Adult education, social transformation and the pursuit of social justice

Abstract

At first sight, adult education lacks capacity to contribute significantly to social transformation for social justice. Except perhaps in the Nordic countries, adult education sits, overwhelmingly, at the margins of public educational systems with limited budgets, modest levels of professional staffing, and, at best, variable facilities. The 2015 Education For All Global Monitoring Report (GMR) reports that ‘adult education in high income countries appears to have mostly served those who completed secondary education rather than adults who lack basic skills’ (UNESCO, 2015, p. 109; OECD, 2013). It states that, after 25 years of global targets giving priority to reducing illiteracy, 781 million adults still lack literacy, and, of them, 64% are women, a percentage that has remained unchanged since 1990; and that ethnic and linguistic minorities, disabled adults, rural and indigenous communities benefit little from programmes. It also finds that such literacy gain as there has been in most countries can be explained by cohort change – better-schooled young people displacing less-skilled older adults in the population (UNESCO, 2015). To borrow a memorable phrase of Helena Kennedy, it seems that ‘If at first you don’t succeed, you don’t succeed’ (FEFC, 1997).