Knowledge is now the main engine of economy and social life. The presence, however, of forms of exclusion and inequality raises the problem of how to emancipate citizens from the condition of unavailability of knowledge. The increase in literacy levels among the population of adults, in early school leaving, and in people living a situation of social distress are one of the key demands in nowadays Europe, to which the project intends to respond by carrying out a lifelong education in which the educator must be able to integrate different open and flexible teaching methods for meaningful learning in which the subject is active and responsible in structuring his/her learning path to reach knowledge, knowing how to do and knowing how to be. Operators involved in this project are asked to acquire useful skills to contain, prevent and overcome a problem defined as functional illiteracy. The investment in possible strategies to overcome it represents the main goal for all seven partners of this project. An added value for each teacher is being able to highlight, test, appreciate and value all abilities acquired in any field by his/her students. The increasing globalization of labor and economic relations needs to identify means of "communication" of people’s knowledge and know-how, other than simply of qualifications or curricula, which are not always able to prove what people really know and can do. Therefore, it is of fundamental importance to tackle the problem of functional illiteracy and to seek solutions not only in formal education but also in non-formal education. The main target group which the project refers to consists of educators / teachers / tutors / facilitators of each partner Institution who will be involved in the creation of practice communities to develop a teaching model that takes into account two fundamental criteria: the first concerns the passage from knowledge to skills; the second refers to the centrality of the user, the final recipient of the educational action, who must become the active main character of his/her learning path. The secondary target group consists of who needs to “learn to learn” in order to keep up with the rapid changes that mainly characterize the world of work. Adult students who rely on these paths need for the acquired knowledge and skills to be appropriately and fairly considered in all European countries for the required purposes. It is therefore necessary to have the validity of the used methods acknowledged and recognized, to disseminate the achieved results, and to undertake the request for a system of recognition of the skills acquired in contexts different from the formal ones throughout Europe. The partnership consists of seven countries: Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Poland, Greece and Turkey. All organizations are involved in adult education and mainly work with disadvantaged people. The number of participants varies from organization to organization, however it is assumed that at least 600 people are involved between educators / trainers / tutors and users, ie adults with low skills.The partnership, at this early moment of experimentation, shares the fact that more than the quantity of users involved is worth the quality of the education provided that must be expressed according to an inclusive teaching.
The main goal of this partnership is to find and employ common and useful strategies. These will be used during and after the project in the organisations dealing with adult learners in a formal and in a non formal environment. This will enable the organisations to reach the popolutation and to create active and qualified citizens, ready to overcome the challenges and grasp the future opportunities. The educative system represents a country: if the users are not able to think properly, to question themselves; it will therefore be difficult to reach a stable and modern economy.In particular, the aim is to raise awareness of and combat functional illiteracy, a problem that has increased with the pandemic as many more people have come to rely on news on the net without asking questions about the source, the content or the author. At the same time, intolerance has become an overpowering feature, making people increasingly unprepared to manage their daily lives independently.
In the Horizon 2020 program, the lifelong learning strategy emphasizes the development of basic skills such as digital literacy and mathematical literacy. These competences enable adults to enjoy individual activities and production in society. It is therefore important and necessary to face the functional illiteracy problem, largely underestimated. It should not be ignored, important the results of a survey on its OECD-Piaac data. An individual can write, read, calculate... but sometimes does not possess those skills necessary in daily life situations, work, relational situations, or has not competences on the new technologies these are functional illiterate people. It has been found that functional iliterate find it harder to find work, the jobns they found are often less gratifying and poorly paid. These people are usually little interest in participating in trainings and in taking the opportunities to acquire new knowledges and to improve new skills; the situation is more or less the same in all partner countries. To face the problem it is necessary to help the community to develop a critical sense and a critical thought, that allows to be active citizens. This can be done through targeted activities and promoting the LLL.