Event Documentation

Regional Conference "Future in Basic Education - Participation and Change"

04.10.2022 | Virtuell

Together with lernraum.wien / Die Wiener Volkshochschulen, the GrubiNetz Rhineland-Palatinate project and AlphaDekade, the German National Coordination Point European Agenda for Adult Education held a virtual regional conference/transnational expert discussion with 74 participants from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg on 4th of October 2022. The cooperation made it possible to include good examples and participants from other European countries in the event. The joint event focused on the question of what social transformation processes and digitalisation mean for basic education work and participation opportunities for people with basic education needs. Dr. Jens Korfkamp from the vhs Rheinberg and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Monika Kastner from the University of Klagenfurt gave inputs on political basic education and transformative learning in the context of participation opportunities. In the following programme item, nine projects from the participating countries were presented in virtual market stalls. Afterwards, the participants of the event discussed their findings from the event as well as their own experiences and ideas on the future of basic education. Important aspects that came up in the discussions were learner-orientation in the design of learning offers and the importance of everyday practical topics for teaching competences for social participation. There was also a debate on the extent to which reading and writing improve participation and on what topics basic education covers. A major consensus was that basic education offers must be reliably and permanently financed and not mainly provided through project work. The discussions also enabled the participants to learn from structures and views from other European countries. For example, the presented project "Botschaftler*innen Gruppe” from Switzerland was discussed as a positive example - especially from the point of view of implementing it in other countries and regions. In this Swiss project, learners help to motivate people with basic education needs to learn, to sensitise multipliers to the topic and to publicise the topic and learning opportunities in public campaigns.