The majority of our educators involved in adult education did not have an adult education formation (andogogy). This situation causes many problems in the continuation of educational activities, especially in the process of planning adult education. 67% of our adult educators assigned to our public education center by our National Education Directorate stated that they needed to know the adult education systems of other countries. Within the scope of the project, with the structured course activities that our educators participated in Hungary and the Netherlands, they had the opportunity to observe the education system of the two countries that have made important practices in adult education for hundreds of years. By training in androgogy, they were able to make the adult education curriculum student-centered. Thus, they had the opportunity to increase the number of participants in adult education by including the adult learner in determining the needs. As a result of these practices, our educators assumed a facilitating role in learning. Thus, they were able to escape from their role as information transmitters. With our structured courses abroad and visits to institutions outside the course, our adult educators helped learners to reveal their own tendencies, they were able to help identify life problems based on their deficiencies in personal equipment. After androgogy training, our educators had the opportunity to improve themselves in terms of field knowledge, formation and general culture. They were able to describe modern concepts and research findings regarding adults' needs, interests, drives, capacities, and developmental characteristics. There were opportunities to apply current methods in the planning of learning experiences. As a result of all these studies, our educators, who take an active role in adult education, have indirectly intervened in the success of our students by enabling the raising of conscious parents and the increase in the number of parents with high education levels in our province. We will reach the qualified workforce required for the economy of our city thanks to the qualified trainings provided by our adult educators. With our project, we have created awareness about what adult education is and what its contributions will be to adults. It is a fact that a concept that is not sufficiently known by the society will not be given much importance by the society. At the same time, by increasing the foreign language proficiency of our educators, we have been encouraging our other institutions in terms of European Union Projects in the coming years. Our educators have increased their knowledge in the management and planning of the adult education process.
In Turkish Education System, a planning based on the principle of pedagogical approach (the science of teaching children) is made in our education faculties for our teacher candidates. For this reason, the androgogic approach, which is the science and art of guiding or helping adults learn, is not mentioned in the courses given in our education faculties. Studies show that our educators' communication skills, especially for adult education, are very weak. Adult education needs a participatory language that creates a stakeholder and colleague environment. There are serious differences between pedagogy and androgogy in terms of the learner's self-perception, experiences, readiness to learn, looking at time and adapting to learning. In the pedagogical approach, the teacher model is more dominant. In the androgogic approach, the education process continues depending on mutual agreement and dialogues. In adult education, the experiences of adults guide the planning of the course content. However, our teachers, who receive training according to the pedagogical approach, make education and training plans without considering this point. Another fundamental difference is that in adult education, the learner is aware of his own shortcomings and determines what he needs to learn. In the pedagogical approach, our educators make their plans according to personal and social goals for the future. However, the planning of adult education should be done in a way that provides solutions to existing problems that can be used immediately. As stated by our Minister of National Education, keeping teachers, who are the most important determinants of education quality, in continuous development is one of the most important current problems. The speed of change transforms the teaching profession, its knowledge content, the skill sets that need to be acquired by the student, and the network of relations around the teaching profession. Being aware of the fact that the success of education is very closely related to the success of the teacher, it has been announced by our Ministry that “very large-scale teacher education projects” will be initiated. As a result of the meeting organized by UNESCO in 1960, the International Adult Education Council was established to realize the goals of adult education. This council works by establishing positive relations with many international organizations such as International Reading Association, University Adult Education Congress, International Federation of Library Associations. The Council of Europe and the International Adult Education Council have implemented many useful programs in adult education in order to help the development of countries, to carry out education and rural development together, to train skilled manpower, to eliminate the negative changes observed in developed countries in industry. In the study conducted by Education at a Glance among OECD countries, participation rates in adult education were determined on the basis of countries. According to these results, Turkey ranks last among 30 countries with a rate of 9.7%. The researches show that the reason why our country is in the last place is that the teachers working in adult education make planning without considering the needs of the learners. According to the 2019 data obtained from the public education center of our province, the participation in adult education activities was stated as 4.5%. It has been observed that our students who have parents with high academic success have a more successful school life and that these students are more successful in their future lives compared to their other peers. With our project, it was aimed that by increasing our teacher competencies in the field of adult education, our student parents would both contribute to our country's economy and be better parents to our children, who are our future. We had families of factory workers in our city and many refugee citizens who settled in our city due to the civil war in Syria. We had to improve the competencies of our teachers in the field of adult education in order to increase their positive contribution to the economic development of our province in terms of workforce and to enable them to become conscious parents. After the study of our Ministry of National Education, the main reason for the low participation in adult education was shown as the efforts of the educators, who take an active role in adult education, to apply to adults the same educational planning that they apply to children. The structured course activities and visits to educational institutions abroad, as well as the exemplary practices and planning studies of adult education institutions within the scope of the project, enabled our educators to increase their professional competencies.