Adult Education, Work and achieving the Lisbon Goals Conference

The role of adult education in achieving the Lisbon goals

In an expanding and ageing Europe new jobs will be filled by adults; no state can wait for its young people to grow up in order to become competitive and it is the adult workforce, current and potential that will make Lisbon a reality. This is why adult skills are so important both for work but also in the interests of social cohesion. The conference:

• Explored the issues of demography that make adult learning important and what they vindicate for the development of learning strategies.
• Explored the relationship between skills for work and skills for active citizenship and community roles, bringing together policies for employment and social inclusion.
• Identified and promoted examples of good practice within and outside the workplace that illustrated effective adult learning and skills development.
• Explored the role that the new generation of mobility programmes can play in showing good practice across Europe in this area. 

The conference took place on 16/17 September at East Anglia University, Norwich, England.

The topic of Serge’s presentation was E-Portfolios for all learners - a vision for 2010, in which he laid particular emphasis on the importance of ePortfolios for lifelong learning.

Other speakers included representatives of the EC, the OECD, the BBC and the Swedish Ministry of Education and Research.

The audience was made up of Senior Government Officers from across the EU, including accession and candidate countries as well as representatives from key NGO's in the same states.

Further information about the Conference and the presentations are available on: http://www.niace.org.uk/signupnow/EU-presidency-conf/Default.htm