Annual gathering of adult educators in Slovenia

Every year the Slovenian Ministry of Education and Sports and the Slovenian Institute for Adult Education organise a national conference which brings together all stakeholders in adult education. The forum discusses the achievements of the sector for the year and the future challenges it faces. At this year’s meeting, held 15-16 November in Ptuj, the Minister of Education, Igor Lukšič, addressed the 200 participants where he expressed his satisfaction with the critical contribution of adult education and the Ministry’s continued support to the field.
To mark the 20th anniversary of the Slovenian Institute for Adult Education, Carolyn Medel-Añonuevo, UIL’s Deputy Director, was invited to deliver a keynote speech, “Asserting the Role of Adult Education in Transforming the World”. She explained that amid rapid and complex demographic, social, political, economic and climatic change, adult education has an important role to play. The rapid development of ICTs and many countries’ transition to knowledge economies make it imperative that adults have the necessary skills to participate actively in their societies. The Belém Framework for Action builds on five previous international conferences on adult education to ensure that countries have robust adult education systems that can support their citizens in facing these challenges and enable them to help transform the world into a better place for present and future generations.

Other speakers addressed topics such as European economic policies, pedagogy and participation, and funding. One of the key issues raised concerning the latter is the increasing amount of funds going to vocationally-oriented programmes (now 47 per cent).