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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=ES-MX link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;background:white'><b><i><span lang=ES style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'>Para español favor usar google traductor </span></i></b><span style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><b><i><span lang=FR style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'>Veuillez utiliser google translator pour traduire les articles qui ne sont pas en français</span></i></b><span lang=FR style='font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span lang=FR><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-right:62.85pt;text-align:center;background:white'><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Cambria","serif";color:#3939EF'>ICAE Virtual Seminar<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Cambria","serif";color:#3939EF'>“Adult Education and Development: Post 2015”<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span lang=EN-US><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Cambria","serif";color:#3939EF'>Upstairs, downstairs: a view from below<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Cambria","serif";color:#3939EF'>By Timothy D. Ireland<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"Cambria","serif";color:#3939EF'>UNESCO Chair in Youth and Adult Education - Federal University of Paraiba, Brazil.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"Cambria","serif";color:#3939EF'>Individual member of ICAE.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>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.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>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”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>