met through skills training.

For further information, see UNESCO (2007) Operational Definition Basic Education .

Although literacy is not an explicit part of the right to education, nor a right in itself, literacy is conceptually part of the normative content of the right to primary (and therefore fundamental and basic) education and has been recognised as such by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

In General Comment 13  (1999), CESCR states that primary education must satisfy ‘basic learning needs’, as defined by the World Declaration on Education for All (Jomtien Declaration, 1990) which includes: ‘essential learning tools (such as literacy, oral expression, numeracy, and problem solving) and the basic learning content (such as knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes) required by human beings to be able to survive, to develop their full capacities, to live and work in dignity, to participate fully in development, to improve the quality of their lives, to make informed decisions, and to continue learning’ (Article 1).

The CRC in elaborating the aims of education under Article 29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), states: ‘Education must also be aimed at ensuring that essential life skills are learnt by every child and that no child leaves school without being equipped to face the challenges that he or she can expect to be confronted with in life’, which, at a minimum, includes literacy and numeracy (CRC  General Comment 1  [2001]: Para. 9).

A compelling argument can be made that literacy is vital to the realisation of the right to education because it is a skill that is foundational for the acquisition of other skills, and without which the aims of education and a good quality education cannot be realised, nor can the continuation of education.

Further, it is inconceivable, given the instrumental importance of education in the modern world, for instance, in finding gainful and decent employment or navigating knowledge and information intensive societies, that literacy would not be part of the content of the right to education.

Without literacy, the right to education and other human rights, are impossible to realise.

Literacy can be defined as follows:

‘[...] a set of skills and practices comprising reading, writing and using numbers as mediated by written materials. [...] Literacy is best understood as a competency: the (cap)ability of putting knowledge, skills, attitudes and values effectively into action when dealing with (handwritten, printed or digital) text in the context of ever-changing demands’ (UIL [2017] Literacy and Numeracy from a Lifelong Learning Perspective : p. 2).

It should be noted that there is no single agreed upon definition of ‘literacy’. ActionAid and the Global Campaign for Education’s (GCE) functional literacy definition offers a practical and context-bound approach:

‘Literacy is about the acquisition and use of reading, writing and numeracy skills, and thereby the development of active citizenship, improved health and livelihoods, and gender equality. […] Literacy should be seen as a continuous process that requires sustained learning and application. There are no magic lines to cross from illiteracy to literacy’ (GCE [2005] Writing the Wrongs: International Benchmarks on Adult Literacy : p. 3).

For further reading on the definitional issues, see UNESCO (2006) Education for All Global Monitoring Report: Chapter 6: Understanding Literacy .

Literacy programmes can be challenging to implement and their success can be hampered by a number of factors, including a lack of necessary infrastructure, learners’ work commitments, poverty, and conflict. In addition, there is no one-size-fits-all approach which means that the success of programmes depends on how well they respond to local needs and contexts.

ActionAid and GCE have developed a set of benchmarks based on a survey of successful adult literacy programmes, which provides a useful framework for developing adult literacy programmes (see Writing the Wrongs: International Benchmarks on Adult Literacy ).

It is estimated that there are  763 million ‘illiterate’ adults across the globe . However, this figure is based on a definition of literacy which delineates ‘literate’ and ‘illiterate’ based on the ‘ability to read and write, with understanding, a short, simple statement about one’s everyday life’. Based on a functional definition of literacy, it is likely that the true figure is closer to 1.5 billion. In any case, these figures indicate the failure of states to guarantee the right to education for all, particularly the right to free and compulsory primary education and fundamental education. While literacy is not explicitly recognised as part of the right to education, it is integral to achieving the right to education. To this end, international human rights law obligates states to eliminate illiteracy.

Article 28(3) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) urges States parties to ‘promote and encourage international cooperation in matters relating to education, in particular with a view to contributing to the elimination of ignorance and illiteracy throughout the world’.

Of the 758 million adults who are considered ‘illiterate’, two-thirds (479 million) are female . For this reason the two foremost human rights treaties that concern women both address low levels of female literacy. Article 10 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979) guarantees equal opportunities to access ‘programmes of continuing education, including adult and functional literacy programmes, particularly those aimed at reducing, at the earliest possible time, any gap in education existing between men and women.’ Article 12(2)(a) of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (2003) goes further by obligating States parties to take specific positive action to promote literacy among women.

Reference to literacy is also made in regional human rights instruments. Article 13(4)(g) of the African Youth Charter (2006) provides that states shall: ‘Avail multiple access points for education and skills development including opportunities outside of mainstream educational institutions e.g., workplace skills development, distance learning, adult literacy and national youth service programmes.’

Article 41 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights (2004) obligates States Parties to eradicate illiteracy, as does Article 50 of the Charter of the Organization of American States (1948) which also provides that Member States will ‘strengthen adult and vocational education systems’.

Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) includes formal, non-formal, and informal learning concerning ‘those aspects of the educational process involving, in addition to general education, the study of technologies and related sciences, and the acquisition of practical skills, attitudes, understanding and knowledge relating to occupations in various sectors of economic and social life’ (UNESCO  Revised Recommendation concerning Technical and Vocational Education  [2001]).

TVET is part of both the right to education and the right to work (UNESCO Recommendation concerning Technical and Vocational Education and Training  [2015]; Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights [CESCR], General Comment 13  [1999]: Para. 15). Thus, Article 6 of International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966, ICESCR) concerning the right to work states: ‘The steps to be taken by a State Party to the present Covenant to achieve the full realisation of this right shall include technical and vocational guidance and training programmes, policies and techniques to achieve steady economic, social and cultural development and full and productive employment under conditions safeguarding fundamental political and economic freedoms to the individual.’

TVET, an important element of adult education, lifelong learning, and integral to all levels of education, can be an alternative to, or form part of, secondary education: ‘Secondary education in its different forms, including technical and vocational secondary education, shall be made generally available and accessible to all by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education’ (ICESCR, Article 13 (2) (b)).

According to CESCR General Comment 13 (Para. 16), the right to TVET:

• enables students to acquire knowledge and skills which contribute to their  personal development, self-reliance, and employability and enhances the productivity of their families and communities, including the state’s economic and social development
• takes account of the educational, cultural and social background of the  population concerned; the skills, knowledge and levels of qualification needed in the various sectors of the economy; and occupational health, safety, and welfare
• provides retraining for adults whose current knowledge and skills have become  obsolete owing to technological, economic, employment, social, or other changes
• consists of programmes which give students, especially those from developing  countries, the opportunity to receive TVET in other states, with a view to the appropriate transfer and adaptation of technology
• consists, in the context of ICESCR’s non-discrimination and equality provisions, of programmes which promote the TVET of women, girls, out-of-school youth, unemployed youth, the children of migrant workers, refugees, persons with disabilities, and other disadvantaged groups

For more information, see the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education’s 2012 report on technical and vocational education .

For country profiles on TVET laws and policies, see the UNESCO-UNEVOC World TVET Database .

See also the UNESCO Shanghai Consensus: Recommendations of the Third International Congress on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (2012) and the ILO Human Resources Development Recommendation (2004).

The following international human rights instruments include TVET as part of the normative content of the right to education:

• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966, Articles 6 (2) & 13 (2)(b))
• Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989, Article 28 (1)(b)(d))
• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979, Article 10(a))
• International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (1990, Article 43(1))
• Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006, Article 24(5))
• UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education (1960, Article 4(a))
• UNESCO Convention on Technical and Vocational Education (1989)
• ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999, Article 7(2)(c))
• ILO Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (1989, Article 22(1)(2)

In addition, several regional instruments recognise the importance of TVET:

• African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990, Article 11 (3)(b))
• Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (2003, Article 23(a))
• African Youth Charter (2006, Article 13(4)(e))
• Arab Charter on Human Rights (2004, Article 40(4))
• ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (2012, Article 31(2))
• European Convention on the Legal Status of Migrant Workers (1977, Article 14)

European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (1992, Article 8 (1)(d))

• European Social Charter (revised) (1996, Articles 10 & 17(1)(a))
• Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000, Article 14 (1))

Charter of the Organization of American States (1948, Article 50)

• Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ‘Protocol of San Salvador’ (1988, Article 13 (3)(b))

The African Union has also developed a regional Strategy to Revitalize Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in Africa (2007) to support the development of national policies on TVET. Similarly, the European Union has initiated the Copenhagen Process to enhance cooperation to improve the quality and relevance of TVET.

Higher education encompasses ‘all types of education (academic, professional, technical, artistic, pedagogical, long distance learning, etc.) provided by universities, technological institutes, teacher training colleges, etc., which are normally intended for students having completed a secondary education, and whose educational objective is the acquisition of a title, a grade, certificate, or diploma of higher education’ (UNESCO [1998] World Conference on Higher Education ).

Higher education is generally only for those who have completed secondary education, meaning that most students in higher education are adults. Higher education programmes are usually specialised and aim to prepare students for specific professional occupations.

Higher education includes short courses as well as bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees. Institutions of higher education are generally universities and colleges.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) provides that higher education ‘shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education’ (Article 13(2)(c)). The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights explains in General Comment 13  (1999: Para. 19) that unlike primary and secondary education, ‘higher education is not to be “generally available”, but only available “on the basis of capacity”. The “capacity” of individuals should be assessed by reference to all their relevant expertise and experience’.

The World Declaration on Higher Education (1998), adopted at the UNESCO World Conference on High Education, reaffirms the importance of equity in access to higher education and emphasises that higher education, as a part of lifelong learning, can take place at any time.

UNESCO is currently drafting a Global Convention on the Recognition of Higher Education Qualifications to promote international cooperation in higher education, including the recognition of qualifications to support academic mobility.

Higher education is sometimes also referred to as tertiary education, however there is a distinction. Tertiary education encompasses most post-secondary education, including some technical and vocational education and training (TVET) as well as higher education. UNESCO provides the following definition:

‘Tertiary education builds on secondary education, providing learning activities in specialised fields of education. It aims at learning at a high level of complexity and specialisation. Tertiary education includes what is commonly understood as academic education but also includes advanced vocational or professional education’ (UIS [2011] International Standard Classification of Education .

Accordingly, tertiary education is an umbrella term that covers TVET and higher education. However, as TVET covers all levels of education, it is not exclusively tertiary.

Within international human rights law, the term tertiary education is generally not used. Rather, instruments refer to technical and vocational education and training and higher education.

The following international human rights instruments include higher education within the right to education provision:

• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966, Article 13 (2)(c))
• Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989, Article 28 (1)(c))

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979, Article 10 (a))

A number of regional instruments also recognise higher education as part of the right to education:

• African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990, Article 11 (3)(c))
• African Youth Charter (2006, Article 13 (4) (f))
• ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (2012, Article 31 (2))
• European Social Charter (revised)  (1996, Article 10 (1))
• Charter of the Organization of American States (1948, Article 49 (c))
• Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ‘Protocol of San Salvador’ (1988, Article 13 (3)(c))

The right to education is almost always associated with children, however one of the main principles underpinning human rights law is universality. Everyone has the right to education, regardless of age.

In General Comment 20 , the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) indicates that age falls within the category of ‘other status’ per Article 2 on non-discrimination of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966): ‘Age is a prohibited ground of discrimination in several contexts. The Committee has highlighted the need to address discrimination against unemployed older persons in finding work, or accessing professional training or retraining [...]’ (2009: Para. 29).

On the right to education specifically, CESCR General Comment 6: The Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of Older Persons (1995) provides that it must be approached in two ways: older people should have access to formal education programmes and training, including university, as well as informal, community-based and recreation-oriented programmes; and, as the transmitters of knowledge, information and tradition, older people should be provided with opportunities to share their knowledge and experience through teaching.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has also explained that States parties’ obligation to eliminate discrimination against women in access to education under Article 10, includes older women: ‘States parties have an obligation to ensure equality of opportunity in the field of education for women of all ages and to ensure that older women have access to adult education and lifelong learning opportunities as well as to the educational information they need for their well-being and that of their families’ ( CEDAW  General Recommendation 27  [2010]: Para. 40).

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union expressly prohibits discrimination on the grounds of age (2000, Article 21). The Inter-American Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons (2015, Article 20) goes further, providing that states should ensure the effective exercise of the right to education for older persons including by promoting education and training in the use of information and communication technologies in order to bridge the digital literacy divide.

In addition, there is soft law creating political obligations on states to ensure the right to education of older persons:

Vienna International Plan of Action on Aging (1982, Recommendations 44-51)

United Nations Principles for Older Persons (1991, Principles 4 & 16)

• ILO Recommendation concerning Human Resources Development: Education, Training and Lifelong Learning (No. 195) (2004, Article 5 (h) (Note this is limited to ‘older workers’.)

The international community through political development efforts has identified adult education and learning, including adult literacy, as fundamental to achieving sustainable development, including eradicating poverty, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, combatting inequality, and fostering social inclusion.

These commitments to improve access to adult education are particularly important given that it is generally the most underfunded level of education: few countries spend the recommended 3% of their national education budget on adult literacy and education programmes (UNESCO [2016] Reading the Past: Writing the Future ). Encouragingly, in the third  Global Report on Adult Learning and Education (2016), 57 per cent of the 130 countries sampled stated that they planned to increase funding for adult education and learning in the future.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ’s (‘Agenda’) standalone goal on education (SDG4), reads: ‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.’ Included as part of this goal are numerous targets and indicators related to adult education, including: technical and vocational education (TVET), non-formal education and adult literacy, and higher education. However, although the goal refers to ‘lifelong learning’, there are no targets or indicators on this important concept, diluting the ambitious and comprehensive nature of the goal.

Technical and vocational education features prominently in the Agenda, both as a target for SDG4 and SDG8 on decent work . This crossover makes sense as TVET empowers individuals with the knowledge and skills to secure decent work and thereby plays a role in reducing inequalities and eradicating poverty. This connection is also reflected in human rights law, where TVET is considered both part of the right to education and the right to work.

The targets on TVET reflect the importance of the human rights principle of non-discrimination through their emphasis on equal access between the genders and the need for disaggregated data for all indicators that track progress for each of the targets. This is because TVET systems can be discriminatory. According to UNESCO they are ‘often gender-biased, affecting the selection of, access to and participation in specific learning programmes or occupations for both men and women. In turn, this gender division of labour contributes to the perpetuation of gender inequalities at work and in society at large.’

There are four targets (and associated indicators) related to technical and vocational education:

• Target 4.3: By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university
• Indicator 4.3.1: Participation rate of youth and adults in formal and non-formal education and training in the previous 12 months, by sex
• Target 4.4: By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship
• Indicator 4.4.1:  Proportion of youth and adults with information and communications technology (ICT) skills, by type of skill
• Target 4.5: By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situation
• Indicator 4.5.1: Parity indices (female/male, rural/urban, bottom/top wealth quintile and others such as disability status, indigenous peoples and conflict-affected, as data become available) for all education indicators on this list that can be disaggregated
• Target 8.6: By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training
• Indicator 8.6.1: Proportion of youth (aged 15-24 years) not in education, employment or training

The Agenda also highlights the importance of non-formal adult education, which tends to benefit marginalised groups.

• Adult literacy is included in the Agenda under Target 4.6 (and indicator 4.6.1) which requires that a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy
• Target 4.3 (and indicator 4.3.1) focuses on equal access to tertiary and higher education, including in non-formal settings
• Target 4.4 (and indicator 4.4.1) focuses on the acquisition of relevant skills for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship, including ICT skills
• Target 4.5 (and indicator 4.5.1) refers to the need to ensure gender parity at all levels of education
• Target 4.7 (and indicator 4.7.1) focuses on the content of education, is closely aligned with the human rights aims of education, and applies equally to adult learners: ‘ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development’

See the Education 2030 Incheon Declaration and the Education 2030 Framework for Action  (2015) for the linkages between the targets and non-formal adult education.

Education is also central to achieving other goals within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including:

• Target 3.7 on universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information and education (and indicator 3.7.1)
• Target 5.6 on universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, the indicator for which (5.6.2) asks about the number of countries with laws and regulations that guarantee women aged 15-49 years access to sexual and reproductive health care, information and education
• Target 12.8 requires that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature. The indicator (12.8.1 - the same as 4.7)) for which is: Extent to which (i) global citizenship education and (ii) education for sustainable development (including climate change education) are mainstreamed in (a) national education policies; (b) curricula; (c) teacher education; and (d) student assessment
• Target 13.3 which seeks to improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning, and its indicator 13.3.1: Number of countries that have integrated mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning into primary, secondary and tertiary curricula

See further information on our page on Education 2030 .

For a list of all SDGs and their relation to human rights standards, see the Danish Institute of Human Rights’ Human rights guide to the Sustainable Development Goals .

