Participation in adult education represents an attitude of lifelong learning which serves different objectives for a variety of people. Irrespective of the age, origin, social or economic background, adult education must be accessible, transparent and visible. However, some adults are struggling to find their way through the adult education scenery and cannot see the wood for the trees. The aim of this project is to (1) raise participation on adult education, (2) decrease the inequality in participation on adult education (matheuseffect) and (3) to improve the impartial adult education information and guidance service with the task of increasing awareness, offer information, orientation and guidance by using a participatory approach in which people themselves become responsible for creating their own learning path (in formal, non-formal and informal learning), but with some guidance of ‘experts’ in the educational field. By creating a partnership between Belgium, Lithuania, Finland, the United Kingdom, Austria en Slovenia good practices and methods will be exchanged through project management team meetings and study visits to each other’s organisations. Each partner has an own context, vision, experiences, methods, instruments and tools in adult educational information and guidance service which guarantees a broad spectrum to create a strategic partnership. By sharing good practices, implementing and evaluating methods the project aims at the creation or elaboration of central service point (a one stop learning shop) in each organisation which is adapted to the specific context of the country. This idea of adult educational information and guidance service should be eventually implemented in the policy system of adult education. The process of the project will be disseminated at different ways: a study report after each study visit, project management team reports, a website and newsletter about the project specific for each partner organisation ,a flyer for potential learners to inform them about the service, a study day at the end of the project in each country, a general project website and newsletter. The reports offer other stakeholders the opportunity to use the information and help to increase the impact of the project. There are also diverse evaluation instruments implemented in the project: study visit evaluations, self-assessments, evaluations of the study days in each country, project management team meetings that discuss the progress of the project, etc. To conclude, the final goal of this project is a structural anchoring of qualitative adult educational information and guidance services by influencing policy makers, stakeholders and the public field.
Participation in adult education represents an attitude of lifelong learning which serves different objectives for a variety of people. Irrespective of the age, origin, social or economic background, adult education must be accessible, transparent and visible. However, some adults are struggling to find their way through the adult education scenery. The aim of this project was to (1) raise participation in adult education, (2) decrease the inequality in participation (matheuseffect) and (3) improve the impartial adult education information and guidance service with the task of increasing awareness, offer information, orientation and guidance (in formal, non-formal and informal learning). Thanks to a partnership between Belgium, Lithuania, Finland, the United Kingdom, Austria and Slovenia good practices and methods were exchanged through learning activities in which we visited each other’s organisation and important stakeholders in the guidance community. Each partner had an own context, vision, target groups, experiences, methods, instruments and tools in adult education information and guidance which guaranteed a broad spectre to create a strategic partnership. By sharing good practices, implementing and evaluating methods the project aimed at the creation or elaboration of a central service point (a one stop learning shop) in each organisation/country which is adapted to the local/regional/national context. The process of the project has been disseminated at different ways: study visit reports, project management team reports, information on websites (nationaly and on www.adeigus.be), flyers for potential adult learners, blogs, and national study days at the end of the project to inform the local/regional/national guidance community and to strenghten the network. This network in the guidance community seemed crucial for outreach to more disadvantaged adult learners. The dissimination activities offer the adult guidance community the opportunity to use the information and help to increase the impact of the project. Enable better quality of the one stop learning shop by improved skills and competences of counsellors and increased awareness about the existence including referrals by the guidance community both allowed (disadvantaged) adult learners to participate more in adult education. The final goal of this project was a structural anchoring of a one stop learning shop by influencing the adult guidance community, the public field and the policy level.