[Icaeaeducationdevp2015] [21] Timothy Ireland

[Cecilia Fernández]

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ICAE Virtual Seminar

“Adult Education and Development: Post 2015”

 

Upstairs, downstairs: a view from below

By Timothy D. Ireland

UNESCO Chair in Youth and Adult Education - Federal University of Paraiba,
Brazil.

Individual member of ICAE.

 

 

I warmly welcome the opportunity offered by the ICAE virtual seminar to
debate issues raised by DVV International’s recently launched yearbook
“Adult Education and Development”. The Yearbook is an excellent but, by
nature, static platform for launching themes and questions for discussion
which the seminar, as an inherently more dynamic forum, complements.
Congratulations to the DVV International and ICAE for this concrete example
of partnership.

 

The debate has so far raised several important questions on what is a huge
theme for discussion – the international agenda for development and
education post-2015. I was particularly encouraged to read the Arab
statement by Iqbal el Samaloty. Whilst general discussion on the place of
lifelong education for all in the agenda is fundamental, I believe we also
need to concern ourselves with practical issues related to strategy. Given
the criticisms which have arisen, especially with regard to the human
capital approach of the World Bank, how can we seek to change and influence
opinions? I would like to underline three issues and related strategic
proposals which I consider pertinent: one related to the Post-2015 Agenda
debate and the lack of resonance between international and national spheres,
a second which refers to the CONFINTEA process and a third which concerns
the vexed issue of learner participation.

 

It is my impression based on the situation in Brazil and other Latin
American countries that general interest in and discussion of the post-2015
agenda is largely absent from national government circles and, in
particular, Ministries of Education. That is, there exists a large divide
separating the international debate and those taking part in it, from
national and regional debates. To what extent do those ‘representatives’
taking part in the international debate effectively represent and interact
with national positions? Hence, in strategic terms, advocacy efforts need to
be invested in translating the global issues into national issues.
Ministries of Education must be encouraged to engage in the debate and to
‘internalize’ it.

 

Secondly, as Nélida Céspedes stated in her contribution based on the CEAAL
analysis of country reports submitted to the second GRALE, international
rhetoric related to the CONFINTEA process and to the principle of adult
lifelong education finds very little concrete expression in education policy
in many countries, especially in the south, where it provides at best
elegant phrases for political discourse. Brazil hosted the Sixth CONFINTEA
in 2009 but the Belém Framework for Action has disappeared from the
political agenda completely in recent years. The UNESCO Brasília office will
publish a Portuguese translation of GRALE II in an attempt to revitalize the
process. In this respect I consider that we need firstly to think of GRALE
in strategic terms. Whilst the data collected by and published in the Report
is important, the process by which it is collected is even more important.
For the production of the next GRALE, greater emphasis must be given to
strategies which use the collection of data as a means of mobilizing society
and posing policy questions on youth and adult learning and education.
Secondly, it would seem to me that the Observatory of Adult Education
promised in the Regional Confintea Follow-up Meeting in Mexico City in 2010,
could be an excellent instrument if only it were made available. We are now
a year away from CONFINTEA + 6 and the Observatory remains on the sideline.
Thirdly, Werner Mauch refers to the importance of the role of the UNESCO
regional and field offices in contributing to the CONFINTEA process which
UIL on its own, cannot be expected to carry forward. It would be salutary to
know how OREALC (UNESCO’s Latin American Regional Office) intends to
contribute to this process.

 

Thirdly, the question of participation rears its controversial and sensitive
head again. To what extent do discussions taking place in the extremely
complex structure generated by the UN contemplate and express the interests
and demands of the young and adult learner? And to what extent do they have
a voice in this process? What happened to the Global Network of Adult
Learners which presented its International Adult Learners’ Charter during
the Conference in Belem? Without a ground swell, there is a tendency for the
distance between rhetoric and action to grow further and to become
distorted. Street and popular protests in different parts of the world
recently have shown a strong distrust of political mediation. Whilst the
international agencies provide certain established mechanisms for
participation, all of these are at best cautious and tend to be
conciliatory. Hence, the role of civil society to produce alternative and
more radical positions and strategies. I would suggest that ICAE could
consider an AVAAZ approach to the inclusion, for example, of lifelong
education for all, in the post-2015 agenda. The UN needs to be bombarded
with messages from individuals and civil society organizations defending
this position.

 

The intricacies of the UN process should not be used as an excuse for
delegating responsibility for the future of lifelong education, and within
it, youth and adult education, to that small elite group which is taking
part in this international debate as it has in many others. The stakes are
too high. In order to achieve the world we want by means of the education we
want, there is no substitute for participation. This seminar represents one
such space which needs to be replicated at national, regional and local
levels. The title of ICAE’s newsletter translates this perfectly “Voices
Rising”. 

 

 



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