I nternational Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights  (1966, Articles 6 & 13 (2) (b) (c) (d))

• General Comment 6 (1995, Paras 36-39)
• General Comment 13 (1999, Paras 9, 15-16, 19 & 21-24)
• General Comment 20 (2009, Para. 29)

Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989, Articles 29 & 28 (1) (b) (c) (d) (3))

• General Comment 1 (2001, Para. 9)
• General Recommendation 27 (2010, Para. 40)

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006, Article 24 (5))

International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (1990, Article 43 (1))

UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education (1960, Article 4 (a) (c))

UNESCO Convention on Technical and Vocational Education (1989, Articles 2 & 3)

ILO Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (1989, Article 22 (1) (2))

ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999, Article 7, (2) (c))

ILO Human Resources Development Convention (No. 142) (1975, Articles 2-5)

African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990, Articles 11 (3)(a)(b)(c) & 13 (3) (a))

Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (2003, Articles 12 & 23 (a))

African Youth Charter (2006, Article 13 (4) (e)(f)(g))

Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Older Persons in Africa (2016, Article 16)

Arab Charter on Human Rights (2004, Articles 40(4) & 41)

Inter-American Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons (2015, Article 20)

Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ‘Protocol of San Salvador’ (1988, Article 13(3)(b)(c)(d))

ASEAN Human Rights Declaration , 2012 (Article 31 (2))

European Social Charter (revised) (1996, Articles 10 & 17 (1) (a))

European Convention on the Legal Status of Migrant Workers , 1977 (Article 14)

Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000, Articles 14 (1) & 21)

Recommendation on the Development of Adult Education; adopted by the General Conference at its nineteenth session (1976)

Adult Education: The Hamburg Declaration; the Agenda for the Future (1997) 

World Declaration on Higher Education  (1998)

World Declaration on Education for All (1990, Jomtien Declaration, Articles 1 & 5)

UNESCO Revised Recommendation concerning Technical and Vocational Education (2001)

ILO Human Resources Development Recommendation (2004)

ILO Recommendation concerning Human Resources Development: Education, Training and Lifelong Learning (No. 195) (2004, Article 5 (h) [Note this is limited to ‘older workers’])

Belém Framework for Action (2009)

UNESCO Shanghai Consensus: Recommendations of the Third International Congress on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (2012)

UNESCO Recommendation concerning Technical and Vocational Education and Training (2015)

2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2015)

Education 2030 Incheon Declaration and the Education 2030 Framework for Action (2015)

For the international normative framework that provides guiding principles for adult education policy and practice in UNESCO Member States, see UNESCO Recommendation on Adult Learning and Education (2015).

Marrakech Framework for Action, adopted during CONFINTEA VII (2022)

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10 Simple Principles of Adult Learning

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Adult learning, or the act of pursuing one’s own education as an adult, can be done in a formal setting such as higher education, a trade school, or an apprenticeship. It can also refer to an adult simply wanting to learn about a new skill or topic independently. For most adults, pursuing education stems from a desire for self-improvement, a professional need for specific skills, or a want to expand available job possibilities.

When imagining the role of an educator, it’s easy to overlook adult education when you think about schools and learning. But adult education happens every day, and understanding the theory, challenges, and principles that go into adult learning is important.

What Is Adult Learning Theory?

In the 1980s, educator Malcolm Knowles popularized the concept of andragogy , the practice of teaching adults, and contrasted it with pedagogy, the practice of teaching children. The andragogy theory states that adult learners are vastly different from children in terms of their motivation, the relevancy of the education to their lives, and how they apply that education. In practice, adult learning focuses on giving adults an understanding of why they are doing something, lots of hands-on experiences, and less instruction so they can tackle things themselves. Many adult learning theories developed out of Knowles’ work in the following decades, all with the specific goal to enhance teaching methods and experiences for adult learners.

Why Are Adult Learning Theories Important?

For educators and educational institutions, being informed about the many challenges and theories behind effectively educating adults will only strengthen student outcomes and success. Children and adults are very different when it comes to how they learn, so different techniques must be used in order to make learning useful for adults.

And for adult learners getting ready to pursue higher education, knowing your learning style , understanding the strengths and weaknesses adult learners may have, and preparing for your individual strengths will also help you be successful. 

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Challenges of Adult Learning

Learning new skills or studying new subjects as an adult can be challenging for many reasons, most notably:

• Lack of time: Adults often have full-time jobs and sometimes children or other dependents relying on them. This can make finding the time to continue learning very difficult.
• Self-doubt: It’s common for adult learners to feel that they are too old to continue their education. They may feel it is too late and that they have missed their chance, but whether someone has five years or 50 years left in the workforce, they deserve to follow a passion and pursue a career that they’re excited about.
• Neuroplasticity: The human brain has an element of plasticity that helps one learn and grow. Younger people have brains that are more plastic, so changes are easier for them. As one ages, the brain becomes less plastic. That can result in a struggle for adult learners who are trying to take on new concepts, forge new pathways, and more. These learners may have a harder time understanding new things simply because their brains are less plastic. While this is a difficulty, it isn’t something that is insurmountable.
• Financial Barriers: Younger learners may have parental help when it comes to higher education. That’s usually not the case for adult learners. Finances can get in the way of learners pursuing their dream of earning a degree.
• Contradiction: Some of the things adult learners will learn in their education may be different than what they thought they knew or learned before. This can mean a shift in a person’s worldview, opinions, and knowledge, which requires mental flexibility.
• Lack of Support: It can be overwhelming to try and tackle earning a degree without a strong support system. Adult students may find they don’t have the emotional or social support they need in place to be able to tackle the difficulty of classes and learning.

What Are Adult Learning Principles? 

There are 10 simple principles of adult learning for future educators to keep in mind. All of these aspects are important when building curriculum and expectations for adult learners:

1. Adults Are Self-Directing:  For many adults, self-directed learning happens naturally without anyone explaining it or suggesting it. Adult learners are more prone to plan, carry out, and evaluate their learning experiences without the help of others. When instructing adults, it’s important for learners to set goals, determine their educational or training needs, and implement a plan to enhance their own learning.

2. Adults Learn by Doing : Many adults prefer not only to read or hear about subjects but to actively participate in projects and to take actions related to their learning. Project-based curriculum utilizes real-world scenarios and creates projects for students that they could encounter in a job in the future. Many adult learners find that this kind of learning is hugely beneficial for them as they apply what they have been taught to their careers, giving them direct access to seeing what they can do with their knowledge. 

3. Adults Desire Relevance: While some enjoy learning as an end in itself, adult learners are more likely to engage in learning that has direct relevance to their lives. For example, if they’re taking a certification course to improve their chances of promotion on the job, then the course should immediately address their needs. 

4. Adults Utilize Experience:   Adults are shaped by their experiences, and the best learning comes from making sense of those experiences. Adult learners can greatly benefit from finding ways to get hands-on learning. Internships, job shadowing opportunities, projects, and other experiential opportunities can help them get a firmer grasp of their learning and be more excited about how what they learn can be applied to their interests and careers.

5. Adults Process with Their Senses: Most adult learners don’t thrive as well in a lecture-style environment. Due to the lack of brain plasticity in older learners, it’s important to fully engage the senses when learning to successfully solidify new knowledge. Learning practices need to incorporate audio, visual, reading/writing, kinesthetic, independent, and group techniques. 

6. Adults Appreciate Repetition:  Repetition is essential for adult learning. If learners can practice new skills in a supportive environment, self-efficacy will develop to take those skills outside of the classroom. And the more they can practice a particular subject or skill, the better the chances are for mastery.

7. Adults Guide Their Own Development:   Utilizing dilemmas and situations to challenge an adult learner’s assumptions and principles helps them guide their own development. Adults can use critical thinking and questioning to evaluate their underlying beliefs and assumptions and learn from what they realize about themselves in the process. 

8. Adults Thrive with Goal Setting:  Learners who have a specific career or personal goal in mind will have a better experience as they pursue their degree programs. For example, if a student wants to learn Spanish before a trip to Mexico, they might have a specific goal to be conversational by a certain date. Adult learners need these goals because their learning is more in their own hands than younger learners.

9. Adults Learn Differently Than Children:  Children and adults are very different when it comes to how they learn, so different techniques must be used in order to make learning effective for adults. In addition to reading and memorizing, adult learners utilize their past life experiences and their current understanding of a subject as they learn. Also, adult learning needs to be problem-centered, making the impact more focused on current events or real life.

10. Adults Require Ownership:  With a more nuanced and advanced hierarchy of needs, adult learners place more value on intrinsic motivation and personal ownership of their learning. It's important to give adults internal motivation by recognizing their success and promoting increased self-esteem and confidence.

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Have you considered going back to school to gain the skills needed for a new career? Are you finally at a place to focus on your education? There are many great reasons to become an adult learner. With low, flat-rate tuition and a competency-based education model, WGU offers the support and flexibility needed to earn a degree at your own pace and comfort level.

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What Adult Learners Really Need (Hint: It's Not Just Job Skills)

Anya Kamenetz

More than 2 out of 3 college students today are not coming straight out of high school. Half are financially independent from their parents, and 1 in 4 are parents themselves.

David Scobey says that, as an American studies and history professor at the University of Michigan for decades, he was "clueless" about the needs of these adult students.

But then, in 2010, he became a dean at The New School, a private college in New York City, heading a division that included a bachelor's degree program designed specifically for adults and transfer students.

David Scobey Courtesy of David Scobey hide caption

"Those students schooled me about their needs and how poorly they were supported by higher ed," he says. "I was inspired by their resilience."

You'll hear a reasonable amount of discussion about "new traditional" students today. But the common assumption — in Washington at least — seems to be that they require more vocational education to fill a "skills gap," particularly in STEM or technical fields. Or that they need quicker, cheaper paths to a degree.

Scobey's prescription is different. Since 2014, when he left The New School, he has been listening to adult learners to find out their aspirations. And what they've told him is that they tend to thrive on the same kinds of high-quality learning opportunities that all college students do: small seminars, capstone projects, internships, a broad liberal arts curriculum.

He argues that teaching adults this way might be the most practical approach, and that they are actually less expensive to serve than traditional students.

Now Scobey is helping to convene a national network of innovative colleges, both new and old, that serve adult learners with much success: He calls it the Great Colleges for the New Majority.

He spoke via email to NPR about where adult learners fit into "the democratic mission of higher education," and he included quotes from his ongoing interviews with some of these learners themselves. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

President Trump doesn't talk much about higher education, but when he does he endorses vocational education. In the words of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos , the field needs to evolve toward "industry-recognized certificates, two-year degrees, stackable credits, credentials and licensures, badges, micro-degrees, apprenticeships."

What's wrong with this thinking in your mind? What's missing?

You've asked a complicated question here. Let me break it down into a couple of answers.

The first thing wrong with this thinking is that it prioritizes the (immediate, changing) needs of the labor market over the needs and aspirations of adult students themselves. But if you ask incoming adult community college students about their educational aspirations, more than 70 percent want to get a bachelor's or beyond.

But even setting aside the question of students' aspirations, something else is wrong with the "skills gap" model of workforce training.

The problem finding good hires is actually a jumble of different realities. In some sectors (for instance, advanced, digitally driven manufacturing), innovation has outpaced training, and there is truly a shortage of technically skilled workers. Higher ed needs to work with employers and government in these targeted sectors to fill a real "skills gap."

In other sectors, employers complain they can't find workers with communications, problem-solving and other soft skills. The solution to that is more liberal learning, not more technical workforce training.

In still other sectors, employers can't meet their needs because of wage stagnation, part-timing, abusive scheduling and other workplace problems. Their "skills" gap is actually a "wage and workplace gap."

And lurking over all of this is the ongoing juggernaut of automation. Many of the jobs for which workplace training programs prepare adults will disappear in the next five to 10 years. Employers will replace them as soon as it makes financial sense.

Often workers and adult learners understand this perfectly. One UAW veteran told me — after attaining his bachelor's — that most of the retraining programs were a scam: "They train union members for fewer and fewer jobs. A couple years later, it's the same thing all over again."

You talk about a "narrative of personal transformation" that's important to these students. Why?

As I noted above, job security and economic success are key goals of college for nearly all students, young and old. But students also see college as a journey of personal growth, a way of laying claim to their lives.

For most nontraditional students, this dimension of "self-authoring" (in the words of psychologist Marcia Baxter Magolda) is not less crucial, but even more. They often feel that they have failed in some way the customary narrative of high-school-to-college that defines successful adulthood.

"I always felt less-than," I was told by Wendy, a returning student in Washington State and a staffer at a wildlife center. "I feel like an impostor. Coming here has helped me find my voice. It helps me move through the world."

Melissa, a graduate of an adult bachelor's program in Rhode Island, also stresses the journey of personal transformation: "As a kid, no one ever even mentioned college in my world," she told me in an interview.

"... now I had my bachelor's degree, and it was like, 'Wow. Wait a minute. I have arrived.' But then I thought like, 'What did I arrive to?' This has been a lifelong journey for me. It was, like, to meet a long-term goal, that had never happened to me before."

What reasons do people give for returning to college or beginning as an adult?

Adult learners are incredibly diverse: the Iraq War veteran, the office worker breaking through a glass ceiling, the 20-something barista or construction worker who wasn't ready for college the first time. The reasons they give are often a complicated mix.

Dorian, another Washington State adult student, told me:

"I came back to college because I felt like an angry underling. I had a good job, but I didn't get respect at work. I felt slapped, like I didn't amount to anything without that piece of paper. So I returned to school because of career goals. But my parents are gone, and I also came back for them."

Policy-makers often try to separate out these motivations and prioritize the economic ones: "So I returned to school because of career goals." But what matters is precisely the jumbled, human mixture of motives.

Many of these narratives also have a redemptive arc. Talk about what some of the students you've spoken with have told you about the obstacles they have overcome to give college another try.

Let me briefly describe some of The New School students who cured me of my cluelessness about the nontraditional majority. There was Mui Ying, a 30-something from a Chinese immigrant family: She paid the rent as a technician for a pharmaceutical lab, but she had started a swimwear design business on the side, selling out of her car trunk while she finished school.

There was Dave, an African-American veteran who got a business degree in community college but was committed to getting a liberal-arts BA. Jamara was a mom, a server at a restaurant and an aspiring spoken-word poet.

The obstacles they face are as diverse as their lives. But here's one key way of understanding what they share: Adult, nontraditional students have to fit their studies into complex lives with multiple roles and stressors, rather than being able to organize their work and social life around a central role as a college student.

What are "Great Colleges for the New Majority"? What do they have in common?

The Great Colleges For the New Majority is a self-selected network of adult-serving bachelor's programs. They often have graduation rates of 80 percent or more. Their curricula have a wide range of structures, but all of them offer an education that is transformative, that enables students to lay claim to their own lives and define their own journey. All of them are characterized by cultures of strong support — both the "vertical support" of mentors, advisers and teachers, and the "horizontal support" of strong peer community.

Why is that horizontal support so important?

As I have learned in my research and teaching, peer support turns out to be part of the secret sauce for adult success. The programs in the Great Colleges Network tend to nurture cultures of sustained peer-to-peer help; students simply won't let each other fail. This is a component of adult college-going that mass online completion colleges have trouble replicating. It's one reason for their lower rates of completion.

What about the argument that colleges can't afford to invest this much in adult learners?

Short answer No. 1: Adult learners are actually less expensive to educate, because they don't need many of the resources that late-adolescent, residential students require. Adults don't need more resources; they need colleges and universities to redesign their resources in ways that meet adult students in their lives — for instance, by offering more flexible academic calendars.

Short answer No. 2: Colleges understand that they cannot afford not to invest in adult learners. Neither higher ed, nor the job market, nor our democracy can succeed if we don't do a better job of offering great, transformative opportunities to the millions of adults in college and the millions who seek to return to college.

Short answer No. 3: Let's not lowball the investment in adult students with cheap-and-dirty workforce training. Adult learners shouldn't be pushed to attain a credential simply to fulfill short-term labor market gaps or to boost policy-makers' completion goals. They should be educated because they deserve a great education.

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What are the benefits of adult education a comprehensive guide.

For many, the idea of returning to education as an adult might seem unappealing, conjuring memories of stressful school days and tedious assignments. However, adult education offers a plethora of benefits that extend far beyond the traditional classroom setting.

In this guide, we explore the wide-ranging advantages of adult education, from boosting mood and overall health to fostering community connections and achieving a sense of accomplishment.

What is adult education?

In essence, adult education encompasses any type of educational course undertaken by individuals who have completed their initial cycle of continuous education. It is an educational pathway chosen by those who have concluded their compulsory school education and later decide to re-enter the educational system in some way, whether formally or informally.

Within certain workplaces it can be referred to by other terms such as continuous professional development and specific to the profession or job or it can be done by the learner themselves through FE colleges, universities or adult community education providers.

The motivations for seeking adult education are diverse and may include the desire to enhance everyday skills like English, Maths , or ICT, or the aspiration for career growth or change. The beauty of adult education lies in its adaptability to cater to any of goal of the learner. Whether you are aiming to improve foundational skills or embarking on a completely new career trajectory, there are no barriers hindering your success. The flexibility offered by modern adult learning courses makes virtually anything possible on your educational journey.

Adult learning is a unique experience, putting you in charge of what, when, and how you learn. With courses adapted to suit individual needs, the beauty of adult education lies in its flexibility.

Below we’ll delve into specific benefits that you can gain from starting your own adult learning course.

Boosting Your Mood and Overall Health

The impact of adult learning on well-being is profound; research indicates that adults engaging in education make fewer visits to their GP, saving valuable healthcare resources and contributing to community wellbeing. Maths for Adults Wales , part of the government-funded Multiply initiative, offers free Maths courses to adults aged 19 and over, building confidence with numbers and provides a proactive approach to personal growth. Working towards a learning goal such as this brings a sense of purpose, contributing to overall happiness.

Education is not solely about acquiring facts and figures; it’s a lifelong journey that positively impacts mental health. The ability to choose what, when, and how to learn, coupled with the support of expert tutors, creates an environment tailored to individual needs. The mental benefits of adult learning are extensive, including improved memory, sharper reactions, and greater attention spans in old age.

Just as physical exercise is crucial for maintaining a healthy body, keeping the mind active through learning is essential. Studies show that continuous learning can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, emphasising the importance of mental stimulation.

Adult education is also a confidence booster, offering new courses and experiences that build self-assurance. Each completed module or course opens up opportunities, potentially leading to a new job or the realisation of personal passions.

Growing Your Community and Friendship Circle

Adult education is not merely a solitary pursuit of knowledge; it’s a vibrant avenue for building connections and expanding your social circle. Loneliness is a growing concern in society, affecting people of all ages. Adult education serves as a powerful antidote, not only providing opportunities to learn new skills but also fostering a sense of community.

