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The Author presents a shortened version of the report »The Social and Personal Benefits of Learning: A Summary of Key Research Findings« by the »Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning (WBL)«. The wider benefits of early childhood education as well as school, university and adult education are examined. The wide range of positive educational benefits contains crime prevention as well as a reduced nicotine consumption or increased tolerance.
The report includes a slightly revised version of a lecture held during the opening ceremony of the German Continuing Education Day in Berlin in 2012. The author focuses on the day’s central idea: surplus value of continuing education and pleads for the use of the benefit concept, which includes the individual’s perspective, as well as the concept of profit with regard to the social and organizational perspective.
Jyri Manninen presents empirical data on the »wider benefits of lifelong learning« collected in Finish adult education institutions (adult education centres, folk high schools, university summer schools, study and sport centres) in 2007. To present the results, a model concept on the wider benefits of learning was developed, which includes a quintuple classification of the term »benefits«: 1. »relevant benefits for the learning process «, 2. »direct benefits«, 3. »skills and competences«, 4. »a…
The article describes how community learning, a special form of adult education in Ireland, generates benefits for both the individual and the society. The authors’ elaborations are empirically based on the reports »At the Forefront«, »Community Education: More than just a Course« and »Sowing the Seeds of Social Change«, conducted by the Irish National Adult Learning Organization (AONTAS).
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Eero Pantzar presents the outlines of the development of adult education in Finland from the early beginning in the 19th century up to today. Popular education was seen as one of the necessary preconditions for the growth of general welfare, economic development and the individual’s personal growth. The first decades of the nation’s independence (1917 -) saw a strong boom in liberal adult education. This was most clearly indicated by the growing number of institutions and organisations providin…
Sind die PISA-Ergegnisse für die Deutschen nur halb so schlimm, wie viele behaupten? PISA-Forscher Heller von der OECD erläutert, welche Schlüsse für das lebenslange Lernen (nicht) gezogen werden können. Darüber hinaus gibt er Informationen über geplante Studien in Zusammenarbeit mit der OECD, die helfen, die Zusammenhänge zwischen den vorliegenden PISA-Ergebnissen und den Fähigkeiten heutiger und künftiger Erwachsener besser zu bewerten.