According to Eurostat data, 80.6% of the European population aged 25-64 do not wish to participate in education and training. The majority of adults (59.5%) do not consider further education and training useful; what is even more concerning and is that 67% of those who have had such an experience (44.8% of the population) do not wish to take part again. The short-run trend also appears negative, and thus the ET 2020 benchmark of 15% of adults participating in lifelong learning by 2020 will be difficult to reach. This lack of interest and motivation on the part of adults poses a significant impediment to the implementation of EU and national adult learning policies for increasing access to upskilling pathways, enabling low- skilled adults to acquire a minimum level of literacy, numeracy and digital competence, and/or a wider set of skills, knowledge and competences, relevant to the labour market and required for active participation in society.

AIM & OBJECTIVES


The main goal of AdUp is to provide a comprehensive framework of assessment and corresponding improvement of adult educators’ performance in the field of didactics aiming to
improve the quality of instruction in adult education in terms of learner motivation and engagement. In order to achieve its main goal, the project sets the following specific objectives:
1) Provide the tools required to improve the assessment of adult educators’ knowledge, skills and competences in the field of adult education didactics.
2) Increase adult educators’ performance regarding learner motivation and engagement through project training activities and resources.
3) Share recommendations enabling adult education providers to assess and improve their workforce’s didactics competences.


TARGET GROUPS

  • Adult education providers and trainers
  • Local authorities/community providers, designated institutions and non-profit organisations involved in lifelong and lifewide learning
  • Bodies providing career guidance, professional and educational counselling to disadvantaged groups
  • National and European institutions of educational and social policy research
  • Associations of adult education and lifelong learning providers at EU and national level
  • Associations of disadvantaged groups
  • Quality assurance institutions

PROJECT ACTIVITIES

  1. A diagnostic tool for the assessment of educators’ knowledge, skills and competences in the field of didactics for adult education (O1). The tool will be useful for:
    a) Adult educators, enabling them to become aware of their strengths and weaknesses with regards to the theory and practice of teaching and learning. As a result they will be able to
    pinpoint which competence areas require improvement, and thus form an individualised development plan to undertake the appropriate learning activities.
    b) Adult education providers, supporting them in assessing their staff, as they will be able to use the diagnostic tool to plan and implement the upskilling of their staff.
  2. A modular course enhancing knowledge, skills and competences in the field of didactics for adult education, based on the formulation of 5-6 learning units (modules), which may be
    taken in combination with the diagnostic tool (O1), so as to undertake specific modules in order to address identified weaknesses and achieve self-improvement through an
    individualised approach (O2).
  3. A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), which will comprise in an online form the AdUp learning units and contextualised training and assessment materials produced in O2, and
    introduce additional MOOC didactic resources, all openly available to learners. (O3).
  4. A network of AdUp adopters to secure the exploitation of project outputs as best practices for adult education, consisting of the following activities: a) the creation of a Certificate
    Supplement (template), allowing the integration of adult education didactics competences (with a focus on learner motivation and engagement) into the EU certification schemes , b)
    the development of a sectoral recommendations paper to impact adult education providers’ approach to assessing and improving their workforce’s didactics competences and c) the
    composition and circulation of a Statement of Support and the creation of a network of AdUp adopters.(O4).
  5. 5 national information days (one in each partnership country) to promote project results (O1-4), and initiate an open discussion on increasing the quality and effectiveness of adult
    education provision. (E1-5)