Through technology, you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your home to experience the benefits of community building. Online adult education courses provide a platform for individuals from any location to come together, share experiences, and learn collaboratively.

Learning alongside peers with similar interests not only expands your knowledge but also creates lasting connections offering a bridge, connecting individuals with shared interests and goals.

Learning Something New and Enjoying a Sense of Achievement

The decision to learn something new as an adult opens up myriad possibilities for personal growth. Embarking on a new educational adventure can be intimidating, but the sense of accomplishment at the end is unmatched. The benefits of learning extend beyond the acquisition of knowledge; they encompass the joy of mastering new techniques and skills, providing a constant source of pride.

It’s a journey of self-discovery, accomplishment, and continuous growth. The joy derived from mastering new skills contributes not only to personal fulfilment but also to an enriched and purposeful life. Embrace the opportunity to learn, relish the sense of achievement, and savour the transformative impact of adult education on your life’s narrative.

How Learning as an Adult Could Benefit Your Family

For parents, adult education opens avenues for personal fulfilment and professional growth. Unlocking new job opportunities with better work-life balance and flexibility, acquiring new skills can boost confidence both at home and in the workplace. Lifelong learning contributes to continual personal development, positively influencing family dynamics and setting an example for future generations.

Adult education courses can also create a positive attitude towards learning in younger generations. Parents and role models pursuing educational journeys instill the idea that learning is a constant part of life, shaping values and work ethics for the future.

Giving People a Second Chance

Adult education offers a lifeline to those who couldn’t finish their school or college education due to various reasons. It opens doors for re-entering education, ensuring that everyone, regardless of constraints, has access to learning opportunities.

Your personal and professional priorities may shift over time. What once seemed like an impractical dream or an unattainable goal might now have become a feasible pursuit later in life. Adult education recognises that your circumstances evolve, and it provides a platform for you to re-evaluate and re-engage with your educational aspirations.

At Equal, we are committed to offering flexible learning as a central part of our Maths for Adults Wales courses . Our courses are designed to accommodate the diverse needs of adult learners, ensuring that education aligns as best as possible with daily lives. Everyone is given an equal opportunity to pursue numeracy education to help re-shape their future.

We Are Living Longer

With people living longer and remaining active well into their later years, the concept of adult education takes on new dimensions, offering not only personal enrichment but also addressing the evolving needs of an ageing population. Adult education becomes a valuable tool for individuals looking to remain active in employment, explore new career paths, and build a fulfilling life.

Engaging in continuous learning activities has also been linked to improved cognitive function. As people live longer, the focus on maintaining mental acuity becomes crucial. Adult education serves as a means to stimulate the mind, reduce the risk of cognitive decline, and contribute to overall mental well-being.

Adult Learning Is Good for The Economy

A highly educated and productive workforce is instrumental in economic success. Adult learning contributes to innovation and advanced skills, reducing unemployment rates and benefiting the economy.

Lifelong learners, exposed to evolving knowledge and skills, are better equipped to tackle contemporary challenges. This proactive approach to learning fosters a culture of problem-solving and adaptability, critical elements in an economy navigating rapid technological advancements and global shifts.

From a business point of view, many industries frequently grapple with skills gaps, hindering the performance of their companies. A lack of numeracy skills is an often cited issue for many businesses and by closing these gaps with programmes such as Maths for Adults Wales , we can help build a more efficient and competitive economic landscape. We are committed to work with businesses to provide tailored support for their staff to improve their work performance, get in touch with us today to discuss your specific needs.

Continuing Education with Maths for Adults Wales

Our involvement in the Maths for Adults Wales skills programme , part of the government-funded Multiply initiative, is a testament to the commitment we show to adult education.

Our network of expert tutors play a crucial role in supporting adults aged 19 and over without a Maths GCSE at grade C or equivalent, on the learning journey offering free Maths courses. Initiatives like the Maths for Adults Wales skills programme exemplify the commitment to making adult education accessible and impactful. Whether it’s building confidence, staying mentally active, or contributing to the economy, the benefits of adult education are immeasurable. Embrace the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive at any stage of life.

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Adult education

Education specifically targeting individuals who are regarded as adults by the society to which they belong to improve their technical or professional qualifications, further develop their abilities, enrich their knowledge with the purpose to complete a level of formal education, or to acquire knowledge, skills and competencies in a new field or to refresh or update their knowledge in a particular field. This also includes what may be referred to as ‘continuing education’, ‘recurrent education’ or ‘second chance education’.

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Four reasons you should consider adult education – even if you’re at the start of your career

Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor and Professor in Education, University of Warwick

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Adult education has often been associated with evening classes for older people, such as the wonderful non-formal educational opportunities provided by organisations like the University of the Third Age . Nevertheless, there is huge value in learning at all stages of life, including for those in their twenties and thirties – for work, self development, health, happiness and participation in wider community life.

Colleges and universities provide opportunities that include short courses, evening classes, fully online distance-programmes and work-based learning. Adults can study for pleasure, to gain a professional development certificate, or to complete a full undergraduate or postgraduate degree, or even a PhD.

Research has demonstrated the positive impact of lifelong learning. Its transformative effects include developing critical and reflective skills, fostering a better understanding of our place in the world and our relationship to others, and developing a more secure and fulfilled sense of wellbeing.

This article is part of Quarter Life , a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.

More articles:

Why it makes good business sense for your employer to look after your mental health

Student loans: would a graduate tax be a better option?

Your forgotten digital footprints could step on your job prospects – here’s how to clean up

Despite these benefits, the collapse in further education funding and the introduction of higher university tuition fees has made adult education a noteworthy casualty of austerity. There has been a dramatic decline in the number of adults studying in colleges and universities. Part-time mature student participation decreased by 57% between 2010-11 and 2019-20 .

However, there has been a policy shift in the last few years. The UK government recently launched a consultation into the provision of a lifelong loan entitlement , which would provide funding for education to be used over the course of a lifetime.

The expansion of online learning also means there are now considerably more opportunities to get back into study as an adult, especially for those looking to enhance their skills or change career trajectories.

Here are four reasons to think about studying something new – even if you’re at the beginning of your career.

1. The idea of a career has changed

Many of the jobs advertised today would not even have existed when today’s 30-year-olds were in school. While the idea of a “career for life” has not disappeared entirely, the rapid pace and scale of change means that we are more and more likely to move around considerably during our working lifetime. We will take more career breaks, seek more promotional opportunities, or jump ship and start entirely afresh – often on a number of occasions across our working lives.

While we used to think of careers in terms of stability, predictability and incremental progression, we now understand that they can be fractured, complex, messy and unpredictable.

Lifelong learning provides a wide variety of in-work and out-of-work opportunities for people to develop their skills or learn new ones. It provides varied opportunities for adults who didn’t gain qualifications at school to re-enter formal education and qualify for graduate level employment.

2. There are financial incentives

The government’s plan to introduce a lifelong loan entitlement is just one way that future learners may be able to fund their study. Other options are already available, such as degree apprenticeships, which allow learners to study while employed.

These relatively new courses with a salary, no course fees to pay and blocks of learning related to employment are proving understandably popular – especially in digital technologies, leadership, social work and engineering.

3. Learning has become much more flexible

The last few years have seen an increased emphasis on flexibility, enabling adult learners to fit study around their work and family commitments. The 2019 Augar Review into post-18 education in England encouraged colleges and universities to develop provision that enables learners to “step on” and “step off” their learning journeys – to study when and where it suits.

The pandemic has driven a rapid increase in the quality and quantity of wholly online courses. There is now a vast array of opportunities to study from home, either through a traditional university or via a specialist online organisation like FutureLearn or Coursera .

Another avenue is to opt for microcredentials , which allow learners to complete short, specific, work-based courses online or in person – without the commitment of enrolling on a full three-year programme. Moreover, the credits achieved can normally count towards a degree for those that want to carry on studying.

4. It’s good for your wellbeing

Adult learners bring life experiences and established perspectives with them when they start a course. Active, participatory and discursive learning environments enable them to draw on these experiences, contextualise and interrogate them, and learn from one another.

Educational research has shown us that such “ transformational learning ” results in happier, healthier individuals, who have stronger social networks and enhanced family life . These positive individual outcomes ripple throughout their families and friendship groups, and across wider communities and society .

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What Are the Benefits of Adult Learning and Education?

Last updated January 23, 2024

No matter what our age, learning and continuing to develop our skills and knowledge is something that, as adults, we should all seek to do for a number of reasons.

The benefits of adult learning and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) include better mental health and well-being. Let’s look in detail below at the key benefits.

Page Contents

1. Adult Learning Is Good for Mental Health and Happiness

A number of studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between adult learning and better mental health , both in academic studies and from research from the likes of the UK Office of National Statistics. The benefits of getting involved with learning as an adult, in fact, have shown to include:

• a greater sense of identity
• higher ability to cope with life and to have a greater sense of purpose
• a general greater sense of overall happiness

Whether you decide to start studying a language using online lessons , decide to do an evening class on web publishing , or join a regular weekend course on gardening skills , the benefits should not be underestimated.

Whatever you learn, it can give you a sense of purpose and sense of accomplishment .

2. Social Connections and Interpersonal Skills

The opportunity to socialize, meeting new people and friends who share the same interest, was stated as being one of the key benefits of adult learning, in a survey we recently did.

There are many ways to get out there and meet new and interesting people and studying a topic that you find fun and interesting is certainly an easy way to meet like-minded people .

Furthermore, whether studied in a classroom or online, the chance to interact and keep mentally active is an extremely positive benefit derived from adult learning and education.

It can be very easy, as we get older, to isolate ourselves more and more, particularly if we lack many family members. Continuing Professional Education (CPE) and Development (CPD) certainly provide a vehicle for avoiding isolation.

3. Improved Confidence and Self-Esteem

Depending, of course, on what topic you choose to study, there are numerous opportunities to develop more self-confidence, self-esteem, and self of worth, through adult classes and workshops.

Whether it is the qualification you gain that makes you feel more worthy, or the skills themselves, it means a chance to develop positively.

Certain skills, such as those that involve having to stand and talk in front of others, can be especially good for confidence. Presentation Skills and Public Speaking Skills are especially useful to consider if building confidence is your goal.

One of our favorite organizations for learning public speaking skills in an extremely friendly environment is Toastmasters .

They hold workshops worldwide and membership is very affordable. Whether you want to learn public speaking for:

• a best man’s speech
• giving a eulogy at a funeral
• presentations at work
• learning speaking skills for social events

then Toastmasters is great. They run weekly meetings in cities around the world on a regular basis.

4. Crime Reduction and Lifelong Education

A quite profound finding by the British Government (and detailed in their guide on lifelong learning ), points to one of the key benefits of adult learning as helping to reduce crime.

When the topic of adult learning comes up, the connection with crime reduction is often ignored and yet, education is known to help reduce crime.

This perhaps seems obvious given that, as the Prison Reform Trust in the UK state:

At its best,  prison education  can open up opportunities, enlighten people, broaden their horizons and build their self-confidence. It can increase their awareness of options, giving them a real choice of a life away from crime.  Education  can open up the legitimate means of achieving success. Prison Reform Trust UK

5. Employment and Life Opportunities

It would be wrong of us not to include one of the more obvious benefits here as we discuss the benefits of adult learning.

Continuing your professional development certainly can provide you with new skills and these, in turn, can create genuine employment and life opportunities for you.

6. An Active Mind Is a Healthier Mind

You may or may not have heard of the term ‘Cognitive Footprint’, a term that refers to our minds over our lifetime, or put another way, the lifetime of our own mind.

Some studies have suggested (although it cannot be determined with certainty) that learning is thought to ward off dementia .

Keeping the mind active and training the brain matter to keep it working is compared, by some scientists, to being like exercising your physical body by doing regular yoga .

Learning, in other words, is thought to slow down the deterioration of the mind.

Likewise- doing crosswords and word puzzles are thought to be good for giving our brain matter a workout of sorts.

In fact, adult learning sometimes can be something as simple as being sat with a dictionary and crossword puzzle.

Doing group classes though as a part of adult learning will give you additional benefits, such as the social interactions we discussed earlier.

7. Leading by Example and Inspiring Others

Perhaps not the first reason most of us get involved with adult learning and education, but nonetheless, a very valuable benefit of adult learning, is the chance to inspire others and to lead by example.

This benefit is often combined with others such as developing one’s own career opportunities and skills.

A recent example I personally came across of doing education to lead by example, was a neighbor who started night classes in engineering.

Simon had two very clear reasons in his mind for wanting to start the evening classes and these were to:

• Inspire his three young children
• See if he could follow his dream of being an engineer

As a taxi driver with dreams of working as an engineer, Simon would look at his children every day and wonder how he could honestly expect his children to follow their dreams when he knew that he, himself, was giving in to the fear of change and really not being what he dreamed of.

Four years ago, Simon completed his qualification in engineering and he has now moved from taxi driver to working as an engineer in Birmingham, England.

The last time I saw Simon he remarked that if we can do it (considering he left school with no real qualifications), anyone can and that his kids will now see that you have to follow your dreams.

Certainly, one of the key benefits of adult learning is the chance to inspire others!

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Reimagining adult education and lifelong learning for all: Historical and critical perspectives

• Introduction
• Published: 30 May 2022
• Volume 68 , pages 165–194, ( 2022 )

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• Aaron Benavot   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4115-0323 1 ,
• Catherine Odora Hoppers   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5324-7371 2 ,
• Ashley Stepanek Lockhart   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6647-2391 3 &
• Heribert Hinzen 4  

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This special issue of the International Review of Education explores the future of adult education and lifelong learning from different historical and contemporary vantage points. It starts from a premise that the international adult education community is poised at a pivotal historical juncture. Looming large are the educational implications of climate change, environmental degradation and unsustainable lifestyles; widening social and economic divisions; weakening democratic institutions and processes; outbreaks of war, conflict and hate crimes; massive shifts in technology, globalisation and workplace relations; and migration movements and intergenerational demographic trends. How might the adult education community respond to these shifting realities and to what appear to be fragile and uncertain futures? The convening of the Seventh International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VII) provides a timely opportunity for the proponents and practitioners of adult education to consider ways of addressing these serious challenges.

Bringing our diverse experiences from the worlds of scholarship and policymaking to our collaboration as joint guest editors of this special issue, we see value in posing thought-provoking questions, recasting historical ideas in a new light, interrogating concepts and well-established policies, as a means of opening new windows into the future of adult education. Although we employ different writing styles and narrative voices, as is discernible in this introductory essay, we share a belief that now is a crucial time for the international adult education community to reimagine the purpose, vision, scale and scope of lifelong learning for adults. In addition to the points raised in the articles featured in this special issue, we put forward a series of suggestive guideposts to facilitate dialogue and debate. These include: (1) a retrospective look at the ambitious visions of the adult education community in the aftermath of the Second World War, when the foundational concept of “fundamental education” (UNESCO 1949a ) held sway; (2) possible openings to reposition adult education and lifelong learning in light of the ongoing integration of the agendas of global development, education and sustainability; and (3) notable insights and ideas emerging from the African experience and perspective of adult education and lifelong learning.

The articles featured in this special issue explore ways of expanding and institutionalising adult education for all within a lifelong learning perspective. They seek to contribute to discussions that bridge the CONFINTEA process of reviewing and improving with the wider 2030 Agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and, in so doing, carve out new vistas on the futures of adult education. In the final section of our editorial, we draw out key findings from the articles, together with ideas explicated in this Introduction, to formulate a succinct set of recommendations for due consideration.

Preliminary remarks

In this introductory essay, we refer to the adult education community and its organisational entities as an “adult education movement”. The reasons for this are many. First, it is worth recalling that organised labour and trade unions have been among the strongest supporters – and sometimes providers – of worker education in many countries and viewed expanding education opportunities for workers as part of a larger political agenda to secure workers’ rights (ILO 2007 ). Second, references to an “adult education movement” can be found in many national contexts, including the United States (Knowles 1994 ), Canada (Selman and Selman 2009 ) and South Africa (Aitchison 2003 ). Third, in recounting its history, the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE) refers to an international adult education movement: “The idea of having an international non-governmental body for the adult education movement was born in a discussion in a room in the Tokyo Prince Hotel in Japan where the Third International Conference on Adult Education was taking place in July of 1972” (ICAE, n.d., emphasis added). Fourth, some histories of adult and continuing education also use the term “movement” (Shannon 2015 ). Fifth, several key global education policy commitments have been framed as “movements” – examples include “the EFA movement” or the “functional literacy movement” or a “mass literacy movement”. Indeed, scholars of adult education have analysed the adult education field in the context of social movements (English and Mayo 2012 ). A recent indication of a growing adult education movement is the re-launch of ICAE’s flagship journal Convergence , after a break of more than a decade, focusing on areas like gender and environment, knowledge democracy and professional strengthening (Hall and Clover 2022 ), as well as links between ICAE and UNESCO (Hinzen 2022 ).

Our reference to an “international adult education movement” here is also meant to serve as a counterweight to the marginalisation of adult education around the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Representatives of the international adult education community were present at the Global Education for All Meeting in Muscat (May 2014) and later at the World Education Forum in Incheon (May 2015) during lively discussions over the post-2015 global education goal and its targets. However, when consensus emerged around several contentious issues, advocates of adult learning and education (ALE) were asked to get under the big tent notion of “lifelong learning”, to be mentioned in the formulation of the fourth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 4) itself,

Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all (UN 2015 , p. 14).

