I welcome all of you to this new ICAE Virtual Seminar on Adult Education Benchmarks. We hope that, through this ICAE initiative, more adult learning associations will become proactive in the development of benchmarks in order to monitor, in their milieu, the full exercise of the right to learn of women and men. This seminar is done in a spirit of cooperation with the UNESCO Institute for LLL, in support of the CONFINTEA VI preparatory process.

The objectives of this seminar are to discuss, based on past experiences, the ideas of benchmarks and benchmarking and to develop proposals on adult education.
I will like to open this seminar with three small comments in order to launch the discussion.
First, we should neither mystify nor underestimate the importance of bench marks and of benchmarking. We should not mystify such operations, because what we are after is basically a list of well chosen points of reference for measuring the attainment of our goals or for comparing actions of agencies with agreed standards like, for example, indicators on the advancement of adult learning or progress in resources made available to that end. We are then looking for relevant benchmarks that could be clearly and easily monitored at national, regional and global levels. We should not also underestimate this operation, because, in the pursuit of our objective of developing efficient data based advocacy, such instruments will become crucial.
Second, the ICAE REPORT, that has been made to monitor the state of adult learning in the world, may offer a good basis to find relevant benchmarks on adult literacy inputs (ex. national budget, international financial assistance), processes (ex. polyvalence of content: literacy relevant for health, for work, for women empowerment, etc.) or outputs (ex. rate of accessibility, return on peoples conditions of life).
Third, in relation to the broader right to learn of adults, here are few examples of possible benchmarks:
- Series, across time, of participation statistics to organized adult education activities (see Bélanger, P. & Valdivielso, S. (ed.), 1997. The Emergence of Learning Societies. Who participates in Adult Education?, London: Pergamon Press. 250p) aiming at verifying the growth or decline of number of people able to participate in learning activities,

- Advancement of legislation on adult education
- New laws on right to learn of adults
- Selection of adult women related indicators related to the third MDG goal to “Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.”
- Changing percentage of resources allocated to adult education and literacy in the budget of World Bank and of UNESCO,
- Progress, through ILO indicators, on access to education and training of workers by gender, age, industrial sectors and level of qualification
- Statistical benchmarks on adult learners weeks; increasing number of countries, increasing number of activities, etc.

Finally, I would like to suggest that a good indicator to test out of the expected success of CONFINTEA VI will precisely be the development and adoption, at this 2009 Conference, of proper binding benchmarks on the advancement of adult learning. We will have to call upon the governmental delegates at CONFINTEA VI to adopt, in parallel to the MDGs, an official adult learning enabling goal for ensuring active and creative participation of people in the implementation of each and all of the other eight MDGs. Yes an adult learning goal with clear benchmarks *on resources allocated to adult learning, on *processes leading to relevant learning and on the *outcomes expected by women and men who wants to live with dignity and, therefore, demand that their right to learn, to grow, to question and to imagine be concretely recognized.

The seminar is now opened. Good seminar.
Paul, President.


 

The 6th International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VI) will take place in May 2009 in Brazil. It will constitute an important platform for policy dialogue and advocacy on adult learning and non-formal education at international level, with a large participation of education stakeholders from UNESCO Member States, UN agencies and international development partners, civil society, research institutions, the private sector and learners.

CONFINTEA V, held in Hamburg in 1997, was considered as a milestone in adult education for several reasons. It established adult learning as an essential element of lifelong learning and as a key tool to address the challenges of the 21st century. The conference attracted more participants than ever and allowed, in particular, for effective civil society participation by granting NGO representatives the full right to speak during conference deliberations. The main recommendations of the conference, laid down in the Hamburg Declaration on Adult Learning and the Agenda for the Future, have subsequently served as influential reference documents in the field of adult education and learning. They provided widely used guiding principles for the further development of adult education and learning in many parts of the world.

However, the follow-up did not meet all expectations. The scope of implementation of the CONFINTEA V recommendations was substantially criticized in the mid-term review in Bangkok. One of the reasons pointed out was the lack of appropriate instruments to monitor and assess progress within the adult education field, as well as the scarcity of valid data from the field in many parts of the world.

Against this background one of the central aims of CONFINTEA VI will be to develop suitable instruments measure progress, advocate and create commitment in adult education and learning, and to support implementation of the agreements reached. These instruments will include internationally applicable benchmarks. A set of draft benchmarks for discussion will be developed for the national reports and constitute an important input to CONFINTEA VI while the adopted benchmarks will be a key product of the conference.

