New UNESCO Report Explores the Global State of Adult Education

Automation, digitalization, and technological advances are changing the workplace, requiring employees to be up to date and continuously learning new skills. However, the responsibility for keeping up is falling mainly to individuals, who must not only find the time but also the means to keep learning. What are governments doing to drive adult education?

Every three years, the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) produces a report called Global Reports on Adult Learning and Education (GRALE). In its publication, UNESCO tracks the efforts of 159 countries to improve adult learning and education (ALE) and compares the results with previous reports to measure growth from the perspective of equity and inclusion.

According to the report, two-thirds of countries reported growth in ALE since 2015, when the last Global Report on Adult Learning and Education was conducted. Some 30% of participating countries reported no change, especially those in Asia and the Pacific, while 5% experienced regression.

In terms of investment in adult learning and education, only 28% of countries reported increased spending, 17% reduced their budget in this area, and 41% reported no change. Even so, 75% of countries said that there were significant improvements in ALE, especially in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa.

Moreover, 57% of UNESCO members reported an increase in participation in ALE programs, 28% reported no changes, and 9% said participation declined. However, a severe problem that UNESCO confronted in analyzing the data is that countries do not base their information on participation using actual figures. This is because 37% do not know the participation rate of minority groups, migrants, and refugees, leaving the information incomplete. There is also scarce information about older adults and their participation in these programs, even though this group is a key target for these initiatives.

The second part of the report deals with the issue of participation objectively: what is known, what is not, and its importance. This section mentions that disadvantaged populations tend to be less involved in adult learning and education programs; it emphasizes that there is not enough information on the subject, especially in low-income countries having marginalized and excluded groups. Part of the problem is that it is difficult to prove that the opportunities to participate in adult education are significantly unequal. Citizens of some countries (usually the most developed) have plenty of opportunities to continue learning throughout their lives. While in more marginalized countries, there are few such initiatives available to them.

Still, the report found that 57% of countries have increased their participation rate since the last GRALE (2015). The report highlights sub-Saharan Africa, where 72% of the countries in that region increased their participation, and the Arab States, which reported an increase of 67%. In the middle are Central and Eastern Europe (58%) and Latin America and the Caribbean (60%). In the cases of North America, Western Europe, and Asia-Pacific, these regions reported the lowest increase in ALE participation, varying from 38% to 49%.

The report informed that governance is closely related to the result of participation. Two-thirds of countries that used some measure of governance reported higher involvement since 2015, while only 29% of those that did not have this assistance reported improvement. Another relevant section of the report deals with collaboration, cooperation, and coordination among governmental and civil agencies to improve the governance of adult learning and education. This is due to cross-sectoral partnerships that help raise more funds to invest in adult education programs and initiatives that enhance participation and promote ongoing training and education.

Four areas of interest for countries to look into adult learning:

1. Policies about expanding aspects of lifelong learning, mainly technical and vocational education

2. Diversify the pathways to learn

3. The establishment of learning centers for low-income adults

4. Focusing on marginalized social groups

In addition, the report emphasizes the importance of focusing on categories such as literacy, continuous training, professional development, and active citizenship because they demonstrate uneven progress. In the first two categories, countries appear to be improving and advancing, while in the rest there is little information about how to improve them, so they are considered to be stagnant areas. The authors conclude that this situation leads to significant inaccessibility and misinformation about adult learning and adult education.

Throughout the various sections of the report, it was shown that the inequality in participation in ALE persists and is deep and multidimensional. Still, thanks to resources like Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Open Educational Resources (OER), adult education is strengthening, and participation is expected to show improvement in the next report. However, there is also the possibility that digital resources such as MOOCs and OER could aggravate the digital divide; therefore, more efforts are needed from governments to invest in a robust infrastructure of connectivity that leads to learning opportunities for adults.

The report emphasizes the need to improve data collection on adult education programs given that the information they have is scarce and mostly incomplete. For specific groups such as ethnic minorities, migrants, and refugees, 37% of countries reported not knowing the participation rates of these groups in adult education programs. The same goes for collecting statistics on women in ALE and the progress they have made in literacy and arithmetic, as there is no data. This situation also occurs in high-income countries, so it is a problem that goes beyond a country’s development.

The results of this report evidence the lack of participation and involvement of governments in such and important issue as adult education. For the next release, UNESCO hopes that the countries show correction of these deficiencies in strengthening the effort to improve adult learning and adult education. This responsibility should not fall only on individuals; governments and businesses should support the creation of better policies and programs for adult learning and adult education that are accessible and inclusive.

Paulette Delgado

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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0