They were expected to be content with three – potentially four – targets that referenced adults: “women and men” should be provided with equal access “to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university” (SDG Target 4.3; ibid., p. 20); “youth and adults” should be equipped with “relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship” (SDG Target 4.4; ibid.); “all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women” should be enabled to “achieve literacy and numeracy” (SDG Target 4.6; ibid., p. 21), and finally “all learners” – including adults – should “acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development …” (SDG Target 4.7; ibid.). In agreeing to work under the banner of lifelong learning, the ALE leadership effectively conceded explicit references to the provision of adult learning and education inside the 10 SDG targets instead of pushing for a dedicated separate one, and thus inadvertently contributed to its subsequent invisibility (Benavot 2018 ). In this introductory essay, our reference to international adult education as a “movement” serves to reclaim the value, power and spirit of ALE as a collective and organisational manifestation.

In the next section, we focus on how supporters of adult education fashioned and established a broad international vision of the field in the post-World War II era. This focus is not meant to minimise the importance of international activities of adult educators in the first half of the 20th century. For example, the first international conference of adult education was held in 1929, in Cambridge (England), under the auspices of the World Association for Adult Education (WAAE), which was founded by Albert Mansbridge in 1918 (Ireland and Spezia 2014 ). Representatives of 33 governments and more than 300 stakeholders attended the one-week conference. In conjunction with this initial WAAE meeting, authors from 26 countries contributed chapters to the first International Handbook on Adult Education (ibid.).

Adult education: an international movement born out of war and crisis

In the aftermath of the Second World War, which resulted in unimaginable death, destruction and discontent, many international leaders sought to promote peace and understanding by eradicating “ignorance” and “illiteracy” in the world. Footnote 1 As the Preamble of the Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) famously states: “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men [and women] that the defences of peace must be constructed” (UNESCO 1945 , p. 1). Promoting international understanding and diminishing the prospects of war were not the only motives behind the push to expand education and increase literacy. International leaders at that time also articulated economic and social motives while addressing the root causes of the crisis.

Three-fourths of the world’s people today are under-housed, under-clothed, under-fed, illiterate. Now, as long as this continues to be true, we have a very poor foundation upon which to build the world (Yan Yangchu, quoted in Boel 2016 , p. 154).

These words by the Chinese educator Yan Yangchu, aka James Yen, a fierce advocate of adult literacy campaigns and mass education movements in pre-War China, helped convince UNESCO delegates to establish its first flagship programme – the Fundamental Education Programme – in May 1946. Education should involve instruction in all areas that

contribute to the development of well-rounded, responsible members of society … it is proposed that the Organization [UNESCO] should launch, upon a world scale, an attack upon ignorance by helping all Member States who desire such help to establish a minimum Fundamental Education for all their citizens (internal UNESCO Memorandum, quoted in Boel 2016 , pp. 153–154). Footnote 2

UNESCO’s understanding of “fundamental education” in these early years was humanistic, global, holistic and equity-oriented (Boel 2016 ; Watras 2010 ). It went beyond adult literacy campaigns to include a wide array of projects and programmes targeting marginalised adults and out-of-school youth and can thus be regarded as a forerunner of lifelong and life-wide education (Elfert 2018 ). The first of the 12 Monographs on Fundamental Education, published by UNESCO in 1949, stressed that “the aim of all education is to help men and women to live fuller and happier lives” (UNESCO 1949a , p. 9). In practical terms, the idea was that education would alter basic living conditions in social life through, for example, health education, domestic and vocational skills, knowledge and understanding of human society, including economic and social organisation, law and government. Fundamental education was thus an integrated community strategy to improve material conditions and reduce the impact of poverty as preconditions for an array of educational activities that would support the development of individual qualities needed “to live in the modern world, such as personal judgment and initiative, freedom from fear and superstition, sympathy and understanding for different points of view” (UNESCO 1949a , p. 11). Footnote 3 The notion and value of fundamental education gained further legitimacy after countries adopted Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948 ), which stated that education at the “fundamental” stage was to be free. Footnote 4

Soon afterwards, when the (First) International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA I) convened in Helsingør (Elsinore), Denmark in 1949, the 106 delegates agreed that adult education could and should play a formative role in fostering international understanding and world peace. Footnote 5 The idea was that adult education should serve as a bridge for intercultural exchange and reconciliation by contributing to the study of the life and circumstances of other peoples, their history, literature, art and other cultural achievements, as well as promoting technical assistance in low-income countries, and supporting the efforts of international organisations and the United Nations (UNESCO 1949b , pp. 28–30). The conference also embraced a decidedly holistic view of adult education, arguing that given the “deterioration in the material, spiritual and moral fabric of civilized life” (ibid., p. 28), adult education should help “rehabilitate world society with a new faith in [its] essential values and using knowledge in the pursuit of truth, freedom, justice and toleration” (ibid.). Although the delegates could not settle on a precise definition of adult education, they did agree on certain humanistic principles as a basis for expanding the adult education movement. These principles included, for example, the idea that adult education should practise a spirit of tolerance, uphold the value of freedom of thought and discussion, promote the study of world problems from both national and international perspectives, and emphasise the positive role of voluntary associations. The inspiring vision advanced at CONFINTEA I – to transform adults’ engagement within their communities and in the world – was clearly aligned with the growing interest in “fundamental education” as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948 ).

UNESCO’s Fundamental Education Programme (FEP) sprouted many shoots during its heyday (Watras 2010 ). In 1947, UNESCO and the Haitian government inaugurated a first pilot project in the Marbial Valley region, a poor rural area of southern Haiti, with more than 20 trainers and teachers. To share ideas and experiences across newly established projects, UNESCO launched an Associated Projects scheme in 1949, which included more than 34 projects in 15 countries by 1951 (Boel 2016 ). UNESCO’s Regional Centre of Fundamental Education in Mexico opened its doors in 1951, and became a training centre for fundamental education teachers, trainers and professionals. A year later, UNESCO established another training centre in Egypt and passed a resolution creating an international network of Fundamental Education Centres. During the FEP’s existence (1946–1958), UNESCO was active in expanding literacy campaigns, building community centres, introducing new crops, promoting handicrafts and reducing disease in more than 60 of the then 82 UNESCO Member States. In many instances, these activities involved other United Nations (UN) agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO – raising awareness of land erosion), the World Health Organization (WHO – promoting hygiene and health) and the International Labour Organization (ILO – fostering handicrafts and local industries). These projects were designed to be participatory, empowering and contextualised. As Conrad Opper, then Director of UNESCO’s Fundamental Education Pilot Project in Haiti, stated:

Fundamental education … means a mass attack on poverty, disease and ignorance … Fundamental education must aim at changing lives from within. It must not impose on a community large social and economic development schemes, but lead the people patiently and unobtrusively to work for their own improvement, using as far as possible their own social institutions and their own leadership …. There is … no blue-print for fundamental education. Everything will depend on the team resources available, the human resources of the people and the way in which these two forces are brought together … fundamental education is not just bull-dozers, penicillin and cinema vans; it is bringing new life to a people. And in these sombre days, mending a life is a far tougher job than ending it (Opper 1951 , p. 5).

In time, however, the ambitions of the FEP collided with insufficient financial resources from UNESCO Member States to carry out additional projects and expand the network of training centres (Watras 2010 ). In addition, critiques about the notion and practice of fundamental education emerged both externally and internally (Boel 2016 ). The UN took issue with the scale and scope of FEP activities. UNESCO and the other specialised agencies (ILO, FAO and WHO) argued that they should have programme-execution responsibilities in their specific fields of competence and that the UN’s exclusive function should be inter-agency coordination. The UN, on the other hand, expressed concerns that the all-inclusive nature of “fundamental education” meant that UNESCO was moving beyond education into other sectors, and insisted that the work of the FEP be seen as only one aspect of the broader process of community development. Internally, several UNESCO Member States, such as the United States, took issue with the largesse of funds allocated to FEP projects and the lack of clearly defined outcomes and measurable results (Boel 2016 ). While data were collected on “the number of teachers and trainers trained, new literates, community centres, new crops introduced, handicraft production and reduction of victims of diseases”, it was more challenging to determine the number of adults leading “fuller and happier lives” (ibid., p. 161). External critiques of and internal opposition to fundamental education were followed by executive deliberations and commissioned reports which raised questions about the impact of UNESCO’s flagship programme and whether it was meeting its lofty ideals. In 1958, UNESCO’s General Conference decided to drop the use of this foundational concept, close the Fundamental Education division, merge it into another unit, and substitute less contentious terms like “adult education”, “adult literacy” and “youth activities” (Watras 2010 ). The final Monograph in the series on Fundamental Education was published in 1959 (Boel 2016 ).

Intensifying crises, different in scale and scope

Today, some 75 years after the FEP and the establishment of CONFINTEA conferences to review and improve ALE strategies, many more adults are considered “functionally literate” and rates of adult literacy have increased – albeit based on narrow definitions of literacy, conventionally measured (Benavot 2015 ). Despite this progress, adult literacy rates remain shockingly low in many countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, there are significant disparities in literacy rates according to household income, geographical location, ethnicity and gender. For example, in 2020, globally, 90% of men over the age of 15 were defined as “literate”, whereas only 83% of women were so defined (UNESCO 2021a , p. 303). Indeed, women constitute nearly two-thirds of all “illiterate” adults in the world and this share has changed little since the turn of the century. Overall, recent progress in adult literacy, conventionally understood, has been painstakingly slow. It mainly reflects demographic shifts in life expectancy and fertility and higher levels of formal education among younger birth cohorts and only minimal effects of increased access to adult literacy programmes (UNESCO 2015a , pp. 143–144, 2020a , p. 268).

Participation rates in ALE programmes vary greatly around the world (UIL 2019 ). Limited and unverified information on ALE participation rates is available for only 96 UNESCO Member States, entirely based on country self-reports in the survey conducted by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) for the Fourth Global Report on Adult Learning and Education ( GRALE 4 ). Of these countries, 28 reported adult participation rates below 5%; 24 countries reported participation rates between 5% and 10%; 11 countries reported rates between 11% and 19%; 19 countries reported rates between 20% and 50%; and only 14 countries reported adult participation rates above 50% (ibid.). We have almost no reliable information about ALE participation for the remaining 97 UNESCO Member States.

Undoubtedly, when the international adult education community convenes for CONFINTEA VII in Marrakech, Morocco in June 2022, it will recommit itself to the strengthening and funding of ALE and to boosting participation in ALE programmes, even in the absence of reliable data. It remains to be seen whether the strategies and policies emerging from the conference will also target participation among vulnerable groups – for example, minorities, migrants and refugees; people with disabilities; older adults – who require dedicated systems of financing and other support.

Notwithstanding limited ALE progress in recent decades, its endeavours pale when considered alongside emerging challenges and crises, which are profound in scale and scope. Growing evidence suggests that life on Earth hangs in the balance and ALE must be part of a comprehensive solution. Carefully researched scientific reports present disturbing evidence of the impact of human activities on species extinction, Footnote 6 climate change, Footnote 7 and water scarcity, Footnote 8 which are likely to adversely impact natural ecosystems, animal species and many human populations.

The list of anthropogenic-induced tipping points that are growing nearer or being crossed on our planet is long. Researchers have devised quantitative measures to determine if humanity is operating within the limits of nine boundaries – namely, climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, interference with global phosphorus and nitrogen cycles, rate of biodiversity loss, global freshwater use, land system change, aerosol loading, and chemical pollution (Asher 2021 ). At present, we have exceeded four of these boundaries (biodiversity loss, nitrogen cycle, land system change and climate change) and we are on the cusp of exceeding another four – all but the chemical boundary.

Concurrently, language vitality is on the wane: at least 50% of the world’s more than six thousand languages are losing speakers, especially among the young (UNESCO 2003 ). UNESCO estimates that, in most world regions, about 90% of the languages still in use today may be replaced by nationally dominant languages by the end of the 21st century. The endangerment of languages is especially profound among Indigenous peoples, a sign of further denigration of their heritage and knowledge systems (Dei 2002 ).

It is projected that most people on Earth today are likely to experience another extreme pandemic like COVID-19 in their lifetime (Marani et al. 2021 ). WHO’s Coronavirus Dashboard estimates that globally, since the onset of COVID-19, there have been more than half a billion confirmed cases and at least 6.26 million deaths (WHO 2022 ). As the pandemic spread, and communities were placed in lockdowns or restricted movement, main modes of formal and non-formal education either ceased or were disrupted. At its peak, the COVID-19 pandemic forced 194 countries to close their schools, affecting nearly 1.6 billion children and youth (UNESCO 2022 ). At least one in three students were unable to access remote learning (UNICEF 2020 ). In addition to educational disruption and learning loss, school closures massively eroded children’s – and adults’ – sense of routine, heightened their perceptions of fragility, and exacerbated socio-economic and racial inequalities in accessing education, as some were able to continue learning remotely, often by digital means, while many others could not.

Adult literacy and numeracy programmes were also hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. A rapid assessment in mid-2020 suggested that 90% of adult literacy programmes were partially or even fully suspended (UNESCO 2020a ). Moreover, with a few exceptions (e.g. Chad and Senegal), ALE programmes were mostly absent from countries’ initial education response plans to the pandemic (UNESCO 2020b ). Among member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a recent study estimated that pandemic-induced shutdowns of economic activities decreased workers’ participation in non-formal learning by an average of 18%, and in informal learning by 25% (OECD 2021 ).

Can adult education reimagine itself at this critical juncture in human history?

Given the profound and urgent crises facing humanity today, the question is whether the adult education movement can rise to the occasion, mobilise the political will and financial resources, and reimagine its purpose and trajectory in the coming decades. In the aftermath of the Second World War, adult educators faced unimaginable moral, spiritual, economic and political crises and raised the banner of Fundamental Education as an innovative strategy for transforming communities. The current multifaceted crises pose equally daunting – although perhaps less apparent – challenges, so the issue arises once again: Can leaders of today’s adult education community find the wherewithal to raise new banners that address the unprecedented forces impacting our communities and villages, our cities and countries – indeed, the future existence of our planet? Can the adult education movement effectively serve as a bridge for intercultural exchange and reconciliation, and as a platform that brings together actors and agencies with distinctive worldviews and interests to work together in common purpose?

There are certainly signs of a greater recognition of the importance and value of ALE today, though they are far from universal. To list a few: adults are living longer, generating more demand for learning throughout life in diverse settings and formats. New technologies, growing automation and shifting locations of production are influencing the skills needed by, and career trajectories of, workers in evolving labour markets. National populations are growing more diverse, partly due to intensified migration, thus highlighting the role of adult education in promoting nation-building and social solidarity. Many young adults have been leaving formal education due to the impact of higher costs, lower quality and remote instruction and will be looking for new pathways of learning as adults. Growing numbers of refugees and peoples displaced due to armed conflict have increased the need for adult education in emergencies as well as opportunities for (re)training and skill acquisition. Adult education is expected to contribute to greater awareness of climate change and to promote resilience through enhanced knowledge of mitigation and adaptation strategies. The turn away from democracy and the weakening of public support for democratic institutions (Freedom House 2022a , b ) are increasing interest in civic education and global citizenship education for learners of all age brackets. In short, despite persistent impediments, the rationale for governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the private sector to invest in adult education could not be stronger and more urgent.

ALE and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Unlike the past, when the voices of adult educators seeking to transform the world may have been faint echoes in the ears of government leaders, today they can collaborate with numerous governmental and non-governmental actors within a comprehensive international development agenda: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN 2015 ). Education and lifelong learning Footnote 9 are understood to be drivers of broad social, political, economic and environmental transformation. The fact that promoting “lifelong learning opportunities for all” (SDG 4; UN 2015 ) has been adopted as an official international development priority is unprecedented.

References to ALE are found throughout the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their respective Targets – sometimes explicitly, often implicitly. In addition to the global goal dedicated to Education (SDG 4), there are numerous direct and indirect references to ALE in the other 16 SDGs (ISCU and ISSC 2015 ). As John Oxenham noted:

Each of the 17 goals has a set of targets and each set has at least one target that deals with or implies learning, training, educating or at the very least raising awareness for one or more groups of adults. Goals 3 [health], 5 [women], 8 [economy], 9 [infrastructure], 12 [consumption] and 13 [climate] especially include targets that imply substantial learning for ranges of adults – and organised, programmatic learning at that (John Oxenham, quoted in Rogers 2016 , p. 29).

Moreover, the lasting impact of education on many SDGs is apparent in two other ways (UNESCO 2016 , p. 368 ff.). First, when SDG Indicators (UIS 2018 ) are disaggregated by education levels, there is often a significant link between more educated adults and various sustainability outcomes, thereby confirming long-standing research findings. Second, progress in the 2030 Agenda depends on whether and how formal and non-formal education builds critical capacity in society. Improvements in health and sanitation services, agricultural productivity, climate change mitigation and crime reduction – to name a few – are contingent on training professionals who can implement policies, lead information campaigns, and communicate with targeted communities. Whether considered non-formal adult education or university-based extension services (Rogers 2016 ), adult education programmes are found in many fields – e.g. health promotion, agriculture, human resource enhancement, environmental management and community development – but there is rarely a co-ordinating idea illuminating the work and purposes of such programmes. Small ALE fiefdoms, under the purview of non-education ministries or non-state actors, often remain unaware of the shared world they occupy (UNESCO 2021a ), and ministries of education have few incentives to accurately reflect the vast and colourful portrait consisting of diverse adult education activities. If ALE is an essential means of capacity building, then the need for such capacities is acute in many under-resourced settings. Effective capacity building through ALE can significantly contribute to SDG progress. And yet, ALE continues to play the role of an “invisible friend” for the SDGs (Benavot 2018 ).

Future visions of ALE and lifelong learning

Until recently, the main foci of the international educational community have been on universal completion of primary education, reduced gender disparities in basic education, enhanced quality education, mainly in terms of increased learning levels, and a growing interest in early childhood care and education. Apart from emanating conventional calls for fostering adult literacy and life skills, the Jomtien and Dakar conferences (UNESCO 1990; WCEFA 2000) had little to say about ALE beyond a recognition of intergenerational or family-based literacy acquisition. The broader opportunity to recognise the secondary benefits of ALE for sustainable development was missed.

