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The EQUAL development cooperation project »Virtual Centre of European Education« is an example of how on the part of the European Union discrimination on the labour market is to be combated. In the article six subprojects of the cooperation are evaluated as to whether they correspond to European directives for the promotion of employment. The examined qualification measures implement standards like empowerment, equal opportunities, abatement of xenophobia as well as the use of information and c…
The focus of this article is on the necessity of competences and qualifications in the lower job segment of the labour market and the applicability of educational programs to acquire these and encourage people with low skills to participate in lifelong learning. Various requirement profiles of literacy in the work context are described. The importance of operational multipliers used in job-related basic education is pointed out. Exemplary methods, used in GRAWiRa in order to concretize basic ed…
This paper arguments that if competency assessment is to make any contribution as a potentially “liberating” curriculum strategy for struggles of community development and self-determination then it needs to contest the authoritarianism of the national qualification frameworks that have been established in Australia and New Zealand. This article critiques research and policy efforts, in particular for indigenous learners which seek to merely make authoritarian curriculum and assessment structur…
Competence profiles for adult educators - European perspectives on the occasion of the EQF discussion One important piece of groundwork for the EQF debate in the adult education profession is to explore relevant competence profiles. In the run-up to a European conference, as part of an EU-funded project, profiles of this type in the countries of Europe were studied, compared and checked to discover whether they could be linked in to the Qualifications Framework. The article, originally publi…
Quality in further education is not supposed first and foremost to serve the educational organisation itself (the „within“), but the learners (the organisation’s „without”). The “without” should therefore have a substantial say when quality measures are developed and evaluated. Dr. Ch. Ehses and Prof. Dr. R. Zech of the “ArtSet Institut für kritische Sozialforschung und Bildungsarbeit e.V.” explain why the external view-point – the learners’ perspective – is essential, how it can work and what …
The project GRETA – basics for a standardized process for recognizing teachers’ and trainers’ competences in adult and continuing education – developed an interdisciplinary structural competence model encompassing all tasks for teachers and trainers in adult and continuing education. It is the basis for developing procedures for recognizing and certifying relevant competences for teaching and training in adult and continuing education. So far GRETA will develop a concept for validation procedur…
The staff in adult and continuing education is the most important factor for a high quality and demand-oriented development of training courses and their effective implementation. However, there existed only insufficient data and information on these persons. For the first time, the wb-personalmonitor now provides data on demographics, employment situation, living conditions, job profiles, qualifications as well as job related attitudes for the staff in adult and continuing education. Thus, the…
In the search for strategies to combat skills shortages, employees with simple tasks have often not been focused on. However, making up about 20?% of all employees, this group of workers represents an important qualification potential. It is the purpose of our paper to investigate the question whether expected or existing difficulties in filling vacancies for skilled personnel increase the training activities of firms towards employees in low-skilled jobs. Our analyses show that expected skills…
Caught between Two Stools. Adult Education for People with Intellectual Disabilities The report analyses connecting factors for the manifestation of an inclusive approach in adult education for people with mental disabilities. It presents existing organisational forms and qualification paths. The core challenge is seen in the development of an inclusive professionalism which combines the expertise and competences existing in both general adult education and help for the disabled. The develop…
“Precarious forms of work”, “wages near the poverty level” and “demand for minimum wages” – these are key words reflecting the status of continuing education personnel and the concurrent debate. The report focuses on the equality of wages in continuing education, taking up the business economical concept of “proportional equality of wages” as a result of the various references to the current debate in the field of adult and continuing education. The principles of market conformity, equal qualif…