This paper explores the characteristics of learning festivals and Adult Learners' Weeks and their use as tools of advocacy in seeking policy change on behalf of under-represented groups, and it considers their impact on public policy affecting adult learners. In addition, it reflects on the role of the week in celebrating a culture of adult…

This article highlights the current collapse of adult learning opportunities and the key importance of adult learning to a new public education in a fast-changing world, and makes practical proposals for Labour's National Education Service.

This article analyses policy and practice in social and cultural education for adults in England in the post Second World War era, beginning with the flowering of municipal adult education and the expansion of university extra-mural provision. It tracks the emerging policy focus on extending participation to under-represented groups, and on…

Good ideas have many parents, bad ones are often orphans. And since it is now 20 years since the first Adult Learners' Week in England, and the idea has been adopted and adapted to local circumstances in 55 countries, there must be something going for it. As the twenty-first Adult Learners' Week gets underway, the author reflects on the origins of…

This paper begins by reviewing the progress which has been made over the past decade in the aim to reach targets such as Education for All and other Millennium Development Goals, especially as far as adult education and gender equality are concerned. While there have been achievements in some countries, universal primary education is not even…

At the time of the fifth UNESCO international conference on adult education (CONFINTEA V) in Hamburg in 1997, it seemed that a resilient alliance of governments and civil society organizations had been created. This alliance would have the commitment and cooperation needed to pursue the ambitious aspirations captured in the 10 themes of the…

Opportunities for adult learning are under pressure in far too many places in the world. This situation was made all too clear at the eighth World Assembly of the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE) in Malmo, Sweden this June. More than 700 adult educators from almost a hundred countries, all members of non-government associations,…

Was CONFINTEA VI, the sixth UNESCO international conference on adult education, which took place in Belem, Brazil, in December, a success or failure? Do such inter-governmental events make any difference to learning opportunities for adults, North or South? The answer to the first question depends on what one compares the event with. From the…

The key message of NIACE's 2011 survey of adult participation in learning is that recession is bad for lifelong learning for anyone over the age of 25. The survey highlights the central importance of workplaces as sites of adult learning--and the challenges posed to a learning society when opportunities to learn reduce. It shows that the gap…

Adult learning is not a tidy business: adults fit learning into the spaces left by the other demands on complex lives, and into the spaces left in administrative structures overwhelmingly designed for other people. No simple metric can capture adults' diverse purposes and achievements, and no single programme can capture the full range of things…

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…

Looking back fifty years is a salutary experience. There is a sense that everything changes, and everything stays the same. Whilst people now have a global non-government organisation to support national bodies in the field of adult learning, most of the national members have a fragile financial base, and the International Council for Adult…

Suggests ways to focus policymakers' attention on adult education: mobilize learners, identify unserved groups and new forms, translate beliefs into language that engages policymakers, and adopt a position of short-term compromise but long-term intransigence. (SK)

A 2003 survey shows that adult participation in learning, which steadily increased in Britain since 1996, declined to 39% from a peak of 46% in 2001, although future intentions to participate remain high. Results indicate that 87% of adults over 65 and 75% in the lowest socioeconomic levels have not participated in the last 3 years. (SK)

The Australian approach to postcompulsory education involves professional and academic bodies in defining competencies for higher-level qualifications, resulting in a competency-based qualifications system. (JOW)