In addition to deploying its convening power to bring together governments and other stakeholders in major policy-generating international gatherings, UNESCO has also commissioned over the years four forward-looking reports:

Learning to be: The world of education today and tomorrow (Faure et al. 1972 )

Learning: The treasure within. Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the 21st Century (Delors et al. 1996 )

Rethinking education: Towards a global common good? (UNESCO 2015b )

Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education (UNESCO 2021b ).

In many ways it is in and through these highly influential reports that the broad value of lifelong education and lifelong learning is fleshed out (see Biesta 2021 ). Arguably, the rationale and groundwork for the inclusion of lifelong learning in the SDGs were laid in the first two reports listed above. Nevertheless, an interesting contradiction has arisen: while members of the international community may embrace the term and sometimes the discourse of lifelong learning, in practice, they often do so in truncated ways – highlighting some aspects (early childhood education or formal education) and downplaying others (adult and non-formal education). Notable exceptions are the European Union (through its adult education targets and monitoring efforts) and the OECD (through skills assessments in its Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies [PIAAC]), which continue to focus on ALE as a critical policy lever – albeit dominated by economic considerations. In addition, there is a small group of countries – for example, Canada, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Singapore – which are deeply committed to implementing lifelong education policies. Footnote 10

It is also noteworthy how ALE and lifelong learning are conceived in these two recent UNESCO reports: Rethinking education (UNESCO 2015b ) and Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education (UNESCO 2021b ). The first report emphasises the humanistic and holistic nature of lifelong learning:

It is necessary … to reassert a humanistic approach to learning throughout life for social, economic and cultural development. Naturally, focus on particular dimensions may shift in different learning settings and at different stages of the life course. But in reaffirming the relevance of lifelong learning as the organizing principle for education, it is critical to integrate the social, economic and cultural dimensions (UNESCO 2015b , pp. 37–38).

The report further underscores the moral and ethical issues raised in and through lifelong learning:

… the concept of humanism has given rise to several, often conflicting, interpretations, each of which raises fundamental moral and ethical issues that are clearly matters of educational concern. It can be argued that sustaining and enhancing the dignity, capacity and welfare of the human person in relation to others, and to nature, should be the fundamental purpose of education in the twenty-first century. The humanistic values that should be the foundations and purpose of education include: respect for life and human dignity, equal rights and social justice, cultural and social diversity , and a sense of human solidarity and shared responsibility for our common future (UNESCO 2015b , p. 38; emphases in original).

The timing of the Reimagining our futures together report (UNESCO 2021b ) – amid a global pandemic, growing international crises, and in the run-up to CONFINTEA VII – means that it too is likely to influence thinking about ALE and lifelong learning in the coming years. The report underscores the transformative potential of ALE and the need to reimagine its purposes beyond economic considerations by forging synergistic connections with other sectors:

Adult learning and education must look very different a generation from now. As our economies and societies change, adult education will need to extend far beyond lifelong learning for labour market purposes. Opportunities for career change and reskilling need to connect to a broader reform of all education systems that emphasizes the creation of multiple, flexible pathways. Like education in all domains, rather than being reactive or adaptive (whether to change in labour markets, technology, or the environment), adult education needs to be reconceptualized around learning that is truly transformative (UNESCO 2021b , pp. 114–115).

The Reimagining our futures together report advocates for a multidimensional view of ALE – empowering, critical and transformative – which takes responsibility for shaping a just, peaceful and sustainable world:

Adult learning and education play multiple roles. It helps people find their way through a range of problems and increases competencies and agency. It enables people to take more responsibility for their future. Furthermore, it helps adults understand and critique changing paradigms and power relationships and take steps towards shaping a just and sustainable world. A futures orientation should define adult education, as much as education at all moments, as an education entangled with life. Adults are responsible for the world in which they live as well as the world of the future. Responsibility to the future cannot be simply passed on to the next generations. A shared ethic of intergenerational solidarity is needed (UNESCO 2021b , p. 115).

Interestingly, these quotations harken back to the broad-based, life-altering FEP agenda initiated many decades ago. They also recognise the distinctive challenges of our times, which again require holistic approaches and energetic thinking that transcend interagency politics and turf wars.

In preparing the Reimagining our futures together report (UNESCO 2021b ), UNESCO commissioned dozens of background papers, a handful of which focus on the future of ALE and lifelong learning. For example, in “Knowledge production, access and governance: A song from the South”, Catherine Odora Hoppers ( 2020 ) argues for expanding our understanding of education itself, from a narrow view of school-based learning, to one that embraces non-formal adult education, and then expands holistically into lifelong learning. Others note the challenges facing the adult education community if it is to meet a surging and diversified demand for ALE in the coming years. While noting the importance of contextualising solutions, the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE), an international civil society organisation, calls for:

strengthening institutional structures (like community learning centres for delivering ALE) and securing the role of ALE staff,

improving in-service and pre-service education, further education, training, capacity building and employment conditions of adult educators, [and]

developing appropriate content/curricula and modes of delivery adequate for adult learners, based on research results (ICAE 2020 , p. 13).

Africa: education as a source of restoration

Although many current crises are global in scope, they impact world regions differently and often unequally. Here, we briefly focus on Africa, given its centrality in international education development discourse as well as its potential to be a thought leader in reimagining education and lifelong learning going forward.

In the African context, relationships with, and to, nature, human agency, and human solidarity underpin African knowledge systems. African communities create and derive their existence from them. Relationships between people hold pride of place – best explained by the concept of ubuntu (Oviawe 2016 ). It does not seek to conquer or debilitate nature as a first impulse.

Thus, from an African perspective, education must first and foremost facilitate restoration. This means employing education and social literacies (Street 1995 ) to build pathways of return for the empowerment of African children and adults – in other words, to foster a sense of coming home. There need to be concerted efforts to restore human agency among Africans. From an epistemological point of view, the objective is to enable African civilisations to be recovered, breathing life to Indigenous forms of knowledge and restoring their place in the livelihood of communities so that they can, without coercion, determine the nature and pace of the development they seek going forward (Ocitti 1994 ). Thus, the right to adult literacy and the achievement of universal literacy are not only important for personal fulfilment, enhanced skill levels and social development, but also as a source for restoration and renewal.

It is estimated that about sixty per cent of Africans live in rural areas (UN 2018 ). They use their bequeathed rural assets as the basis for establishing a livelihood, securing their existence, contributing to different modes of development, subsidising state social welfare, and caring for the old and the young. An appropriate strategy for adult education is to frame sustainable development around what people currently have and, from this vantage point, re-link lifelong learning with humanity from the ground up. This means systematising and integrating diverse social and non-Western knowledge systems into mainstream processes.

Education systems in Africa continue to be deeply rooted in Western values and cultural frames as a vestige of colonialism. They also narrowly attend to the supply side of the equation, obsessively focused on instrumental policies to increase attendance and school completion rates. Education needs to anticipate a liberation of the mainstream from its narrow, parochial, and eschewed understanding of what is “universal”. To do so would mean recognising the dissonance in the application of dialogue in the Freirean sense of “naming the world” (Freire 1970 ), and the under-articulation of strategies that enable the effective participation of African knowledge systems in this naming.

Which “life skills” should be realised through lifelong learning?

For education and lifelong learning to truly become authentic pathways to sustainable development, empowerment and restoration, they must go beyond the articulation of new visions for the future, and deal sensitively with the consequences of inherited practices. Continued focus on socialising children and adults into dominant cultural milieus or on adapting the provision of formal and non-formal education to existing economic structures to ease the school-to-work transition contributes little to a new vision of lifelong learning.

One potential point of departure is recasting the value of different “life skills” and competencies that adults acquire through ALE in consideration of an alternative set of societal purposes. At the World Education Forum in Dakar in May 2000, countries committed themselves to a broad “life skills” goal: to ensure “that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life skills programmes” (EFA Goal 3; WEF 2000 , p. 16). Although various international organisations and civil society groups held different understandings of this goal, some consensus did eventually emerge: (1) that “equitable access to appropriate learning” included all modes of delivery, i.e. formal and nonformal education, vocational training, distance education, on-the-job training and self-learning; and (2) that life skills programmes could be characterised by the major types of skills they conveyed – namely, basic skills (e.g. literacy, numeracy), practical/contextual skills (e.g. health promotion, HIV prevention, livelihood and income-generation skills) and psychosocial skills (e.g. problem-solving, decision-making, critical thinking, interpersonal, communication, negotiating and collaboration/teamwork skills). Although EFA Goal 3 was, unsurprisingly, one of the most difficult goals to measure or monitor, it did embrace a broad view of the learning needs of younger and older learners (UNESCO 2014a , 2015a ).

The post-2015 global education policy agenda (SDG 4) contains more specific formulations of adult learning needs, albeit in separate targets (WEF 2016 ). SDG Target 4.3 focuses on equitable access to affordable and quality TVET and higher education; SDG Target 4.4 on relevant skills for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship; SDG Target 4.5 on eliminating discrimination and disparities in all forms of education; SDG Target 4.6 on youth and adult literacy and numeracy; and SDG Target 4.7 on knowledge and skills needed for sustainable development through education for sustainability and global citizenship. Footnote 11

While the SDG Targets invoke a wide array of skills and competencies, they mainly refer to economic productivity, social equality and sustainable development. But which transversal skills and competencies are needed to grapple with the imperatives of peaceful co-existence, social solidarity, global awareness and human dignity, which appear to be in short supply? For example, understanding human dignity and working towards its revitalisation presupposes an awareness of humiliation, deprivation, cognitive justice and other forms of disenfranchisement. In today’s world, commitments to democratic institutions and processes and securing human rights, taken on their own, are insufficient to ensure human dignity. While SDG Target 4.7 offers a handle for ALE programmes to diversify the competencies they seek to engender, most efforts around this target are exclusively focused on school-based learning. Can lifelong learning opportunities be designed to address emergent societal and global challenges? As we have seen, the stakes today are much higher than in the past.

Future educational trajectories, based on lifelong learning for all, must look with the eyes of a chameleon, taking a full 360-degree view, to embrace humanity where it stands and build upon what people have, instead of reinforcing the deficit-oriented and toxic formula that has been endemic to borrowed educational practices for so long. Lifelong learning is about learning throughout life in formal, non-formal and informal settings. And yet, more often than not, informal and non-formal approaches to learning are undervalued, mentioned in passing, and largely invisible. Why do so many advocates of lifelong learning turn to the safely tarmacked highways of formal learning? Non-formal and informal learning may require different measurement tools, but they are ubiquitous in people’s lives and deserve our full attention.

Shifting from education with a small “e” to Education with a capital “E”

For many, the term “lifelong learning” has a wider and a narrower meaning. In its wider meaning, lifelong learning refers to all forms of formal, non-formal and informal learning – irrespective of whether it is planned or unplanned, intentional or unintentional – involving children, youth and adults. In a narrower sense, lifelong learning refers to planned learning activities , including those both inside and outside of education and community institutions (e.g. workplace learning and private-sector provision) for specific populations (e.g. toddlers, adults). In the first sense, no one is a non-participant; everyone learns, even if the learning is unconscious and unintentional. In the second sense, there are some adults for whom it can be claimed that they “have done no ‘learning’ since leaving school”. Thus, “lifelong learning” policies seek to ensure that more and more adults participate in learning opportunities over the course of their lives (Rogers 2016 ).

Lifelong learning, in principle, does not discriminate between culturally distinct traditions in education. As Odora Hoppers ( 2020 ) argues, education with a small “e” is tied up with Eurocentrism, and a long tradition of school-centric and discipline-based ways of thinking that create artificial boundaries and barriers, leading to rigid outcomes, international league tables and limited interest in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary learning. By contrast, Education with a capital “E” refers to lifelong relearning, and unlearning, combining formal, informal and non-formal insights and wisdom from many cultures. It embraces traditional knowledge, Indigenous knowledge, civilisational knowledge systems from all parts of the world (Odora Hoppers 2020 ).

For Education with a capital “E” to take root and blossom, a dialogic context must be created in which the democratic imagination and conversation are constructed between different knowledge systems and across diverse disciplines and sectors (UNESCO 2000b ). Such a context would raise issues about governance, science and education and address questions of global ethics, learning and plurality (Bindé 2001 , 2004 ). This could result in a new governance model of local–global interfaces, focusing on issues of restoration, sustainability and increased human consciousness as well as self-cultivation and self-improvement. Such new governance should be underpinned by a lived ethics, instead of the conceptual compliance-driven ethics that are commonplace today. Current frameworks of governance fetishise information over knowledge as an ecology. This must change. The epistemics of governance of education with a capital “E” must be worked out in terms of a new vocabulary to replace the present model of governance which is puritanical and quite un-nuanced about the suffering it creates (Odora Hoppers 2018 ).

To facilitate the shift to “Education”, emergent knowledge systems need to learn from and validate one another in future pursuits. Indigenous ways of living and knowing open up learners to the crucial distinction between “frugal subsistence” and “poverty” (Gupta 1999 ). Education should produce leaders who look beyond the “classroom” and its world of objects, categories and restrictive logic and foster a wider understanding of science, history, technologies and cultural sciences as practised by other knowledge systems.

Lastly, lifelong learning should seek to create “ethical spaces” that allow individuals from different knowledge traditions to engage in interactions based on dialogue, reciprocity, respect, courtesy, valorisation and recognition of the “Other”. Such spaces open windows of opportunity for critical conversations about race, gender, class, freedom and community. It is in and through ethical spaces that substantial, sustained and deeper understandings between cultures and peoples can emerge. When two sorts of entities with two sorts of intentions meet in an abstract theoretical location in the thought world, it becomes a space where different cultures, worldviews, knowledge systems and jurisdictions agree to interact. Non-Indigenous and Indigenous communities can come and participate, debate, discuss and finally have meaningful dialogue. Instead of maintaining unequal relations in terms of a hierarchical order, a space is created in which both entities experience vulnerability – in other words, they meet on equal terms, naked, without agendas or titles. Ethical spaces create a level playing field with opportunities for dialogue between entities and for the possible crossing of existing cultural borders (Ermine 2007 ).

Can lifelong learning reimagine itself as the purveyor of emancipatory platforms (Biesta 2012 )? Can it enable individuals to engage with distinctive knowledge traditions and with decolonised, alternate forms of knowing of, and being in, the world? If so, then it will help to address the crises of our times.

The articles featured in this special issue

The six articles we present in this special issue reflect opportunities and gaps in ALE and lifelong learning in the broad SDG agenda and how these might be bridged to bring forth more meaningful social transformation as discussed thus far. This compilation therefore highlights a range of strategies for creating abundant, fair, accessible, diverse and monitorable pathways and equivalencies both within and between formal, non-formal and informal learning. It also addresses the need to better align the links between ALE policy, governance, financing, quality and participation, the five key areas of the Belém Framework for Action (BFA; UIL 2010 ), and the five ALE-related Targets of SDG 4 (WEF 2016 ). Overall, this special issue aims to rethink and re-position ALE, the core construct of the CONFINTEA process of reviewing and improving, within the conception of lifelong learning in the SDGs as a key lever for development and addressing global challenges touched on earlier. In this respect it also complements forthcoming reports and papers being prepared for the CONFINTEA VII conference, including the Fifth Global Report on Adult Learning and Education ( GRALE 5 ) which will focus on education for active citizenship (UIL 2022 ).

This special issue aims to bring the agendas of CONFINTEA and the SDGs closer together. Much of the success of each respective agenda depends on mobilising funding to implement policy commitments. This is especially true for ALE, an education policy arena in which financing is far more precarious.

We begin with an article by David Archer , who was a member of the BFA Drafting Group in 2009, representing civil society through the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE), and is a key expert on education financing within ActionAid. His article, “Avoiding pitfalls in the next International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA): Lessons on financing adult education from Belém”, is an interesting first-hand account from someone who was deeply engaged in the discussion and drafting ideas of how big the education part in a country’s overall national budget should be, and what the share of ALE of the national education budget should be moving towards by asking for concrete figures and percentages. He specifically points to the interventions of delegates who argued for no figure or percentage to be put into the BFA, and that they unfortunately succeeded on that point. This may have contributed to the reality of today where each GRALE points to the low level of ALE financing in most countries. Archer shares those insights in detail and offers a number of potential solutions, looking beyond education into progressive ways of tax reform or debt service suspension. It is to be hoped that key lessons have been learned and the outcome document of CONFINTEA VII, the Marrakech Framework for Action (MFA), will be more explicit in terms of financing goals. The currently available draft for the online MFA consultation formulates financing as follows:

We are determined to increase public spending on education in accordance with country contexts to meet the international benchmarks of allocating 4–6% of GDP and/or 15–20% of total public expenditure to education, including at least 4% for ALE (CONFINTEA VII online consultation, accessed 10 April 2022).

The second article we present, “Financing adult learning and education (ALE) now and in future” was written by Idowu Biao , professor of lifelong learning at the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin. He throws the net wider in helping to understand why ALE is grossly underfunded while the education community is pushing lifelong learning for all as stipulated in SDG 4. Biao starts off by talking about ALE as a human right, arguing that there is no good reason why ALE is not funded like other parts of a country’s education system. He identifies four factors which he deems responsible for this current state of affairs: (1) the world’s obsession with the provision of school education; (2) the lack of adequate instruments to work out ALE’s returns on investment; (3) the delusion that employers will ultimately supply ALE, a hope which disregards the fact that a large proportion of youth and adults are not in formal employment; and (4) the assumption that an expansion of formal schooling will eventually lead to the establishment of literate societies free of intergenerational crises. Since ALE is generally framed as a broad literacy education project, Biao undertakes a review of literacy education costing. He continues by looking into several funding models in which individuals, communities, governments, or employers play a key role at the national level, and also considers the use of international development aid or the Official Development Assistance (ODA) model. Both are needed: the increase in domestic funding for ALE as well as new perspectives of funding ALE within lifelong learning for global agencies, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as well as large NGOs, whose ALE funding is minimal.

