The stepping- stones of lifelong learning policies: politics, regions and labour markets

The present special issue looks at lifelong learning through the lens of policy studies. The articles explore an array of official strategies that have attempted to deliver varied forms of lifelong learning in Europe and Latin America. These strategies have to do with adult education and learning, vocational education and training, higher education and employment policies. All of them focus on how decision-makers have designed and implemented certain policies in these areas. This special issue draws on the outcomes of several wide-ranging research projects that have recently investigated which programmes attempted to deliver lifelong learning on the ground. Thus, most articles report on findings of two projects that received funding from the European Union\u2019s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Particularly, ENLIVEN: Encouraging Lifelong Learning for an Inclusive and Vibrant Europe studied interventions in adult education markets and how these can be made more effective (Grant Agreement No. 693989); whereas YOUNG ADULLLT: Policies Supporting Young People in their Life Course undertook a comparative analysis of lifelong learning and inclusion in education and work in nine member states of the European Union (Grant Agreement No. 693167). Two more contributions on Latin America enrich the geographical and institutional scope of this special issue. One such contributions draws on the project RCUK-CONICYT Governing the educational and labour market trajectories of secondary TVET graduates in Chile, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council through the Newton Fund (Grant Agreement No. ES/N019229/1)

Report on the use of PIAAC in informing policy in selected countries

This report focuses on the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIACC) to exemplify how standard setting in adult learning influences the public debate \u2013 through the highest circulating newspapers, which inform policy in selected European countries. Standard setting is seen as the process involved in the establishment of common rules for states, which implies: 1) normative action (or the entitling of some actions as good, desirable, or permissible), that is never value-free; and 2) the agreement on common goals to be pursued through normative action. Moreover, this report acknowledges the growing use of social indicators and benchmarks for monitoring progress in adult learning. On this basis, we claim that both the data generated through PIAAC and the \u2018implicit\u2019 benchmarking of Level 3 in adults\u2019 literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills that come with it, contribute to standard setting in adult learning within the European Union. Despite this, too little is known about how PIAAC influences the public debate through national media. Hence this report presents the methodology applied to, and the results of, a coverage and content media analysis performed on a total of 116 news articles, published between 2012 and 2019 (July) in Estonia, Denmark, Italy, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom. The results highlight that the national press presents and represents the PIAAC Survey very differently, and connects PIAAC data to other subject matters across, as much as within, countries. Such differences connect to the wider context of reference at the time of publication (i.e., the government in power, the socio-economic situation, and on-going or foreseeable education and labour markets reforms) but also to the typology of Welfare State Regimes \u2013 as developed by Roosmaa and Saar (2017), to which each country belongs. Regardless of such differences since 2014 the weight of PIAAC as a subject matter has gradually decreased, while reference to PIAAC data by the press has persisted and has acquired political, ideological, and ontological functions

Rethinking adult learning and education as global citizenship education: A conceptual model with implications for policy, practice and further research

This article provides a conceptual analysis of the two domains of global citizenship education and adult education and learning, along with their similarities and differences. It begins by unpacking the ambiguous and contested concept of global citizenship education and proposing a critical vision of it, within a global social justice framework. Against this backdrop, the article argues for re-conceptualizing adult education and learning as global citizenship education, instead of considering the latter to be one of the key issues of the former. Their structural link is grounded in their common epistemological nature. The domains are interlocked to the extent that both (1) promote active citizenship skills, (2) strive towards equality and social justice on a global level and (3) adopt a values-based approach and promote transformative learning. In conclusion, an original \u2018Four-dimensions approach to adult education and learning as global citizenship education\u2019 conceptual model is advanced potentially to inform policymakers, practitioners and researchers. The model is made up of four basic components of adult education and learning as global citizenship education, namely: aims and scope (what for), contents and skills (what), processes and pedagogies (how), actors and learning environments (who)

Governing education policy: the European Union and Australia

This paper considers the changing modes of governance of education policy in the European Union (EU) and Australia through a lens of ‘soft governance’. It considers the increased use of ‘policy instruments’ such as benchmarking, targets, monitoring, data-generation in policy-making in recent decades. It considers the roles these policy instruments play in coordinating education policy in the EU and Australia as well as their intended and unintended consequences. It shows that in the EU, these instruments played a role in strengthening the coordination through the links between individuals and programs, and networking, which is seen as resulting in enhanced creativity in policy solutions, development of new norms and new means for achieving policy goals. While in Australia it seems that the role of these instruments is focused on consolidating the role of the Commonwealth’s oversight and control over what constitutionally is a responsibility of States which adds to several policy tensions already existing in the federal coordination of education

Governing education policy: the European Union and Australia

This paper considers the changing modes of governance of education policy in the European Union (EU) and Australia through a lens of ‘soft governance’. It considers the increased use of ‘policy instruments’ such as benchmarking, targets, monitoring, data-generation in policy-making in recent decades. It considers the roles these policy instruments play in coordinating education policy in the EU and Australia as well as their intended and unintended consequences. It shows that in the EU, these instruments played a role in strengthening the coordination through the links between individuals and programs, and networking, which is seen as resulting in enhanced creativity in policy solutions, development of new norms and new means for achieving policy goals. While in Australia it seems that the role of these instruments is focused on consolidating the role of the Commonwealth’s oversight and control over what constitutionally is a responsibility of States which adds to several policy tensions already existing in the federal coordination of education

European Governance and Educational Policy. Youth Guarantee as a \u2018Trail\u2019 between Labour and Learning

This article focuses on the relationship between European governance mechanisms and national policies. Specifically, we present a study on Youth Guarantee (YG) and examine how this policy tool impacts and modifies the field of adult education and training. In doing so, the article retraces the steps that have led this European instrument to assume its current configuration, identifies the funding mechanisms set up for implementing it and analyses the form YG takes in Italy. The article closes by presenting some considerations about the way these two policy areas (work and education), situated at the crossroads between European initiatives and local translations, converge within a fragmented framework which often stem from and feed into the \u2018economic reasoning\u2019 underlying both areas

Addressing global citizenship education (GCED) in adult learning and education (ALE)

This paper was commissioned by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) as background information to assist in drafting the publication Addressing global citizenship education in adult learning and education: summary report. It has been edited by UIL. The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and should not be attributed to UIL or APCEIU. Please cite this paper as follows: UIL (UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning) and APCEIU (UNESCO Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding). 2019. Addressing Global Citizenship Education (GCED) in Adult Learning and Education (ALE). Paper commissioned for the 2019 UIL/APCEIU publication, Addressing global citizenship education in adult learning and education: summary report. Hamburg, UIL

Setting the new European agenda for adult learning 2021-2030. Political mobilisation and the influence of advocacy coalitions

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, international organisations and governments have issued mitigation policies, and (re)oriented broader policy strategies to respond to new problematisations about the future. In this context, the education ministers of the European Union (EU) adopted a Council Resolution on a new European agenda for adult learning 2021-2030. Drawing on the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), this paper examines the political mobilisation and agenda setting behind this Resolution through network ethnography and the analysis of belief systems. The findings point at an increased social dialogue, favoured by an ‘uncommon’ way – as by our informants – through which the Slovenian Ministry of Education pursued the agreed priority at EU level, while holding the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU. While visibility of adult learning rose under COVID-19, advocacy coalitions formed at national (Slovenian) and European level facilitated stronger alignment in agenda setting among different actors towards a holistic approach that calls for inter-sectorial and multi-stakeholder collaboration. (DIPF/Orig.