In an inclusive process, representatives from all world regions will contribute to the formulation of the benchmarks. This process will be led by a small core group of experts from all regions, in close contact with the CONFINTEA VI Consultative Group and under the coordination of UIL. Their work will be based on previous and ongoing activities and documents with similar aims in the regions. The process will take into account experiences with a wide range of policy papers but focus on the topics set and commitments made in connection with UNESCO documents such as the Nairobi
recommendations on adult education (1976) and the CONFINTEA Agenda for the Future (1997), as well as documents from adult education field such as the European Benchmarks on Education and Training and International Benchmarks on Literacy by Action Aid.

Objectives of the process are:

- To develop a set of internationally applicable benchmarks for adult learning
- To support the CONFINTEA VI preparatory processes, in particular the country reporting,
- To make available convincing instruments to measure progress, advocate and create commitment in adult education and learning
- To stimulate international co-operation for achieving concrete objectives in the further development of adult education and learning world-wide.
- To strengthen the development and application of broad concept of adult education and learning for improved learning practices for a wide range of
learners, including especially disadvantaged and marginalized groups

The first meeting of the core team is envisioned to take place in July 2007 after which the work continues in on-line forum. The core group will meet twice during the year 2008 to finalize the draft benchmarks and to analyze the consultation with the member states.

 

What is a benchmark?

A benchmark is a term that has been used for a long time in the administration and computing fields. In education its use is more recent, still restricted to English speaking countries. It does not have an exact corresponding term into Spanish or Portuguese. In these languages the term used to translate benchmark is the expression “point of reference” (in Portuguese: “ponto de referência”, in Spanish: “punto de referencia”).

It might be useful, therefore, to review a few definitions from English sources.

The Webster’s dictionary gives as a synonym of benchmark  “criterion = measure, basis, foundation, test, standard, rule, gauge, proof, model, exemplar, paradigm, scale, prototype, pattern, example, standard of judgment, point of comparison, yardstick, archetype, norm, original, precedent, touchstone, benchmark, principle, standard, rule, or test by which something can be judged; measure of value”

In Wicpédia there are some simple definitions:

·       Benchmark:      a point of reference for a measurement
·       Benchmarking: the process used in management in which organizations evaluate various aspects of their processes in relation to the best practice, usually within their own sector.

Therefore, the term can be new for some people but the concepts and problems that it refers to are familiar in the field of Adult Education  standardized evaluation,  measurement, quality patterns, indicators.


What are benchmarks for?

The sense and the usefulness of benchmarks can vary according to the context and the players involved. Let´s see some examples:
Benchmarks can be used in a competitive environment, for an organization (or country?) to compete with other players.

Or

Benchmarks can be used as a tool for social control of government policies. In education, for instance, benchmarks can be useful to express consensus on desirable practices and results, to be used as reference for advocacy actions or government policies monitoring.

Or

Benchmarks can be used by governments or financial organizations to supervise the providers of education services  rewarding or penalizing them according to results compared to the established patterns.  


What are the dimensions of benchmarks?

In the education field, benchmarks (criteria, patterns, or quality indicators) can refer to inputs, processes/methods or outcomes. 

- Benchmark related to inputs  it could be for instance: minimum cost per student, classrooms quality and quantity, equipment, books and other teaching materials.
- Benchmarks referred to processes- it could be for instance: providing directions about association forms, democratic management, follow up of certain teaching principles,  use of active methodologies.
- Benchmarks related to outcomes - it can be for instance: learning outcomes (measured by tests) or attitude changes, living conditions of people, reading habits acquisition, participation in community movements, increase of the family income, school enrolment.

Nowadays, there is a trend to evaluate education programs solely on the base of the learning outcomes measured by patterned tests. In some cases, it is also taken into account as success criteria a certain percentage of job placements in the labor market, especially in programs that include some professional qualification.

In the document “Writing the Wrongs”, a group of benchmark referred to literacy teaching produced by the Global Campaign of Education, about the leadership of Action Aid GB, with the aim of directing advocacy action, we observe a reverse trend. Between 12 benchmarks, only one refers to outcomes while the rest of them establish standards for inputs and processes.
Relating to outcomes”Writing the Wrongs” opposes a wide approach. It proposes that the goals should be the acquisition and use of learning, writing and calculation abilities, to support an active citizenship, equity and life quality.


What are the problems that arise?

“Evaluation criteria, patterned evaluation, tests, etc.”, are always controversial issues in the Education of Adults field. Teachers identified with a traditional Popular Education tend to be pessimistic with this type of standard definition, designed to big-scaled evaluations, because they ignore the diversity of groups and people, the details of processes, etc. On the other side, when advocating for the importance of Adult Education or Popular Education as a government policy we can’t avoid working with quantitative elements, or more or less general standards, to define action goals or to assess government action, which almost always have to be actions in scale.