Adult literacy

Adult literacy is also of particular interest to Ulrike Hanemann and Clinton Robinson , both of whom are influential in this area through their work for UNESCO and in the field. In “Rethinking literacy from a lifelong learning perspective in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and the International Conference on Adult Education”, they raise concerns about the challenges of connecting literacy to the principle of lifelong learning, focusing in particular on SDG Target 4.6, which is dedicated to adult literacy. The authors use a holistic framework labelled “lifelong literacy” not only to strengthen global approaches to adult literacy – which they consider insufficiently prioritised in recent years – but also to inform policy and programme approaches that better link country, institution-based, community, family and individual learning. This integration, they argue, is necessary when considering literacy as a socially situated practice. Hanemann and Robinson 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, they 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. The authors make a number of points that support the framing of adult literacy in this way, noting that learning begets learning and therefore motivation is highly implicit in this process if learning opportunities actively relate to the realities, aspirations and learning journeys of adults in different social contexts (i.e. matching learners’ language needs and local forms of knowledge). As such, education systems must make their inclusion more flexible and permeable through the creation of responsive infrastructure, also, for example, by broadening national qualifications frameworks to include literacy and basic skills gained in non-formal and informal learning environments, raising the value of recognition, validation and accreditation (RVA) of these learning outcomes as a basis of learning continuity for all. 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 regarding conceptual orientation, programmatic responses and institutional connections.

Participation

After considering financing and literacy, we now turn to participation. GRALE 4, Entitled Leave no one behind: participation, equity and inclusion (UIL 2019 ) makes the claim in its concluding chapter that the global monitoring architecture in place is not adequately equipped to fulfil its purpose, and that country-level collection of ALE data is far from sufficient. Who participates in ALE, and who does not, in what forms and at what levels is hardly known. Aggregated data reflecting age and gender, access and inclusion, demand and supply, digital or institutionalised provision are limited.

The fourth article we present in this special issue is “Community learning centres (CLCs) for adult learning and education (ALE): Development in and by communities”, written by Sonja Belete, Chris Duke, Heribert Hinzen, Angela Owusu-Boampong and Khấu Hữu Phước. Aiming to get a clearer understanding of participation in community-based ALE, often conducted in community learning centres (CLCs), their article shows that institutionalised forms of ALE are found in most parts of the world. They are embedded in different traditions, with stronger roots in Europe and Asia, and as spaces offering opportunities for literacy and skills training, health and citizenship promotion, general, liberal and vocational education, in line with a fuller recognition of the meaning of lifelong learning, and in the context of local communities. They operate according to a multitude of modes, methods and materials, and often form the basis for even more informal and participatory learning, like study circles and community groups. The authors review relevant literature and identify recent studies and experiences with a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific and Africa regions, but also consider insights related to interventions at the global level. Findings point to low levels of participation of adults in general, and more specifically of vulnerable and excluded groups struggling to overcome various barriers. The authors’ discussion is guided by the question: What conditions are conducive to having more and better ALE for lifelong learning – and which roles can CLCs and other community-based ALE institutions play? They take into consideration that while most learners in CLCs are adults, sometimes children and youth also participate. As institutions, CLCs provide opportunities for engagement in different thematic areas through courses and other activities. To strengthen policy support for good practice, convincing examples of successful methods and related policies, legislation and financing are needed, along with a much deeper shared grasp of the full meaning of lifelong learning (throughout life, in depth, and including a wide range of locations and modes of learning). This discussion is timely – the authors argue that CLCs need to be given more attention in international commitments such as those made in the context of the series of CONFINTEAs and the UN’s 17 SDGs. Indeed, CLCs are up for discussion in a thematic workshop during CONFINTEA VII, and also featured in a recommendation in the draft MFA – both of which will take CLCs deeper into the proceedings and hopefully outcomes.

Two articles in this special issue focus on how monitoring ALE against international commitments can be improved in different ways, both to enhance scope, collaboration, reliability and usability of data findings and conclusions, but also to provide evidence for foundational arguments of ALE benefits, spill-over effects and financing needs. In the first of these two contributions, Ellen Boeren and Kjell Rubenson , both academics who have been involved in several GRALE reports, take a close look at its utility as a monitoring mechanism. In “The Global Report on Adult Learning and Education (GRALE) : Strengths, weaknesses and future directions”, they use an evaluative framework developed by Pär Mårtensson et al. ( 2016 ) to investigate to what extent the GRALE approach to monitoring and reporting on ALE so far has been (1) credible (e.g. based on rigorous research methodologies and methods); (2) contributory (e.g. relevant and applicable to practice, generalisable); (3) communicable (e.g. accessible, understandable and readable in terms of report structure); and (4) conforming (e.g. with ethical standards). The authors arrive at several critical observations, such as concerns over GRALE data quality, given that the mechanism only relies on one response per country rather than triangulating information sources for a more impartial view of ALE activities on the ground. Another is on how countries with dramatically different ALE contexts are analysed in groups (by region, income level), potentially making it difficult for policymakers to distil specific learnings for their national settings and also challenging to see particular gaps or issues, aside from those reported through open-ended questions. While GRALE provides a unique dataset from regularly (at roughly three-year intervals) tracking progress on political commitments to the BFA and RALE across a wide swathe of UNESCO Member States, it is unclear what direct impact its insights and findings have had on ALE policy, strategy and programme developments over the past 13 years. This creates a nebulous space for supposition about impact, rather than having evidence of impact in various settings that underwrites and ultimately strengthens GRALE ’s concrete value in shaping ALE directions and driving social norms. To get to the bottom of this question, Boeren and Rubenson suggest an in-depth impact evaluation to be conducted during the next CONFINTEA cycle, in addition to GRALE focusing more on tracking not only progress but also impacts from meeting ALE commitments and linking this query to the SDGs.

The second article on monitoring, “Bringing together monitoring approaches to track progress on adult learning and education across main international policy tools”, was written by Ashley Stepanek Lockhart , who has also been involved in GRALE. She explores ways of leveraging the report and monitoring strategies of ALE-related SDG 4 Targets (4.1–4.7) and “means of implementation” (4.a–4.c) to increase coverage and efficiency of these processes by combining efforts from within different parts of UNESCO, while also maintaining their separate added value. This is important since, at least in theory, different UNESCO institutes and departments are talking to the same countries about ALE monitoring even if the approach, timeline and type of information collected may differ. While there are content overlaps, Stepanek Lockhart argues that aligning GRALE and monitoring strategies of ALE-related SDG 4 Targets/means of implementation could help to backstop information that each requires for sharper or more comprehensive analysis, whether to fill gaps on missing data or to verify data in hand, with the aim of increasing robustness and reliability of resulting reports. She provides examples of where data may be missing in one monitoring approach and how a question could be added to another to make up the difference, and vice versa (e.g. adding a question to the GRALE survey to build on limited information about SDG Indicator 4.3.1 on participation in informal and non-formal education in training in the last 12 months, by sex; conversely, sharing data with GRALE on SDG Indicator 4.4.1 on youth and adults with ICT skills, by skill type, to enhance analysis). Moreover, demonstrating that there are significant gaps between relevant targets, indicators and data sources, the author argues that mutually beneficial activities and information sharing could contribute to monitoring the fuller intent of SDG 4 Targets concerning ALE, which may overlap with commitments made in the BFA and in the 2015 Recommendation for Adult Learning and Education (RALE; UNESCO & UIL 2016 ). Among other recommendations, the author highlights the need for GRALE to enlarge its focus on tracking ALE teacher development, since – while SDG Target/means of implementation 4.c focuses on increasing the supply of qualified teachers generally, and especially in economically developing countries – in practice they are otherwise not being monitored.

This introductory essay and the articles in this special issue constitute a clarion call for meeting the unprecedented challenges of our times by reimagining the roles of adult education and lifelong learning for all. Collectively, we consider abstract conceptualisations as well as concrete experiences. We draw on the historical record as well as on insights from adjacent fields of knowledge. From an African perspective, we reconsider the vast education project – formal, non-formal and informal – through a different lens. It prioritises education that serves as a platform for bridging diverse worldviews, cultivating encounters with the Other, and recognising, publicly and without duress, the co-existence of multiple forms of knowledge. Education that transforms must be holistic. Adult education that transforms must acknowledge different knowledge systems, including Indigenous ways of knowing and being, which have been neglected and devalorised. Working towards these ideals is among the deepest challenges for the ALE movement going forward.

Recommendations for the future of adult learning and education

On the relevance, contextualisation and interactive potential of ale.

Adult learning and education should be firmly embedded in local contexts of culture and language, and derive its purposes, major content areas and pedagogies from local communities regardless of location (i.e. rural, urban, mixed landscapes).

ALE programmes should encourage learners to encounter different knowledge and historical traditions and to engage in interactions based on dialogue, reciprocity, courtesy and mutual respect.

Indigenous knowledge and local learning practices are important for people to navigate their specific contexts and aspirations. Creating physical, emotional and intellectual spaces in support of these processes should be encouraged.

On institutionalising, professionalising and governing ALE

Countries should formally acknowledge that the right to education for all includes the right to adult education for all.

ALE systems should be an acknowledged sub-sector of a country’s education system (like primary, secondary and higher education) to more fully reflect and act on long-term political and financial commitments in this field.

Steps should be taken to enhance the provision of, and participation in, ALE within clearly demarcated spaces supported by an explicit infrastructure, one that facilitates local engagement. Community learning centres, for example, and other community-based institutions can be developed as cornerstones to local infrastructure.

The governance of a country’s education system should be redesigned to take full account of all sub-sectors from a lifelong learning perspective, including formal and non-formal education and informal learning. Policy decisions should draw on documented evidence of the flexible and permeable pathways adults utilise in their lives, which can be recognised and broadened to support a variety of learning journeys. Mechanisms and support structures should prioritise adults living and working in the informal and agricultural sectors, ensuring that no one is left behind.

The institutionalisation and professionalisation of ALE are important for organisational development as well as capacity building, training and research to enhance quality. Drawing on evidence of best practices, higher education institutions should play a supportive role in preparing ALE professionals, who serve in leadership, management, administration, teaching and research capacities in the ALE sub-sector. The research functions of universities and specialised institutions should be mobilised to improve all aspects of ALE systems, especially in terms of quality, diversity and equity through a lifelong learning approach.

On financing

ALE financing should be fully embedded and concretised in policy and legislation and move beyond well-intentioned political commitments. Without an urgent increase in financing, the potential role of ALE to respond to the major crises of our time will go under/unrealised.

All countries should widen the tax base by ending harmful tax incentives and preventing tax evasion and use these funds to increase the share of existing government budgets allocated to ALE.

Many countries should increase their tax to GDP ratios – say, by five percentage points by 2030 – to raise more financial resources for all forms of lifelong learning: formal, non-formal and informal.

Increased budget allocations to ALE should prioritise excluded groups, improve equity of provision and increase the scrutiny of spending in practice to make sure ALE resources reach disadvantaged communities.

International donors should support partner countries’ efforts to increase ALE funding levels by meeting their commitment to 0.7% of Gross National Income and thereby ensure equitable resource allocation to underserved communities.

On measuring, reporting and monitoring

Countries – with the support of international partners and agencies – should make concerted efforts to expand the collection and reporting of ALE-related information and statistics based on national census data, other national surveys and innovative indicators, thereby contributing to improvements in national reporting and global reviews of ALE and, ultimately, improved implementation.

Steps should be taken to upgrade the reliability and validity of information about the participation in and provision of ALE in all its forms and modalities, regardless of who the provider is (e.g. government agencies, or private-sector, civil-society, faith-based or distance learning organisations).

Information on other aspects of ALE (e.g. ALE programme descriptions, learner characteristics, programme quality, funding, educators and facilitators, outcomes, programme effectiveness and efficiency) should also be compiled. Such information should be utilised for improved policy deliberation, policy interventions, advocacy, the institutionalisation and professionalisation of ALE, as well as for evaluation research and innovation in the field. ALE data should become an integral and transparent part of overall education statistics and monitoring systems, and should help create a more robust evidence base for GRALE monitoring.

Countries should measure adult literacy based on a continuum of literacy levels (not dichotomised into literate and illiterate categories) and define clear measurable ALE targets within lifelong learning. Approaches to measuring literacy as a continuum at scale must be explored to ensure the quality and coverage of interventions in different places without becoming rigid or too prescriptive.

The Global Report on Adult Learning Education ( GRALE ) should be strengthened, and its independence enhanced. GRALE reports should be externally evaluated by an independent entity to determine its impact and fitness for purpose. The terms of reference for the evaluation should be developed by an independent body of diverse stakeholders. This evaluation could be the launch pad for a global research programme into ALE.

Greater synergies should be realised between GRALE and SDG 4 measurement and monitoring efforts, positioning al ALE as an integral part of the overall effort to support transformative lifelong learning and development.

The fact that the major parties to the conflict included the most educated and literate populations in the world did not detract from the abiding faith of post-WWII leaders that the spread of education and literacy would promote international understanding and peaceful relations.

These quotes are taken from the Memorandum on the education programme of UNESCO, Paper No. 1, prepared by the Education Staff of the Preparatory Commission, 13 May 1946. UNESCO.Prep.Com./Educ.Com., UNESCO Archives.

See also Educación Fundamental: Ideario, principios, orientaciones methodológicas (CREFAL 1952 ).

Internally, UNESCO delegates debated the use of the term “fundamental” in contrast to “elementary” or “primary”. Many preferred the former over the others since, for example, it “contained the more recent and much broader concept of education” or because it “conveyed more clearly the conception of basic education which was the right of everyone” or that it was “a new and modern concept … particularly well adapted to countries where adult education became imperative for those persons who had not enjoyed the opportunities of grade-school instruction” (UNESCO 2000a , p. 98). In explaining the choice of terms, Kuo Yu-Shou, Senior Counsellor for Education, claimed that the term “fundamental education” could include education for adults and children. Most importantly, this term suggested that teachers could accept the differences among individuals, while the term “mass education” implied teachers should treat everyone in the same manner (Watras 2010 , p. 221).

This was an insight from the aftermath of the massively disruptive First World War. In 1919, Imperial Germany had moved with deliberate speed towards establishing a democratic polity. The new Constitution of the Weimar Republic contained a special clause requesting local, regional and national authorities to support adult education, including the folk high schools. Despite further disruption (and misappropriation) during the Second World War, it was this constitutional anchoring of ALE in policy, legislation and financing which enabled the German adult education system to flourish for more than a century. The parallel with the evolution of the international adult education movement is striking (Hinzen and Meilhammer 2022 ).

As of the end of 2019, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a global authority on the status of the natural world, included assessments for 112,432 species (a small proportion of all species), of which 30,178 (or 27%) have been found to be threatened with extinction (IUCN 2020 ). The IUCN’s Red list of threatened species currently estimates that 41% of amphibians, 26% of mammals, 13% of birds and 21% of reptiles are threatened with extinction (IUCN 2022 ).

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels (IPCC 2022 ). If global warming continues to increase at the current rate, it is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052. Warming from human-caused emissions from the pre-industrial period to the present will persist for centuries to millennia and will continue to cause further long-term changes in the climate system, such as arctic cap melting, rising sea levels, extreme weather events, many with adverse impacts on natural, animal and human species.

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The Editors wish to thank Zvi Bekerman, Jean Bernard, Sergio Cardenas, Maren Elfert, Timothy Ireland, Maria Khan, Katarina Popovic, Clinton Robinson, Un Shil Choi, Margaret Sinclair, Andy Smart, Noah Sobe, Alan Tuckett and Dayong Yuan for their thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this Introduction.

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Benavot, A., Hoppers, C.O., Lockhart, A.S. et al. Reimagining adult education and lifelong learning for all: Historical and critical perspectives. Int Rev Educ 68 , 165–194 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-022-09955-9

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From a very young age, we are told that education is one of the most important things in our lives. As time goes by, we begin to value it more on our own and not because we are told to. But what happens when we are out of university and we jump into the world of work? Perhaps we begin to appreciate learning a bit more when we are not in the classroom. The truth is though, that learning does not have to end when we’re out of university or college. Any adult can go back to learning by applying for even one module! You can take classes that have to do with the industry you work in or you can simply choose a class that interests you. We all seek growth by learning something new that will benefit us.

Here are 10 reasons as to why adult education is essential:

We live in a world that is constantly and rapidly changing. Thanks to technology, we get an influx of information through social media and news outlets every single day. This means that sometimes we do not always catch up to the world’s social dilemmas as much as we would like to because there is simply too much to consume. By taking a class that helps you broaden your mind, you are learning about society today. You will be evolving your thoughts and feelings about several issues and topics that are being discussed in today’s world. If you take the step towards breaking the learning barriers in your path, you will be making way for a better you.

Personal growth

This one goes hand in hand with change. While you will be making an effort to learn about the world as it is today, you can also find classes that will help you improve as an individual. For instance, the institute has modules like Personal Empowerment which will help transform you in not only your personal life but also your professional one. Maybe there’s a psychology class that you have always wanted to take but never had the opportunity to do so, here’s your chance!

Retaining employees

If you own a business, it is in your best interest to encourage your employees to further their education when possible. By doing so, you are ensuring that they will continue to bring value to your business and you can be at ease knowing that the people you hired are highly qualified. This will also give an opportunity to those who would like to shift their career paths are looking to get a promotion.

Keeping your mind active

When taking a class in your later years, you are making a contribution to your own mind. You are ensuring that your mind stays active by having something productive to do outside of work or retirement. People who make use of their brain in this way on a regular basis will increase their chances of having a better memory. Exercising your brain will keep you sharp and it will give you a sense of purpose.

