Low skilled and educated adults participate in lifelong learning less than other groups of adults. This is an important issue for most of the European Countries. Many countries have recently worked out plans and activities to get low skilled adults back to schools to end their undergraduate level. The raise of importance of lifelong learning changes the roles of compulsory education organizations (adult gymnasium, vocational institutions etc), universities. The project main objective is to encourage teachers in schools to raise the efficiency of learning processes by adapting their teaching approaches to adult learner centered. For that we support them with adequate methodological tools and develop their skills (pilot courses) through the developed curriculum by using these tools. In this project we concentrate on the adult training efficiency by creating a strong learning community between participating organisations (partners) for sharing and analyzing the best practices and working for the main objective. During this project there will be three short term joint staff training events taking place (in Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia) where will be 15 participants in each event (including local teachers), nine pilot courses will be carried out (in Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia) where will be about 100 teachers participating and giving feedback to the methodological tool and curriculum worked out and a multiplier event (seminar) where will be about 50 participants (teachers from participating countries). Project team will organise 5 transnational meetings and will set up regular project meetings through SKYPE. Impact of the project at local and regional level is that teachers participate in professional training program that gives them real skills and toolbox to help them to update their view to the training process efficiency. Participating teachers will be more motivated, methodologically prepared and open minded to adults in their training groups. This project will be carried out based on co-creation frameworks that means that end users will be included in the project activities through the all stages and it helps to cover the real needs of target group. In national level that kind of approach to development of curriculums is innovative and will be shared as suggested practice to adapt changes in education field. The project will gather together the private sector knowledge and skills and will realize it for the raise of adult learning participation in compulsory education. Desired impact of this project in common sense (national and international level) would be the acknowledgement of the needs that approaches to teachers role and attitudes (in methodological and target group level) has to change rapidly and fast as the profile of students is changing (more adult learners).
With the project we 1) increased the acknowledgment of the need to support teachers dealing with adult learners (especially with low-educated, low-skilled adults) with adequate methodology and modern approaches 2) supported teachers in schools and adult educators to raise the efficiency of learning processes by adapting their teaching approaches to adult learner-centered 3) developed a Toolkit, which can help teachers/adult educators in designing and conducting their courses. The included learning materials/articles capture many important topics in this field and raise awareness of the different aspects in relation to learner-centeredness of adults 4) developed curriculum, which can be used to offer continuing training courses/programs to teachers/specialists/educators who deal with adult learners, including low-educated adults. It serves as a model for designing similar training courses and starting new initiatives on the adult education field 5) strengthen the participating organizations (training companies) and enabled them to share their experiences and methods with the public sector’s colleagues (adult teachers, educational specialist)
Lifelong learning (LLL) is not a new term nor a new phenomenon. Although the statistics of the participation in LLL varies between the European Union’s member states, without continuing education it is impossible to face the modern challenges. The growing tendency of adult learners participating in continuing education, has and will influence the formal education. More and more adults will participate in higher or vocational education. This in turn will change the role of the teacher in formal education. Teachers need to be supported to make a mind-set shift from the safe and usual teacher-centered approach towards a learner-centered one. That is why our project aimed to support teachers, who are now faced with dealing with adult learners more and more. Although we can cherish the situation that more and more adult learners find the way to LLL, it comes along with a paradox. The tendency shows that adults who are more educated and anyway participate more in LLL, are increasing the statistics. But what about the adults who are not engaged in LLL? Many EU countries challenge with low-educated adults, who’s participation rate is low. This is another challenge for the teachers/adult educators, which necessitates learner-centeredness.