One of the great problems of assessment in the Adult Education field is the fact that it is almost always seen as a judgment. Even if evaluations offer a terrible picture of teaching results outcomes, like it happens in many countries, nobody dares to suggest closing the school system. In that case, an evaluation tends to arise a clamor in favor of a better quality, because everyone recognizes that education is a basic right of the children. In relating with the adult education, in many cases, the program evaluations takes the responsibility of “proving” that the system is efficient, gets good results with low costs, etc, otherwise the program isn’t worth it. This happens because the education right for adults does not have the same degree of recognition and legitimacy.

In this context, I consider fundamental that Adult Education benchmarks cover not only outcomes but also inputs and processes defining conditions that can guarantee outcomes. These ones should be graded in an ample way, considering education as a human right.
  
 

CONTRIBUTIONS

Dear all,

Greetings form ICAE Montevideo Office

We hope everybody is receiving the contributions that we are sharing in the Seminar on Adult Education Benchmarks and that this space gives us the possibility to learn one from each other about a quite new subject, and on which we will have to go on working.

200 people are following this virtual exchange, and we thank those who have written showing their interest on the seminar, as our Vice President from Africa, Babacar Diop from Senegal, Vida Mohorcic Spolar from Slovenia, Seth Matéli KLUCIA from Togo,  and Maria Luisa Jauregui from UNESCO/OREALC, Chile.

We have the pleasure of sharing their messages with you and we encourage all of you to send your reflections and share your experiences with all of us.

Cecilia Fernandez
ICAE


From Babacar Diop

Dear Paul and Celita. Congratulations! The discussion was well launched and it was good to begin with reference points. At this level, it would be good to verify the level of information that have governments and civil society organisations, even private ones, referring the recommendations of CONFINTEA. We could also discuss the existence or not, in different countries, of communication media informing offers in education and/or training. Good follow up.


Seth Matéli KLUVIA

Dear Celita,
I am Seth Matéli KLUVIA, promoter of Development Education which is longlife adult education in Togo, and the coordinator for West Africa Development Education. I'd like to thank you for including us in the ICAE mailing list. I will be glad and willing to participate in the ICAE virtual seminar. I am yet to learn more about ICAE to actively participate in all activities as I can. Please, do not hesitate to send me documentation, french or english versions.
Best regards
Seth



From Vida Mohorcic Spolar

Thank you very much for the information. I suppose this is what was meant by sending this paper. Do you expect anything from us for the Seminar?
Dr. Vida A. Mohorcic  Spolar
Andragoški center Slovenije
Slovenian Institute for Adult Education
www.acs.si


Maria Luisa Jáuregui

Dear Colleagues,
Thank you very much for your kind invitation to this Virtual Seminar. I will do my best to follow the discussions.
I wish you the best,

Maria Luisa Jauregui
Regional Expert
Adult Education
UNESCO/OREALC

 

Dear all,

Vera made a very good contribution, it is very important to have the opportunity of this kind of reflection. In the context of Adult Education and Popular Education we would have to contemplate children and adult education inside and outside school. 

1. In relation to what Vera says: “In this context, I consider fundamental that Adult Education benchmarks cover not only outcomes but also inputs and processes defining conditions that can guarantee outcomes. These ones should be graded in an ample way, considering education as a human right”.

I think that the great challenge is how to include benchmarks in the context of public politics and also in the context of initiatives of civil society.
Working now in the field of public politics, I can see how big are the difficulties for those who are the responsible, to bring consensus related to methodologies and processes.

2. In relation to another subject that Vera points out: “In relation with the adult education, in many cases, the program evaluations takes the responsibility of “proving” that the system is efficient, gets good results with low costs, etc, otherwise the program isn’t worth it. This happens because the education right for adults does not have the same degree of recognition and legitimacy”.
My question is: When will Adult Education be understood as inclusive and permanent, and won´t be limited to literacy? What can we do to achieve that goal?

3. There is an issue that I would like to include in this Seminar to work on it: How could we include two basic subjects: Environment and Gender Equity in the global benchmarks of Adult Education?

Regards,
MOEMA L. VIEZZER

 

 

 

 

   
 
 
 
   
  
     
 
   
   
      
 

The Process of Developing and Using the International Benchmarks on Adult Literacy

David Archer, ActionAid International
June 2007 david.archer@actionaid.org

 

In 2004 / 2005 the Global Campaign for Education decided to conduct a survey of good quality adult literacy programmes in order to produce a credible set of benchmarks on adult literacy that could be used internationally. This process was timed to coincide with the EFA Global Monitoring report on adult literacy  and we secured funding from Unesco to do the work. The idea came from the EFA Fast Track Initiative indicative framework and benchmarks  which had proved influential on donors to education but which only focused on primary schooling. We wanted to do the same for adult literacy  and also specifically to help the GCE develop positions on adult literacy five years on from Dakar when many people felt that GCE had followed the donors in being overly focused on primary schooling.