Social relationships

Applying for a module or two means you will be meeting new people. Sometimes in our adult lives. we get a bit too comfortable in our social group meaning we refuse to expand it. By taking a class, you are making new friends with individuals who come from all walks of life. You will start to find people who share the same interests as you do therefore you will start to develop friendships that might last you a very long time!

Increasing your creativity

Doing the same thing over and over for several years can be draining. Having a routine is good and beneficial but when one does not step outside of their comfort zone, they can never find the motivation to be creative. Taking a class will definitely help you think outside the box and will certainly increase or develop a sense of creativity in you. By choosing to learn something new, you are opening yourself up to a number of possibilities and even reducing your levels of stress and anxiety.

Setting a good example

By now, we have recognised that adult education is very essential but a lot of adults still find it hard to take that leap of faith because they think that they are too old or they could not possibly have the time for it. It only takes one person in your office to start up their education again for you to say “Hmm… maybe I can as well”. Perhaps you want to set a good example for your children or young family members that are thinking of quitting education. You can be the person that makes them think twice by setting an example for them.

Spending your time doing something fruitful

On the off-chance you get some free time in your life, why not do something fruitful with it? Writing your name down for a module will give you a sense of purpose and productivity that you would not have gotten from watching TV on your sofa. You can learn something, meet new people and gain new opportunities!

Another chance

Adult education is also there to give people another chance. Maybe you decided to leave school at a young age or maybe you did not have a say in that matter, whatever the case is, you have a second chance. Perhaps you have always wanted to learn about management or psychology, just look through the plethora of fully accredited courses that MLI offers. You might find your second chance waiting for you there.

With more educated adults on the horizon, one can expect a better economy. Having qualifications and skills will increase your chances of getting a job or that promotion that you have been eyeing for a while. When more people are employed, the less pressure there is on governments to sustain those who need to live off benefits.

There you have it, the 10 reasons why adult education is essential. Have a look at our courses and let’s start a conversation about your education.

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Why is adult education important?

Adult education remains as fundamental a part of further education as ever, with 1 million adults studying or training in colleges in England in 2021/2022.

Despite this, government spending on adult and community education by councils in England fell from £395 million to £311 million per year between 2013-14 and 2019-20, representing a drop of 21%, according to Department for Education (DfE) records .

Furthermore, the Learning and Work Institute has explained that the number of adults participating in learning has decreased by around 10 percentage points since 2010 — this is 3.8 million fewer adults studying or training in colleges.

So what is being done about government cuts to adult education?

A reversal to government cuts since 2010 is much needed for the adult education sector. A speech made by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in May 2021 centred on a so-called ‘levelling-up’ agenda. Adult education and training laws will be “rocket fuel” for the agenda. Number 10 announced that the planned legislation will build an adult education system that is “fit for the future”.

Deputy Chief Executive of AoC, Julian Gravatt, welcomed the news: “We have long called for colleges to get the recognition they deserve for their role in uplifting people and communities, so we welcome the positive comments from the Prime Minister today about the role of education in giving opportunities to people and communities but more specifically we are pleased that DfE is getting on with the FE white paper implementation.”

The Association of Colleges has previously pointed out that professional development and technical qualifications are key for growth , and removing adult education training will cause a dramatic blow to the UK’s economy. As the country looks to recover from the damaging effects of the pandemic, this has never been truer.

Adult education benefits the job market, but is also extremely beneficial to individuals who decide to re-enter education. What would adult learners miss out on if they were unable to get into further education?

Addressing low social mobility through adult education

In the words of the 2021 Social Mobility Commission (SMC)'s State of the Nation report, “across the UK there are already signs that attainment gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged children are getting wider”.

Adult education can help address low levels of social mobility with apprenticeships an important tool to help adults upskill. The report acknowledges that “good quality training can help adults escape low paid jobs” and welcomed the DfE’s announcement of a new Lifetime Skills Guarantee.

Responding to the report’s findings, Chief Executive of Association of Colleges, David Hughes said: “The State of the Nation report rightly challenges the government to ensure a generation of young people are not left behind due to pandemic disruption and widening inequality gaps”. He added: “They simply cannot wait for the next spending review – without immediate support, we risk them slipping through the net.”

Adult education is essential to developing new skills or retraining

The key role of adult education is to allow workers to develop their skills and acquire new ones. In the wake of the economic crisis, it gives adults a chance to retrain, which is particularly important to people who will need to work past pension age and need support to train for a new role.

Being able to access further education is particularly important for adults in disadvantaged groups, such as migrants or women from ethnic minorities.

The State of the Nation report is, therefore, crucial in addressing the inequality that currently exists in the provision of education in the UK. Its recommendations seek to create opportunities for disadvantaged people “and they will benefit everyone in society”.

Adult learners are physically and mentally healthier

The last major piece of governmental research into the positive impact on wellbeing of adult education found that taking up studies later in life has a positive effect on health: a study that focused on the 33 to 42 demographic found a number of benefits to their overall life , including giving up smoking, decreasing alcohol consumption and exercising more.

Learning throughout life is also responsible for  improved mental health , with the NHS citing a boost to self-confidence and self-esteem, the building of a sense of purpose and connecting more with others as key advantages attached to the learning of new skills.

Addressing skills shortages

The UK has a significant and growing problem with adult skill shortages, which are more apparent in more technical areas. As a result, growth in productivity has stalled over the past decade — before the 2008 financial crash, there were average rises of 2% a year, which then dropped to just 0.3% on average each year during the decade after the crash.

An independent review of post-18 education funding in 2019, called the Augar review, proposed the introduction of a lifelong learning loan allowance, which aims to provide everyone access to funding for the equivalent of four years of post-18 education. The DfE’s recent ‘Skills for Jobs’ White Paper came out of the review and proposed the National Skills Fund. This may result in an extra £2.5 billion spent on adult skills over the parliament, although the Institute for Fiscal Studies said there was a “distinct lack of detail” to the strategy.

Learning reduces the propensity to re-offend

Adult learning is a fundamental component of prison rehabilitation and data have shown that it is an effective way to discourage reoffending. A Ministry of Justice review found that education in prisons is one of the pillars of effective rehabilitation, which can then help lower reoffending rates.

In terms of the effectiveness of different types of learning programmes, a government report declared that “ballpark figures indicate savings of, for example, £2.10- 3.50 for each pound invested by a local authority in adult learning”.

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10 Reasons Why You Should Keep Learning

When we think of education, our minds typically picture the youth of society watching on with enthusiasm as their teachers lead lessons that equip them with valuable knowledge and life skills. It’s not often we think of adult learners.  

However, education is a privilege that shouldn’t be reserved solely for children and teenagers. Learning is a lifelong journey that should continue into adulthood and beyond. This is why Stonebridge Associated Colleges have worked tirelessly for over 20 years to provide distance learning courses for adults, in the hope that one day, everyone can achieve their personal goals through continued education. 

So often at school age, young people aren’t sure what they want to do or how they plan to get there. For many people, making such a large decision at that stage of their life is simply out of the question. This is why education is important for adults, and why adult education courses need to be readily available to people once they are ready to make that choice.  

If you are on the fence about re-entering education, check out the rest of this post to hear 10 reasons why we think you should consider becoming an adult learner. 

What is Adult Education? 

You, like many prospective learners, are probably asking yourself ‘What is an adult education programme anyway?’, something we aim to not only clarify, but raise the profile of significantly below.  

Adult education courses can often be referred to as continuing education courses too. So, if you hear either of these terms, you can relax as they are one and the same. They essentially refer to any type of educational course completed by someone who has already completed the cycle of continuous education.  

In other words, anyone who has finished their compulsory school education and decides to re-enter the education system at a later date. There are many reasons why you may find yourself in need of adult education. You might be looking to improve your English, Maths or ICT skills for everyday life , or you might want a career change and be looking for courses to become a Nurse or Classroom Assistant courses .  

No matter your goal, there is nothing in the way of you achieving it. With the flexibility of adult learning courses on offer today, anything is possible! Find out our 10 reasons why adult education is so good below! 

1. Adult Education Helps Us Keep Up with The Changes in The World 

Since the dawn of technology, the world has been undergoing a rapid transformation. The ways in which we work, communicate, travel and even study have all been altered forever.  

If we are to continue living productive and independent lives, we must keep up with these developments. This is where adult education can really come in handy. Through adult learning courses, we can keep up with worldly advances and learn to understand issues surrounding things such as race, gender, sexuality and religion , all of which helps make a better, more harmonious society.  

In fact, those who don’t advance their adult education and leave their views and beliefs in the past can often face barriers to progress throughout their lives. 

2. Adult Education Helps Us Keep Up with The Changes in Ourselves 

Throughout our lives, our minds, bodies and circumstances are constantly changing. For some people, this means their interests and passions may alter, for others this may mean that their financial situation takes a turn, or they experience an injury or a change in health.  

In any case, as things move on, it is good to be ahead of the curve, so you are ready to adapt to new situations as they arise. Someone who started their career in one field may long for a change, while another, who grew up with plenty of money, may find that they are in need of extra income.  

Adult learning courses allow you to keep your knowledge and skills in line with present times, so you can alter your career whenever you need to. As such, the availability of adult education makes it much easier for us to follow our minds and achieve our potential. 

3. Adult Education Is Essential for Retraining 

As the world changes and technology advances, many jobs that used to exist are no longer necessary. Sadly, for many workers, this shows no sign of slowing down, in fact, positions such as checkout assistants are already on their way out thanks to self-service machines.  

Fortunately, adult education provides individuals with additional options. The ability to retrain quickly and efficiently will benefit the lives of many adults in the coming years. Adult college courses are also essential for individuals who dislike their current role and want to embark on a new path . 

4. Learning Keeps the Mind Active 

Numerous studies have proven that maintaining an active mind can actually benefit your health. Those who put their brain to use on a regular basis often find themselves benefiting from better memory, sharper reactions and greater attention spans in old age.  

Keeping the mind active doesn’t have to be difficult either. Learning a new language, mastering a new skill or even something as simple as filling in a crossword can have countless mental benefits.  

Exercising the mind is just as important as exercising the body, and it’s just another reason why adult education should be valued and taken seriously. 

5. Learning Keeps You Busy Socially 

People who open themselves up to new learning experiences often find themselves involved in more social experiences. There are many reasons why maintaining a healthy social calendar is beneficial, not least because it helps you stay active, mentally stimulated and connected to others.  

Developing new skills through adult learning courses also adds a new level of interest to a person’s life. If you have strong interests and passions , you are likely to gravitate towards others with similar interests and create healthy, nourishing friendships. These people, who are surrounded by friends and interests, are also likely to benefit from feeling more confident and outgoing. 

6. Education Feeds a Person’s Creativity 

It can be argued that the more a person knows, the more creative they are able to be. If you have more knowledge in certain areas, then it’s likely that you’ll be able to come up with creative solutions to problems in those areas.  

Therefore, it’s only fair to say that continuing education into adulthood and completing adult learning courses helps people to think outside the box. On top of this, a new distance learning adult education course may help feed a person’s creativity by allowing them to express themselves further in a more effective way.  

This type of creativity can provide people with a sense of purpose or even reduce stress and anxiety as their newfound knowledge and skills help them overcome hurdles. 

7. Further Education Sets a Good Example for Future Generations 

So often, children in the UK see education as a finite chore that ends the minute they graduate. However, if children were to witness their parents, guardians or role models embarking on continued adult educational journeys, they would likely begin to see learning as a constant part of life.  

Widely available adult education courses provide young people with a more positive attitude towards learning , helping them to view it as an exciting privilege rather than a necessity. In addition to this, a more educated and motivated adult population is likely to pass on better values, sturdier morals and a stronger work ethic to future generations. 

8. Adult Education Gives People a Second Chance 

For one reason or another many people did not manage to finish their school or college education to the standard that they may have wished. Choosing to start a family, coping with illness, or managing finances can all get in the way of a person’s educational goals.  

However, just because certain people have had to put their education on hold, it doesn’t mean they are not entitled to it. At Stonebridge Associated Colleges , we want to make re-entering education possible for anyone who wants to, regardless of their financial or emotional constraints. That’s why our distance learning adult education courses are suitable for those who have been out of education for some years and have no time to physically attend classes. 

9. We Are Living Much Longer 

In this day and age, people are living much longer than they were in years past. This means that people are able to remain in employment for longer as the retirement age has increased.  

It’s also very common today for people to spend a large percentage of their time at work. This means that if someone doesn’t like their job, they could find themselves feeling unhappy at work for a long time.  

There are many problems with this situation, not least because this could lead to stress, boredom, anxiety and depression. This is why it’s important for adults to feel like there are other options, and readily available adult education courses mean that people in such positions are able to access courses and training to help them build the life they want for themselves . 

10. Adult Learning Is Good for The Economy 

The more educated and productive people we have in the country, the better the economy.   If our workforce is made up of innovative individuals with more advanced skills, then we will be fit to deal with the country’s problems and in a better position to develop creative solutions.  

Also, those with qualifications and skills are more likely to find work. This in turn will benefit the economy by reducing pressure on the benefits system. The lower the unemployment rate, the more money the country must invest in other things. For these reasons, adult learning is imperative for economic success.  

How To Get into Adult Education 

If you’re serious about becoming an adult learner, you can study such courses in an adult education school or adult education college. Though, by choosing to complete your adult education online, you will open yourself to the most adaptable and flexible mode of adult learning.  

If you are considering studying through our distance learning college, then you should know that our adult learning courses are: 

Suitable for everyone 

At Stonebridge Associated College , our distance learning courses are for everyone, no matter what your academic background is or work experience you have. In fact, we already have loads of graduates from a wide range of backgrounds under our belt, who gained their adult education through our distance learning center.  

You won’t have to search ‘adult education near me’ in Google, as all of the course materials are readily available in our online adult learning center. No matter what it is you want to study, or what you want to achieve, we promise that we will do what we can to help you achieve your personal goals. 

Affordable 

At Stonebridge Associated Colleges , we regularly offer our students discounts on their courses. Codes can be found on our social media sites or on our website itself. Some of our codes could cut the cost of your course fees significantly! In any case, all our online distance learning courses all have the benefit of flexible payment methods, to help you spread the cost of your fees and make your education more affordable . 

Enrol Today! 

Stonebridge Associated Colleges is a leading UK distance learning provider, offering a vast array of adult education courses in numerous fascinating subjects.  

If you want to find out more about the adult learning courses that we offer, or you simply want to know more about continuing education for adults, speak to one of our Course Executives today! Call them now on  0121 392 8288 , reach us  online , or learn more by clicking below!   

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How Does Learning Change as We Age?

Insights from science to help people learn well across their lifespan..

Posted March 2, 2022 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

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• Learning by association is an essential process in humans, animals, and even plants.
• In humans, the ability to learn changes with age.
• Learning improves from childhood to adulthood, but declines in older adulthood.

Learning is essential in everyday life. Whenever we make a choice, we need to know whether to repeat it or to try a different course of action. But what makes us learn or prevents us from learning?

A key is whether our choices lead to rewards—good outcomes, such as money and food—or punishments—bad outcomes, such as losing money and experiencing pain. This basic idea is central in scientific theories of learning. Reinforcement learning theory states that we learn based on expectations of reward and punishment . When our expectations are different from what happens, we learn a lot, but when what we expect to happen does happen, we learn much less. Learning processes are so crucial to survival that they seem to be displayed across many different organisms, from humans to animals and even plants .

However, despite their centrality in our lives, research suggests that the ability to learn changes profoundly from childhood to old age. Understanding why, when, and how these changes happen is critical if we want to optimize learning strategies and intervene when learning goes wrong.

Learning changes from childhood to adulthood

From our first days in the world, we learn through reinforcement. Ten-week-old infants increase the rate at which they kick their feet toward a brightly colored wooden mobile. Six-month-old infants are able to learn to look more often at a colored shape if it leads to a video cartoon (reward) than if it leads to nothing.

Given this early aptitude for learning, it is perhaps surprising that learning abilities would change so dramatically across development. However, several studies do suggest that learning significantly improves from childhood to adolescence and adulthood. In general, adolescents are more optimal in their learning than children, and adults are more optimal than adolescents. For example, one study found that adults were able to learn from both reward and punishment, whereas adolescents were able to learn from reward but were less likely to learn from punishment .

This tendency to engage in suboptimal learning could help explain the negative real-life outcomes that are common during adolescence, such as increased alcohol intake, substance use, and risky sexual behaviors.

Learning changes from adulthood to old age

Older age is associated with a general decline in cognitive abilities that may include some aspects of learning. Understanding these patterns of change is critical as the population ages around the world. Between 2015 and 2050, the proportion of the world's population over 60 years old will nearly double, from 12 percent to 22 percent.

Studies have found that how the brain represents learning signals about rewards is reduced in old age . When older adults complete experimental tasks where they need to learn associations between their choices and outcomes, they appear to be worse at learning, particularly when the associations are probabilistic , or they change . Deep and evolutionarily ancient parts of the brain are thought to play a critical role in reward learning, and it is well established that normal aging is associated with significant changes in these brain areas.

One part of the brain, the striatum, has many receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine that are crucial for learning. Studies suggest these receptors decline with age , which might help to explain learning changes. Intriguingly, one study found that learning could be improved in older adults if they were given a drug called L-DOPA, which increases the level of dopamine in the brain. Whether these drugs improve learning abilities in different age groups is an important question in future research.

