Adult learning is a field that has so far been neglected in education and training reforms in South Eastern European countries and territories but which is beginning to emerge as an important policy area. Further efforts are needed to foster national policy debate about the importance of lifelong learning (and adult education as a vital component…

Learning to learn is important and increasingly vital for people trying to deal with a rapidly changing world! Or, in the words of the European Union, learning to learn is one of the eight "key competences that citizens require for their personal fulfilment, social inclusion, active citizenship and employability in our knowledge-based…

Adult learning is now widely seen as a basic human right (the right to learn) and lifelong learning is similarly recognised. Adult learning within a lifelong learning concept has an agenda far wider than just employability skills. Yet educational inequalities between and within nations remain stark, as does the gap between rhetoric and practice in…

Lifelong learning for all is a key priority for the International Council for Adult Education and should be for national governments across the world. In order to make this a reality, policies need to be developed based on the concept of education as a human right. The policy framework in Ireland is based on three key principles, Equality,…

This article's starting point is a brief look at the changing political environment in which the preparation of CONFINTEA VI needs to be seen. It seems that the complexity with which people and their organisations have to cope is growing--the world of today is more complex than we had during the last conference in 1997. The UNESCO Institute for…

This paper takes the fact that lifelong learning has become a global formula as its starting point and analyses the political documents and activities resulting from the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA V) from a world polity perspective. It examines the extent to which lifelong learning can be seen as a norm within…

The article argues that poverty must be understood within a human rights approach, moving beyond a narrow economic definition. Recognising the multidimensional character of poverty also leads to acknowledge that there are no universal answers. Solutions must be culturally determined and this poses one of the major challenges for adult education…

This paper starts with the founding of UNESCO and the fundamental belief that humanitarian, social and political deficits in given societies can be corrected by means of education. The history of the UNESCO International Conferences on Adult Education (Elsinore, Montreal, Tokyo, Paris and Hamburg, 1949-1997) demonstrates the changes in perceptions…

In anticipation of CONFINTEA VI, this article critically reflects on the last decade of English adult education policy. The United Kingdom played an important role in 1997's Hamburg conference by putting forward International Adult Learners' Week, and inspiring delegates by its enthusiasm for adult education. However the trajectory of the past ten…

The final documents adopted at CONFINTEA V in 1997 set out a variety of issues and challenges for the future development of adult education worldwide. The forthcoming CONFINTEA VI conference, due in 2009, will mark another milestone and provide an opportunity for the stocktaking of success stories and unresolved challenges, and for the development…

The Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) as the latest development discourse is slowly but surely shaping the policy frameworks of most governments and the advocacy platforms of many NGOs. Coming out of the Millenium Summit in September 2000, the MDGs could also be viewed as the first development discourse of the twenty-first century, an ambitious…

This paper deals with specific characteristics of elders,1 bearing in mind both their cognitive and their non-cognitive aspects. Regarding their way of learning, the paper refers to basic principles for this group of people: active learning, situational analysis, their experience, awareness that they have--and need--specific time and rhythm for…

This author, director of AONTAS (National Association of Adult Education, Dublin, Ireland), presents this paper in three sections. First, she describes briefly the context in which those people who are involved in adult education are working and some of the changes that have affected the development of the adult education service in the Republic…

The rapid economic development in some regions of China over the past couple of decades has created disparities within the nation and has raised various social issues. To reduce these disparities and resolve these issues, the Chinese government has called for the creation of a more harmonious society through encouraging lifelong learning, learning…

This article features the Spanish Popular Universities, which are defined as "a project of cultural development that acts in the municipality, whose objective is to promote social participation, education, training, and culture in order to improve life quality" (Federation of Popular Education Universities, 2000). A century of history of…