[Icaeaeducationdevp2015] [7] Alison Cross

[Cecilia Fernández]

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ICAE Virtual Seminar

“Adult Education and Development: Post 2015”

10 – 24 of March 2014

 

Reflection from a Caribbean perspective

Alison Cross - VP, ICAE representing the Caribbean Region

 

“The more things change…the more they remain the same”.

 

The International Council for Adult Education (ICAE) is partnering with DVV
international in presenting this set of essays and reflections on the issues
under debate and discussion as new goals, targets and indicators are worked
on for the period 2015– 2030.  

 

I offer a short reflection of where the Caribbean region needs to focus on
in seeking to influence the post 2015 global development targets, and review
issues that need attention over the next year, as the UN system shapes its
final proposals for overall goals, and a parallel process is developed for
Education for All (EFA) beyond 2015. I will also comment briefly on the
article  by Heribert Hinzenm DVV International, Laos “Lifelong Learning for
All – A potential global goal for the post 2015 education and development
agendas!”

 

Background information:

 

The Caribbean Council for Adult Education (CARCAE) is a regional body of the
International Council for Adult Education (ICAE). It officially came into
being in 1978 at the ICAE Executive Meeting held in San Jose, Costa Rica,
the decision was taken to recognize the Caribbean, not as a sub-region
within the Latin American region, but as a region in its own right.  One
year later, at the ICAE General Assembly held in Helsinki; the non-Spanish
speaking Caribbean was given full recognition as a region. Thus CARCAE
serves twenty-two countries within the Dutch, English and French speaking
Caribbean region.  Unfortunately in the last few years, since the CONFINTEA
VI held in Brazil, CARCAE has been dormant. 

 

The Jamaican Council for Adult Education (JACAE) is a, not-for-profit, civil
society organization whose members are organizations and individuals
involved in a wide range of adult and continuing educational activities in
both the formal and non-formal education sectors. The member organizations
include government agencies, universities and colleges, the media, private
sector organizations, as well as other civil society organizations. For over
twenty-five years JACAE has been committed to promoting and sustaining the
development of adult continuing education and lifelong learning for
individual and national development and to uniting adult educators in
Jamaica. In the last year JACAE has been relatively inactive due to
significant challenges experienced with its executive members.

 

Guided by the EFA & MDG Roadmap

 

In his article, Hinzen reminds us that ICAE and DVV have been actively
involved, participating in all the major adult education committees over the
last fifteen years to ensure that the voice of adult learning and education
receives priority status within the broader context of the agenda issues.
The frustrating challenge for those of us in the Adult Education community
is that youth and adults and their learning and training needs have been for
the most part put on the “back burner”. This is not acceptable for ICAE or
DVV nor is it acceptable for the majority of us in the field of adult
learning and education. 

 

Realistic POST 2015 Debates

 

There is a global babble, which is increasing in intensity, on the successes
and lack of achievements regarding the outcomes of the MDG’s and the EFA
Goals.  What have we achieved? What should we focus on? How should we
organize or re-organize to achieve successes at the global and more
specifically at national levels? 

 

Hinzen suggests that as we explore which global goals are needed for post
2015, that it may be time for countries to become more vocal and more
involved in setting their own “national” or “context-specific” targets with
related indicators. Of course this makes sense! Can you imagine if the
English speaking Caribbean came together on the 3rd and 4th goals to start
with: Goal 3: Promoting learning and life skills for young people and
adults; Goal 4: Increasing adult literacy. In Jamaica alone, we are so
fragmented with our efforts, each movement operating as if within a “silo”
rather than with a more effective collaborative vision and action plan. I
know Vision 2030’s National Development Plan has set the tone for functional
collaboration – but this is for the large part not working for adult and
youth education and learning. 

 

I agree that the Caribbean should use the momentum of the post 2015 debate
to focus on the interconnectedness of the different goals recognizing that:
Healthier people learn better, better educated youth and adults are less
vulnerable.

