Background

The new European Agenda for Adult Learning (NEAAL) has been approved: The Council of ministers (Education, Youth, Culture and Sport) at its meeting on 29 November 2021 approved the Resolution on NEAAL 2021–2030 (2021/C 504/02) which was published in the Official Gazette of the EU on 14 December 2021. Thereby formal grounds for the implementation of this new strategy in the field of adult education have been set. The draft Resolution was prepared by a working group at the Slovenian Ministry of Education, Science and Sport. Among its members were also representatives of the SIAE.

According to the Council Resolution on a renewed European agenda for adult learning – EAAL (2011), adult education in Europe has been labelled ‘the weakest link in developing national lifelong-learning systems’.On the other hand, adult education has been recognized as one of the key potentials for overcoming the economic crisis, facing consequences of demographic trends and balancing the economic and social development.

The EAAL has been designed in accordance with the Europe 2020 and Education and training 2020  framework as to activate the before mentioned potential. For the implementation of EAAL, member states have designated national coordinators who designed projects related to priority fields of the EAAL:

• Making lifelong learning and mobility a reality; more >>
• Improving the quality and efficiency of education and training; more >>
• Promoting equity, social cohesion and active citizenship; more >>
• Enhancing the creativity and innovation of adults and their learning environments; more >>
• Improving the knowledge base on adult learning and monitoring the adult learning sector; more >>

by paying special tribute to the low-skilled and other endangered adult target groups.

A new impetus to the implementation of the EAAL has come from two new strategic documents, i.e. the New Skills Agenda (COM(2016) 381/2) published by the European Commission in June 2016, as well as the Upskilling Pathways: new opportunities for adults (2016/0179 (NLE)) published on 13 December 2016.

Under the guidance of the European Commission, the network of national coordinators is meeting regularly and is exchanging experiences regarding the implementation of their projects. Coordinators are also taking part in relevant policy and professional events at the European level, and acting as information mediators from the EU to the national level, and vice versa as well as across member states.

An overview of the various approaches to the implementation of EAAL has been published in Compendiums for the following periods

2012–2014 | 2014–2015 | 2015–2017 | 2017–2019 | 2020–2021| 2022–2023

According to the principle of subsidiarity, on which European cooperation in the field of education is based, EAAL messages have the status of recommendations. However, Slovenian adult education policy and strategy, embodied in Resolution on the Adult Education Master Plan: ReAEMP 2013–2020 (in Slovenian) and ReAEMP 2022–2030 (in Slovenian and English – from p. 99 onwards), and respective Annual Adult Education Plans (all in Slovenian), are in compliance with EAAL principles.

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The predecessor of the renewed EAAL was the Action plan on adult learning: It’s always a good time to learn. The successfulness of its implementation was discussed at the Budapest conference in March 2011, and evaluated in the final report on 2008-2010 achievements and results.