The fifth phase of the implementation of the EAAL has turned into its second half.
The current EAAL project is implemented in 2020 and 2021. At the end of January this year, we submitted an interim report in which we reported on the achievements in upgrading the Overview of Adult Education and Learning on Offer portal and creating a systematic communication strategy for its popularisation. We are continuing with the upgrade, and the results will be visible in May. The report listed the international events we attended and highlighted PLA on Reaching out to specific groups, which was supposed to take place in Slovenia, under the auspices of the 25th LLW; however, unfortunately, we hosted it only online.
We planned three Future of Adult Learning Forums, which were postponed to 2021 due to Covid-19. The first, the Forum on Learning and Education for an Inclusive Multicultural Society, was held in January 2021. If you did not participate in this extremely interesting tripartite event organised in partnership with the SLOGA Platform and the Slovenian Philanthropy, take a look at the interesting presentations and testimonies on the website.
New EAAL — what, when, how …
Like all strategies at the European and national level, the Resolution on a renewed European Agenda for Adult Learning (2011) ended in 2020. The document is (was) crucial for ALE, so we rightly wonder what the next step should be. Slovenia plays a decisive role in this because one of the priorities during our Presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of this year is precisely the adoption of a new resolution.
A working group at the MESS, in which representatives of the SIAE and the Institute of the Republic of Slovenia for vocational education and training (CPI) also participate, is preparing a baseline document for discussion with European (March 24) and national (April 15) stakeholders. National EAAL coordinators have already discussed the new contents and the continuation of the still current challenges, and there will be more opportunities for that in the future. Probably at the beginning of September the first draft of the resolution on the new EAAL will be discussed at the EC Education Committee, which will be the first formal step under the auspices of the Slovenian Presidency. All efforts are directed in adopting a new resolution at the November meeting of the Council of Ministers for Education.
We would like the draft of the resolution to be as holistic and balanced as possible (according to the four pillars of Delors et al.). In doing that, we, of course, refer to the current European documents, which we wrote about at the end of last year, and two recently joined documents: the Council Resolution on a strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training towards the European Education Area and beyond (2021–2030) (February 26, 2021) and The European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan (March 4, 2021). The latter dictates as much as 60% participation of adults in education and training by 2030.
Let that be all about the activities on the ALE policy level. In parallel (in practice), a new EACEA call for the implementation of the EAAL in 2022–2023 will be published in April. The schedule and outline of the call were presented by the EC at this year’s first meeting of EAAL national coordinators in early February. The financial foundations for the further continuation of this process in the EU Member States are laid in the new Erasmus+ programme.
Participating in the drafting of the new resolution will most likely enable us to apply for the call following the latest trends and also, as always, base it on national circumstances and priorities. We will, of course, keep you informed of new developments.
Zvonka Pangerc Pahernik, MSc (zvonka.pangerc@acs.si), SIAE