 

There are many possible themes being discussed as the major focus for the
agenda post 2015, the Adult Education community is already weighing in on
the main goals that we believe will achieve the greatest successes for the
next fifteen years. The ones that seem to have the most traction include: 

·         an education-specific agenda covering all aspects of schooling,
training, and learning;

·         that education must be everywhere in the implementation of the
development agenda;

·         that we must have a holistic lifelong lifewide learning framework.

 

If I close my eyes I can actually see Hinzen articulating in his firm, calm
manner the charge to us in the Adult Education community that we MUST,
“…step up our efforts if we are to influence future goals.”  …before he
adds, perhaps with a half smile on his face, “Luckily, all of us are invited
to join the discussion.”  This is where I begin to get concerned. Sure, we
are all invited to join the discussion. I can predict which of my colleagues
worldwide who will join in – the European region, the Asia-Pacific region,
the African region, and of course the Latin American region will be very
actively present….but where will the English speaking Caribbean’s voice be?
We are quick to accept invitations to all kinds of agendas, but not so quick
to participate in the agenda for adult and youth education. This is so very
worrying. 

 

Where is ALE in the Caribbean today?

 

The debate on adult learning and education in the Caribbean has been one of
the best kept secrets to the general public within the Caribbean context.
There has in fact been much research and articles written on this topic by
the following groups: UNESCO, the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB), the
World Bank, the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI), PREAL, OAS,
USAID, UNICEF, the Caribbean Development Bank, our local Universities, the
Ministries of Education, and I could go on and on. The question is...what do
we do with the information we glean?  How do we use this information to
influence the process of adult learning and education within the Caribbean
context? The results of all this research and publications are marginally
tangible (if at all) and are not visible, so what is the point??

 

CARCAE and JACAE need to be revitalized. We need more voices represented in
the Adult Education community. If we don’t have active Adult Education
communities, we cannot participate. If we don’t participate, we will be left
further and further behind. 

 

Here I go back to Hinzen’s article and endorse his challenge to those of us
in the Adult Education community to strengthen our position and to join this
discussion. This is a special plea for the Caribbean Adult Education
community to reach out, to participate…we have a strong and powerful
voice…we need to use it now more than ever. 

 

For ease of reference to my brothers and sisters in the Caribbean I will
borrow two of the points from Hinzen’s article on potential issues covering
the education as well as the development agenda focusing on youth and adult
learning and training which we could raise in the Caribbean context:

·         What are the alternative paradigms in and for education and
development that transcend the limited orientation towards economic growth?

 

·         How can civil society at the national, regional, and international
level get better involved in these debates, and thus support the efforts by
ICAE and others?

 

In the Caribbean region, what are the issues affecting youth and adult
learners in the EFA process, and what kind of action is necessary to
influence the process? We need to respond to these questions within the
Caribbean regional and specifically at the National levels?

 

What Next for the Caribbean region?

 

In reading Alan Tuckett’s article for this debate, “The world needs a clear
target on Lifelong Learning for All for another world to be possible”, I
recognized that one of the many challenges facing the Caribbean Adult
Education community is that as a collective group in the Caribbean, perhaps
we don’t fully understand enough about the case for adult learning and
education (ALE), which is rights-based, and includes the right to literacy,
vocational, democratic and civic education, education for well-being; for
sustainable lives, that is alive to arts and culture, intergenerational
learning, and respects diversity and difference. This is not a vision
articulated by policy makers – at any level and in any field. 

 

Perhaps our role in this DVV / ICAE virtual seminar and other discussions is
to help foster the wider Caribbean development community to understand
better the role education of adults has in securing other goals for
overcoming poverty and securing a better quality of life.

 

The Caribbean pulls together to achieve monumental milestones in sports, in
music and in many other contexts. We can create, through a stronger more
active Caribbean Adult Learning community, a Caribbean worth living in.  

 

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esta traducido al español)

Veuillez utiliser google translator pour traduire les articles qui ne sont
pas en français

 

 



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