Monitoring (in) der Weiterbildung

The report outlines the 50-year history of the statistics on adult education centres published by the German Institute of Adult Education and its predecessors since 1962. The chronology of events is depicted in a chart, whereas the tool‘s various characteristics, which generated key problems since the beginning and still do until today, are discussed in the text. The author fathoms future chances and challenges of input-oriented institutional statistics in a time with a tendency towards output sampling.

The report introduces the topic of municipal education monitoring based on the »Aachen Declaration« on municipal educational responsibility by the German Association of Cities and Towns. The statistics on adult education centres are essential for the still limited local continuing education monitoring. Two examples (Rheingau-Taunus district and City of Trier) explicate the data benefits, which indicate strengths and weaknesses and reveal operative requirements to decision makers in institutions and communities. The report also covers the limits in the potential of municipal education monitoring based on both insufficient data as well as the theoretical nature: Evidence-based monitoring tools have a supportive character and cannot replace the decision-making progress.

The National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) reflects upon adult learning from the perspective of a life profile. The article describes the system and methodological approach of the NEPS with a special focus on the group of adults. The education and employment history as well as the consequent competence development of the adult working age population is analyzed. Overall, 60,000 people are surveyed in the NEPS including more than 11,000 adults. First data is already available to the expert public and can be analyzed with regard to the determinants of participation in continuing education or the timing of continuing education in life. The data also provides a base for studies on the dissemination of different forms of continuing education, the participation structure as well as programme contents and quality.

The article provides an insight into supranational and international continuing education monitoring. The author identifies three particularly relevant tools for adult learning: the Adult Education Survey conducted by the EU, the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and the European Lifelong Learning Index. The findings of the author’s dissertation substantiate the effects of monitoring and educational reporting in available data, evaluation practice and supervision. The resulting problems, which are based on a lack of contextualization or the preference of a quantitative research paradigm, may not be neglected.

For the evaluation of the World Literacy Decade (2003–2012), the author focuses on the successful and unsuccessful UN literacy objectives. In the article, the mobilization for global literacy, the reliable data survey on the extent of the literacy problem, the world report »Education for All« with a main focus on alphabetization, the acknowledgment of literacy as a continuum of the »Belém Framework for Action«, the »UNESCO LIFE Initiative«, the »E-9 Initiative« as well as several international, national and local alliances such as the »German Alliance for Literacy and Basic Education« are regarded as progress by the author. Despite the multitude of measures and actions, many countries are still confronted with challenges by the literacy problem. Political negligence and the resulting lack of funds are a cause of concern: In countries with a high illiteracy rate, the budget for literacy programmes is often less than one percent of the national educational expenditure.