Learning in different contexts

It is clear that aspects of learning do change from infancy to old age. However, one type of learning that shows a different pattern of change is when we are learning about "social" information, such as smiling faces or good outcomes that happen to another person. In one study , we compared the learning abilities of over 100 younger (age 18-36) and older (age 60-80) adults. Everyone completed a computer task where they could learn associations between different abstract pictures and rewards (money). In some rounds, these rewards were for the learner themselves, and in other rounds, these rewards were given to anonymous other people who the learner thought was similar to them. In a final set of trials, these rewards were not converted into any money for anyone.

We found, consistent with other research, that when younger and older adults were learning for themselves, older adults were slower and were not as influenced by previous rewards that they received compared to younger adults. This suggests that older adults' ability to learn what helps themselves is lower. Intriguingly, when we compared what happened on the social rounds, we saw a different pattern. Young and older adults were just as good at the task when they were learning what would help the anonymous other people. Therefore, older adults' ability to learn what helped others seemed to be "preserved."

The next question we had was whether these differences were because older adults no longer distinguished between who was receiving the rewards at all. However, we ruled this out, as older adults were faster at learning to help someone else compared to no one. This study suggests that when it comes to social information, older adults might be just as good at learning as younger adults. A separate line of work suggests that social learning might depend, in part, on distinct brain areas , and this could help to explain why different types of learning have different trajectories across the adult lifespan. Future work can investigate whether these preserved learning abilities could be used to support healthy aging.

Gagliano, M., Vyazovskiy, V., Borbély, A. et al. Learning by Association in Plants. Sci Rep 6, 38427 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep38427

Chowdhury, R., Guitart-Masip, M., Lambert, C., Dayan, P., Huys, Q., Düzel, E., Dolan, R.J., 2013. Dopamine restores reward prediction errors in old age. Nat. Neurosci. 16, 648–53. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3364

Cutler, J., Wittmann, M., Abdurahman, A., Hargitai, L., Drew, D., Husain, M., Lockwood, P., 2021. Ageing is associated with disruptions in reinforcement learning whilst learning to help others is preserved. Nat. Commun.

Dyck, C.H. van, Seibyl, J.P., Malison, R.T., Laruelle, M., Zoghbi, S.S., Baldwin, R.M., Innis, R.B., 2002. Age-Related Decline in Dopamine Transporters: Analysis of Striatal Subregions, Nonlinear Effects, and Hemispheric Asymmetries. Am. J. Geriatr. Psychiatry 10, 36–43. https://doi.org/10.1097/00019442-200201000-00005

Eppinger, B., Hämmerer, D., Li, S.-C., 2011. Neuromodulation of reward-based learning and decision making in human aging. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 1235, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06230.x

Mell, T., Heekeren, H.R., Marschner, A., Wartenburger, I., Villringer, A., Reischies, F.M., 2005. Effect of aging on stimulus-reward association learning. Neuropsychologia 43, 554–563.

Palminteri, S., Kilford, E.J., Coricelli, G., Blakemore, S.-J., 2016. The Computational Development of Reinforcement Learning during Adolescence. PLOS Comput. Biol. 12, e1004953. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004953

Rovee, C.K., Rovee, D.T., 1969. Conjugate reinforcement of infant exploratory behavior. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 8, 33–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-0965(69)90025-3

Samanez-Larkin, G.R., Knutson, B., 2015. Decision making in the ageing brain: changes in affective and motivational circuits. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 16, 278–289. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3917

Tummeltshammer, K. S., Mareschal, D., & Kirkham, N. Z. (2014). Infants' selective attention to reliable visual cues in the presence of salient distractors. Child Development, 85(5), 1981-1994.

Olsson, A., Knapska, E., Lindström, B., 2020. The neural and computational systems of social learning. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-020-0276-4

Patricia Lockwood, Ph.D., is a Wellcome Trust/Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellow (Associate Professor) and Jacobs Foundation Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, UK, where she leads the Social Decision Neuroscience Lab. Jo Cutler, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Social Decision Neuroscience Lab at the University of Birmingham, UK.

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5 Reasons It Is Important for Adults to Get Vaccinated

Vaccines are the best way to protect yourself and your loved ones from preventable diseases. The vaccines you receive are safe. Vaccines may be required at work, school, for travel or more activities.

1. Vaccines Have Saved Lives for Over 100 Years—But Serious Disease Is Still a Threat

Vaccines have greatly reduced diseases that once routinely harmed or killed babies, children, and adults. People all over the world—including in the United States—still become seriously ill or even die from diseases that vaccines can help prevent. It is important that you stay up to date on recommended vaccines .

The protection some vaccines provide can fade over time, and you might need additional vaccine doses (boosters) to maintain protection. For example, adults should receive a tetanus booster every 10 years to protect against infection from dirty wounds. Talk to your health care provider about vaccination to see whether you might have missed any vaccines or need a booster.

2. Vaccines Are the Best Way to Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones from Preventable Disease

Did you know that vaccines are the best way to protect yourself from certain preventable diseases? Vaccines help your body create protective antibodies—proteins that help it fight off infections.

By getting vaccinated, you can protect yourself and also avoid spreading preventable diseases to other people in your community. Some people cannot get certain vaccines because they are too young or too old or they have a weakened immune system or other serious health condition. Those people are less likely to catch a preventable disease when you and others around them are vaccinated against it. Help protect yourself and the people you love by staying up to date on recommended vaccinations .

3. Vaccines Can Prevent Serious Illness

Some vaccine-preventable diseases can have serious complications or even lead to later illnesses. For them, vaccination provides protection not only against the disease itself but also against the dangerous complications or consequences that it can bring. Some examples:

• Seasonal influenza (flu) is a respiratory virus that sickens tens of millions of people every year in the United States. The annual flu vaccine helps you avoid infection and reduces your chances of being hospitalized or dying if you do become infected. Flu vaccine also protects you from flu-related pneumonia and flu-related heart attacks or stroke—complications that can affect anyone but are especially dangerous for persons with diabetes or chronic heart or lung conditions.
• Hepatitis B is a serious, potentially deadly infection of the liver caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV). There is no cure, but vaccination prevents HBV infection as well as the chronic liver damage and cancer that hepatitis B can cause.
• Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a leading cause of cervical cancer and can cause other cancers in both women and men. HPV vaccine keeps you from being infected with the virus or passing it to others, protecting you and them from the immediate effects of the virus as well as from the various cancers it can trigger.

4. The Vaccines You Receive Are Safe

Vaccine safety is a high priority. CDC and other experts carefully review safety data before recommending any vaccine, then continually monitor vaccine safety after approval.

Vaccines can have side effects, but most people experience only mild side effects—if any—after vaccination. The most common side effects are fever, tiredness, body aches, or redness, swelling, and tenderness where the shot was given. Mild reactions usually go away on their own within a few days. Serious or long-lasting side effects are extremely rare, and vaccine safety is continually monitored.

5. Vaccines May Be Required

Certain vaccines are required for school, work, travel, and more. Students, military personnel, and residents of rehabilitation or care centers must be vaccinated against diseases that circulate in close quarters. Health care workers and others whose job puts them at risk of catching and spreading preventable diseases need to be vaccinated against them.

And, of course, vaccination is required before travel to many places around the world. Because vaccination protects you and those around you, vaccines can be required for everyday activities as well as for extraordinary situations. It is important that you stay up to date on recommended vaccinations .

Video: Our Best Shot: The Importance of Vaccines for Older Adults (Alliance for Aging Research)

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Vaccines can help protect adults from serious, even deadly, diseases. It’s important to stay up to date on recommended vaccines.

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10 Reasons Why Education Is Important

Education is more than just a pathway to a job. It is a powerful tool for personal and societal transformation. At Lackawanna College , we believe in the profound impact of higher education and continuing education on individuals and communities alike.

Economic Stability

Education often leads to better job prospects and stability in life. Degrees are seen as a pathway to the most useful degree fields that offer career advancement opportunities that can withstand economic fluctuations. Beyond job security, education is crucial for economic empowerment. Graduates with the most useful degree typically earn significantly more over their lifetimes compared to those with a high school diploma alone. This financial advantage opens doors to better living conditions and economic freedom, providing a buffer against the uncertainties of life.

Personal Development

Continuing education spurs personal growth by developing critical thinking skills, enhancing communication abilities, and broadening perspectives. This personal development is essential for both personal and professional success. Plus, continuing education enriches one’s knowledge base while enhancing social skills and self-confidence. It pushes individuals to challenge their beliefs and understand diverse viewpoints, making them more rounded and adaptable individuals.

Technological Advancement

In a world driven by innovation, educational institutions like Lackawanna College prepare students to be at the forefront of technological advancements. The best degrees to get are those that empower students to lead and innovate in their chosen fields. As industries evolve, the demand for skilled professionals in new and emerging technologies grows. Education in the best degrees to get can lead to opportunities in cutting-edge fields like artificial intelligence, renewable energy, and biotechnology, positioning graduates as leaders in innovation.

Societal Contributions

Educated individuals play a key role in shaping a progressive society. They are more likely to participate in community service and civic activities, contributing to a healthier and more vibrant community. Educated citizens are more likely to vote and participate in policy-making, which leads to more democratic societies. They are also less likely to depend on social assistance programs, contributing positively to the economy and reducing governmental burdens.

Global Awareness

Higher education helps students gain a global perspective and better understanding of different cultures, fostering empathy and inclusivity. This exposure helps in building tolerance and reducing prejudices, which creates a more connected and peaceful world. Students with international knowledge are better prepared to tackle global challenges like climate change and geopolitical conflicts.

Healthier Lifestyles

Studies have shown that educated individuals tend to make healthier lifestyle choices, leading to a reduction in healthcare costs and an increase in life expectancy. This knowledge leads to better choices in diet, exercise, and mental health management, which can significantly improve quality of life and reduce health-related expenses. Educated individuals also tend to invest more in preventive health care, which contributes to longer, healthier lives.

Environmental Awareness

Education teaches individuals about the importance of sustainability and environmental care, making them more likely to advocate for and engage in practices that promote a sustainable future. With the right education, individuals can lead initiatives on energy conservation, waste reduction, and sustainable living. This active involvement is crucial as environmental concerns become more urgent globally.

Ethical Leadership

Higher education provides the ethical framework that helps individuals become leaders who make decisions that consider the greater good of their communities and organizations. Educated leaders are equipped to handle ethical dilemmas in a way that prioritizes transparency and integrity, fostering trust and stability in institutions and businesses. This leadership style is crucial for building lasting and respected organizations.

Economic Growth

A more educated population leads to a more skilled workforce, which is essential for generating economic growth and competitiveness in a global market. A skilled workforce attracts businesses and investments, enhancing job creation and infrastructure development. This cycle of growth and development benefits entire communities.

Lifelong Learning

The pursuit of knowledge doesn’t end with a degree. Continuing education encourages lifelong learning, which is vital for maintaining competitiveness and relevance in rapidly changing industries. The habit of continuous education keeps individuals intellectually engaged and emotionally fulfilled throughout their lives. It also creates a culture of innovation and adaptability, which are crucial in an ever-changing world.

Why Choose Lackawanna College?

Students can anticipate receiving high quality education tailored to their career aspirations. Additionally, we provide financial aid to help you commence your studies promptly.

Lackawanna’s qualifications are highly esteemed across various career fields, including medical professions . We are fully accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, which is recognized as a National Accrediting Agency by the U.S. Office of Education.

At Lackawanna College, our mission is to provide students with a comprehensive education that leads to successful employment and fulfilling careers. We offer a diverse range of programs and degrees designed to meet the evolving needs of today’s job market. Our dedicated faculty, state-of-the-art facilities, and strong industry partnerships ensure that our students gain the knowledge, skills, and hands-on experience necessary to excel in their chosen fields. Visit our admissions and enrollment page for more information about our career pathways , financial aid opportunities, and how to apply. Join us at Lackawanna College and take the first step towards a bright and prosperous future.

COVID-19 Update : American InterContinental University remains open to serve students.

What Is an M.Ed. Degree in Adult Education and E-Learning?

A degree may open the door to a variety of opportunities and diverse career paths. The degree programs offered at AIU will not necessarily lead to the featured careers. This collection of articles is intended to help inform and guide you through the process of determining which level of degree and types of certifications align with your desired career path.

Children and teens aren’t the only ones who need or want to learn. You may have heard the saying, “learning is a lifelong process”—and that lifelong process can involve both informal life experiences and formal adult education and training.

Pursuing an online Master’s in Adult Education and E-Learning degree program could help you work to build the skills and knowledge necessary to pursue various career paths in the field.

What Is a Master’s Degree Program in Adult Education?

Depending upon the institution or program (some institutions could offer more than one option), the degree conferred upon completing a master’s program in adult education may be a Master of Education (M.Ed.), Master of Arts (M.A.) or Master of Science (M.S.) in Adult Education.

American InterContinental University’s Master of Education (M.Ed.) in Adult Education and E-Learning degree program is a practitioner’s degree program (as opposed to a research-based degree program) designed for educational practitioners at all levels of experience. Unlike the AIU Master of Education in Leadership of PreK-12 Educational Organizations degree program, students pursuing the concentration in Adult Education and E-Learning do not need to have a current teaching license.*

What’s the Difference Between a Master of Arts and a Master of Education?

Some schools offer a Master of Arts (or Science) in Education. Others offer a Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.). And still others offer both a Master of Arts in Education and a Master of Education. But what is the difference between an M.A. and M.Ed., or between an M.A.T. and M.Ed.?

The difference between a Master of Arts vs. Master of Education degree program appears to come down to classification/focus. A Master of Arts/Master of Science in Education degree is generally considered a “research degree” because such programs tend to require a thesis. This type of graduate education program might appeal to students who are thinking of one day pursuing a doctoral degree.

A Master of Education, on the other hand, is generally considered a professional degree because such programs are more “practitioner-focused” and don’t require students to submit and defend a master’s thesis. This doesn’t mean that the knowledge and skills you’ll study in an M.Ed. program aren’t based in research, however. In AIU’s M.Ed. in Adult Education and E-Learning degree program, for example, you’ll study a number of instructional theories, techniques, tools and skills that you can apply in workplace training, continuing education and professional development settings.

Why Pursue a Master of Education Degree with a Concentration in Adult Education & E-Learning?

In order to teach adults in a public school, you’ll have to research your state’s education and licensing requirements. If you aspire to focus on corporate/workplace training and development or on continuing education, potential employers could conceivably require that you possess a master’s degree. But even where a master’s in adult education is not required, pursuing such a degree program could help you study the relevant fundamentals for instructing adult learners and develop more knowledge about the field.

AIU’s Master of Education in Adult Education and E-Learning degree program is designed to help candidates prepare to pursue adult-education teaching roles in basic and remedial education programs, continuing education programs and programs designed to develop or improve related knowledge and skills. The concentration explores how to collaborate in a community of learners, professionally apply these skills and develop e-learning solutions for a variety of learning environments and purposes, including corporate training. The M.Ed. in Adult Education and E-Learning degree program is a fully online, 45-credit program that is designed to be completed in as little as one year. Courses in this specialization may include:

• Adult Learner Characteristics and Facilitation
• Designing Instruction for eLearning for Adults
• Assessing and Evaluating Adult Learning

We also offer an M.Ed. concentration in Education Administration .

Explore Online Education Programs at American InterContinental University

• Online Master's Degree in Adult Education
• Online Master's in Education Administration
• Online Master's in Leadership of Pre-K-12 Educational Organizations Degree

What Could I Do with a Master’s in Adult Education?

AIU’s M.Ed. degree program with a concentration in Adult Education and E-Learning is designed to provide candidates an opportunity to study the design, implementation and evaluation of adult education programs. It is designed to help develop an understanding of adult education and training theories, skills and techniques to help candidates prepare to pursue a career path in adult education.

If you’re interested in pursuing a master’s in education degree program, the following potential career paths might be of interest to you:

Instructional Coordinator

• What They Do : Instructional coordinators, also known as curriculum specialists, work in elementary and secondary schools, colleges, professional schools and educational support services. They also may work for state and local governments. They evaluate school curriculums and teaching techniques established by school boards, states or federal regulations; observe teachers in the classroom; review student test data; and discuss the curriculum with school staff. They might also train teachers on new teaching standards or methodologies or on technology. 1
• Education & Work Experience : Instructional coordinators typically need a master’s degree in education or curriculum and instruction, and they must also possess relevant work experience in teaching or school administration. Those who work in public schools may need a state-issued license as well. 1
• Job Outlook : According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment of instructional coordinators is projected to grow 2 percent from 2022 to 2032. 1

Training and Development Specialist

• What They Do : Training and development specialists help create, plan and run training programs for businesses and organizations. They analyze an organization’s needs and then develop training programs tailored to those needs. The training programs they develop may occur online, in the classroom or at a training facility, and they may be administered in various ways, i.e., via lectures, team exercises, videos, instruction manuals, etc. 2
• Education & Work Experience : Training and development specialists typically need a bachelor’s degree in a business-related field or in education, social science, psychology or communications. Relevant work experience or experience with virtual learning, mobile training and other technology-based tools is typically required, although some employers might hire candidates who lack work experience but possess a master’s degree. 2
• Job Outlook* : According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment of training and development specialists is projected to grow 6 percent from 2022 to 2032. 2

The list of career paths related to this program is based on a subset from the Bureau of Labor Statistics CIP to SOC Crosswalk. Some career paths listed above may require further education or job experience.

* American InterContinental University’s Master of Education degree program is not designed to meet state educator licensing or advancement requirements; however, it may assist candidates in gaining these approvals in their state of residence depending on those requirements. Contact the state board of education in the applicable state(s) for details.

1 Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, “Instructional Coordinators,” https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/instructional-coordinators.htm (last visited 6/19/2024). 2 Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, “Training and Development Specialists,” https://www.bls.gov/ooh/business-and-financial/training-and-development-specialists.htm (last visited 6/19/2024).

American InterContinental University cannot guarantee employment, salary, or career advancement. REQ1963881 6/2024

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