Lifelong learning among adults

Peter Mayo is an educational sociologist who has spent the past 20 years researching the area of adult education both locally and internationally. In this two-part article, he expresses his thoughts on the current state of adult education in Malta and its relationship with broader social and political issues.

While there have been interesting developments in adult education through the emergence of new NGOs working in the field, the increase in programmes provided by the Department of Further Studies and Adult Education (Education Division, Ministry of Education) and the Foundation for Educational Services, besides the impact of the EU's funding policies and structures, adult education still remains the "Cinderella" sector of the Maltese educational system.

The National Minimum Curriculum (NMC) document has placed adult education on the agenda with its emphasis on schools as community learning centres, a process that has been stalled presumably because of the country's financial difficulties. We recently had lifelong learning community centres funded through the ESF that places emphasis on "employability" and therefore restricts the range of adult education provision. This programme was brought to a halt this year, presumably because of failure to get the ESF funding agreement extended or renewed. This is one of the problems of being totally ESF-dependent.

The EU Memorandum on Lifelong Learning and other EU recommendations in this field have led the government to appoint a team of people to develop a draft document outlining a National Strategy for Lifelong Learning - an all-embracing strategy for education which would surely allow ample space for the development of adult education. This draft document was completed a couple of years ago; a presentation of the contents was made to the Faculty of Education at its 2004 faculty seminar. This document was meant to be placed in the public domain to generate a public debate, as was the case with the draft NMC document in 1998.

To date, the draft strategy has not been circulated. I wonder why. Has the country's financial situation anything to do with this? Did the draft document stray significantly from the 'economism' of the Lisbon objectives? Alas, there have been lots of promises and noises in the way of promoting adult education within the context of lifelong learning but little take off. This is typical of adult education in many parts of the world where the rhetoric surrounding the need to promote the area is rarely matched by adequately funded action in this regard.

Thanks to the EU's Grundtvig action within Socrates and the Leonardo programme, many people are being attracted to the field. This can be regarded as a positive development; more people see themselves as adult educators or adult education organisers. The flip side, though, is that the promise of EU funds is luring to the field people who lack an adequate preparation in the area. There is the danger, therefore, that unless they are particularly creative, these people will not add anything new to the theory and practice of adult education in Malta and Gozo and, worse, as far as the EU projects are concerned, some of them would probably fail to deliver.

I welcome the idea of developing a national strategy for lifelong education, a strategy that gives due importance to adult education (a key component of lifelong education). Once again, however, the document in question should have been placed for discussion in the public domain. We should also explore the means of implementing the recommendation, in the National Minimum Curriculum (NMC) document, concerning the development of schools as community learning centres (SCLCs). The Focus Group working on this aspect of the NMC document developed a detailed action plan for the implementation of this concept. There are many other initiatives that can be developed. I will suggest just a few of them.

In the first place, local councils should play a prominent part in the development of SCLCs and in the fostering of a community education culture. I wonder whether the budget for local councils ought to be increased with a substantial amount to be reserved for educational programmes and to be allocated and spent solely for that purpose. The programmes can be developed in connection with the SCLC in the specific locality. Projects would include the development of a viable and attractive community library, on the lines of the one opened at Fgura, and an IT centre (both could be part of the service provided by SCLC), the latter intended to serve as a means to bridge the 'digital divide'.

We need to ensure that a cadre of trained people is provided in the area of Educating Older Adults so that they can be employed at old people's homes to ensure that these homes, which are mushrooming in view of the requirements of an aging population, become hives of activity that can have a salutary effect on the lives of their residents. The residents would thus be viewed as active and not passive beings. Government homes (for example, the St Vincent De Paul Residence) can serve as initial models in this regard.

The other key issue is that of immigration. Adult education has an important role to play here. How about the idea of transforming the present detention or open centres into Immigrant Lifelong Learning Centres, with due focus on education for resettlement, given the situation concerning immigration in micro-nation states like ours? In this respect, our representatives in various fora, including the European Parliament, should continue to lobby for help, in this regard, among other European countries. Included among these European countries are those that have a moral obligation towards the people of Africa in view of their past colonial policies that have no doubt contributed to the current state of impoverishment and underdevelopment in the African continent. Walter Rodney's classic text How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is worth revisiting in this context. The potentially receiving country should help in the financing and provision of resources for programmes at the centres that will equip migrants with the linguistic and other skills necessary for them to relocate.

The programmes should target both those who need to relocate and those who intend to stay here. Intensive short in-service programmes in intercultural education should be provided to those sectors of Maltese society directly dealing with immigrants, including members of the police force, the army, the entertainment industry, the teaching profession, the broadcasting media and the judicial sector.

As a matter of fact, I would like to see such an educational programme, comprising a strong anti-racist education component, become a feature of all sectors of the educational system, from initial to university education, and include continuous professional development courses in various fields, given the appalling racism and xenophobia we have been witnessing for quite some time.

On another note, museums are increasingly being considered, throughout Europe and other parts of the world, to be important lifelong education centres. It would be important for Heritage Malta and the University to develop a postgraduate diploma course in museum education to prepare a cadre of people who can serve as museum educators. The course can initially be offered as an in-service programme for people already employed with local museums. They would receive preparation in pedagogical approaches to deal with children and adults in the context of lifelong education and learning.

There is sufficient international expertise into which the country can tap (including Maltese expatriate expertise) to develop this course on professional lines. Local councils can be encouraged to develop community museums that can enhance the process of education within the community. These should be collective endeavours involving different members of the community who can thus experience a sense of ownership of the museum.

I would like to see greater importance being attached to the preparation of adult educators. Pedagogy has all too often been taken for granted as far as adult education is concerned. Some people are very creative and develop innovative pedagogical approaches. Others simply replicate with adults approaches normally used with school children.

I would also like to see greater recognition of learning occurring through non-formal means and I think the country needs to invest more in the development of expertise in such areas as Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR). We also need to engage with this area critically and ensure that what is valued through this exercise is not simply competence-based learning but an array of other and broader types of learning.

To be continued