Education, professional training, skill, and knowledge sharing are elementary features to inclusive, sustainable development. Both formal and informal education contributes to human capital development, the creation of fair employment opportunities, and social empowerment. Meanwhile, adult education and lifelong learning participate in the enhancement of life skills, literacy, and occupational skills. Under international law, education is said to “enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society”. In the context of adult learning particularly, the lack of access to educational structures dramatically hinders economic development and social change. When large, powerful stakeholders maintain a monopoly over policy-making processes without the possibility for local actors to engage, it inevitably creates an asymmetric relationship inhibiting inclusive participation in rethinking development policies. In contrast, when adult education frameworks are efficiently erected, they often result in enhanced social and economic development, community empowerment, the decentralisation of knowledge and capacity, and strengthened local and regional policies.
ADULT EDUCATION FOR PARTICIPATORY DECISION-MAKING
Civic governance and the growing influence of civil society organisations have put the community at the heart of future political, social, and economic debates. Thereon, participation in community life has become all the more essential to achieving inclusive decision-making processes. Yet, to be able to actively participate in community life, citizens need to be provided with the tools and skills to do so. In this light, adult education and the building of lasting skills inscribes itself within this strategy of civic empowerment. The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) has cast light in its country evaluations on the correlation between political efficiency and trust with skills acquisition. Against this background, active citizenship thus implies the ability to act and engage with governance mechanisms at both the local and regional levels.
THE RIGHT TO ADULT EDUCATION INSCRIBED WITHIN THE INTERNATIONAL AGENDA
The right to quality education was recognised as a fundamental right as early as in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. The United Nations re-acknowledged its role in the 2030 Agenda as fundamental to sustainable development, with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 encompassing the UN’s main targets to achieve this right. In its targets, the UN emphasises increasing qualified teachers, literacy, education for sustainable development, and the acquisition of new skills for entrepreneurship and global citizenship. Adult education and learning thus lie at the heart of sustainable, inclusive development strategies. Several other SDGs tie into the right to adult education, as the availability of skills acquisition opportunities directly relates to economic and social empowerment.
Travelling back in time, by 2000, the United Nations had already begun to recognise the importance of capacity-building and adult training for development, embodied in the Millenium Development Goals as well as UNESCO’s Education for All (EFA) goals. EFA goals three and four specifically spoke to life skills, lifelong learning, and adult literacy. Discussions on adult education often put the emphasis on the question of literacy as a primary concern. The international development realm has widely acknowledged literacy embodies a key element to community empowerment and development participation. Henceforth, several national action plans for capacity-building and education have focused on eradicating adult illiteracy.
Downstream, UNESCO urged the implementation of direct (e.g. skill training, literacy activities, tools, and materials) and indirect learning strategies. Indirect education often consists of capacity building interventions in order to provide structural reform for heightened education capabilities. More recently however, UNESCO identified in its report on Adult Learning and Poverty Reduction that building lifelong learning capacities is essential to economic and social empowerment.
THE IMPORTANCE OF CREATING LIFELONG LEARNING SKILLS: A CASE STUDY
In many Southeast and East Asian countries, lifelong learning action plans have been put in place to further the eradication of illiteracy and the development and passing of new skills (e.g., Bangladesh) with support from both UNESCO and the World Bank.
Illustratively, Japan launched during the 1980s its National Council on Education Reform, which led to the Lifelong Learning Promotion law, launching lifelong learning action plans for local communities.
The Kyoyama ESD Environment Project (KEEP) for Sustainable Development embodies a significant adult education initiative. In order to consolidate contextually relevant skills and generate tangible results, Japanese regional authorities decided to create education capacity at the local level. They focused their efforts on intergenerational learning for community participation and on addressing sustainability challenges in the region, creating community-led solutions for environmental conservation.
Similarly, South Korea underwent a comparable process during the reconstruction of its education framework. It thereby prioritised the cementing of education and life skills, which encompassed the lifelong education promotion plan, committing to the decentralisation of lifelong learning in order to foster inclusive development. It, as a result, encouraged the involvement of local and regional actors in the implementation of its Lifelong Education Act. South Korea’s strategy focused on providing education for all learners, including adults, in order to rebuild engaged local communities.
MEANS TO ACHIEVE DIRECT AND INDIRECT ADULT EDUCATION OUTCOMES
Drawing from these examples, governmental institutions and governance bodies need to cement adult education through capacity-building and knowledge-sharing activities, while maintaining inclusive bottom-up approaches to development. The establishment of solid educational foundations, notably for adult literacy, however, helps foster research from local stakeholders and empower Indigenous communities. Eventually, this enables effective multilateral participation in development policy-making.
However, originally, informal learning and education for adults were not prioritised over other issues considered more urgent to community development and capacity-building. Hence, by 2014, programmes for adult education remained the most underfunded as many countries still failed to allocate the necessary budget.
With little data overseeing the development and implementation of adult learning policies, holistic research should be conducted to cast light on priority areas. Meanwhile, states should begin redistributing their budget more equitably in order to allow adult education to prosper, crystallising efforts towards inclusive human development.
Augustine is in the last semester of a bilingual LLM in Human rights, Security and Development at Lille Catholic University. Currently interning with Impact International for Human Rights Policies, she wishes to pursue a career in international development, with a special interest in business responsibility, social and environmental justice. She has previously worked on social sustainability advocacy with SapientSEE and as a legal research intern with the International Institute of Human Rights.