There were four key moments in the process of developing the benchmarks:

1. In November 2004 about 100 key informants from government, donors, NGOs and academia identified good quality adult literacy programmes around the world - specifically programmes that target over-15 year olds.

2. These named programmes were then asked to complete a detailed survey to give us insight into the approaches they used and the challenges they faced. We received responses from 67 adult literacy programmes across 35 countries, between them reaching over 4 million learners.

3. A group of 10 “experts” then met in a workshop in London to analyse the outcomes and draw up a list of proposed benchmarks.

4. These benchmarks were then circulated to all respondents for verification and comment. Final revisions were then made to the benchmarks based on the feedback from 142 respondents in 47 countries. Respondents came from countries as diverse as China, Brazil, Peru, Guatemala, Nigeria, Ghana, Namibia and Ireland. They came from a wide range of key people in multilateral and bilateral agencies and from international NGOs, national NGOs, social movements and academics.

The result was a set of 12 simple benchmarks (see appendix). These were designed to help governments who are committed to developing adult literacy programmes. They did not themselves aim to convert or convince sceptics  although we hoped that the case for investing in adult literacy came through. Rather, they aimed to provide a framework for policy debate. They touched concisely on critical issues that need to be considered in designing an effective adult literacy programme. We thought the benchmarks might also be used as a checklist against which a government or donor might ask questions about an existing or new programme.

We were very clear that we did not expect the benchmarks to be used as a set of conditions to be imposed on programmes.
“They should not be used to constrain or limit programmes. There may be contextual factors that justify deviation from these benchmarks. Our intention would be to ensure that such contextual factors are manifested clearly in a dialogue that uses these benchmarks as the starting point. The benchmarks are not an end-point in themselves. This is particularly important in the context of a sector like adult literacy where flexibility is often key and standardisation can be a problem. It is this very fear that has perhaps prevented this sort of exercise from being conducted before”.

The benchmarks were published in a GCE report: “Writing the Wrongs” in which the process was explained in full and the rationale behind each benchmark was articulated, using statistics from the survey, examples and quotes from respondents. The EFA GMR included the GCE benchmarks  though we felt they were somewhat lost within such a vast publication. There was a clear contrast between the GMR and the GCE report. The GMR was undoubtedly a comprehensive analysis of the adult literacy sector but was not a document that would realistically be read by any policy makers or practitioners … it was not user friendly. The GCE report was short and the benchmarks laid out on a single page could be used in practice to stimulate debate and reflection.

Writing the Wrongs was published initially in English and later in French and Spanish, in each case being accompanied by a simple poster that displayed the benchmarks. These were distributed widely. Through the national education coalitions affiliated to GCE the benchmarks were launched in about 20 countries on International Literacy Day 2006.

However, there are limits to how far any material, even simple benchmarks, can be internalised by Ministries of Education without some continued pressure. For this reason we organised a major international workshop on the benchmarks in Abuja in February 2007. In preparation new research was commissioned from Vietnam and Tanzania, analysing the national literacy programmes in the context of the benchmarks  and showing how they could be used in practice.

60 participants from 24 countries came to the Abuja workshop including Ministers of Education, Permanent Secretaries, Directors and Managers of National Literacy Programmes, United Nations officials, donors and civil society organisations.  After four days the participants were all fully committed to “writing the wrongs” in the field of adult literacy. They issued a call for action at national and international levels. Nationally they called for new literacy surveys to reveal the scale of the literacy challenge; national dossiers to show evidence on the benefits of literacy; new national dialogue on literacy policies and practices using the International benchmarks, and the inclusion of adult literacy in education sector plans, especially those submitted to the Fast Track Initiative. They made specific calls for action from Unesco, the World Bank, FTI, the IMF, donors and others.

The Abuja participants are now committed to follow up the Abuja workshop, maintaining pressure at all levels. This has all helped to cement the benchmarks in international and national discourse. Inputs on the benchmarks are being made at major international meetings including the regional Ministerial meetings convened by the UN Literacy Decade. Much more remains to be done but it is clear that the benchmarks have helped to re-galvanise dialogue on adult literacy in many contexts where there has been little interest for many years. And we are seeing new money on the table. In May 2007, the FTI endorsed a sector wide education plan for Benin  the first plan that they have ever endorsed which includes a significant investment in adult literacy. We are now promoting the message to all countries developing sector plans for FTI endorsement that adult literacy can and should be included. At last we might see a reversal in the decades of underinvestment in adult literacy  and a recognition of the pivotal role that adult literacy plays in human development.

 

APPENDIX: The BENCHMARKS

The benchmarks that are set out below are designed to facilitate a more rigorous policy debate about literacy, especially with governments, funding agencies and practitioners. They have been developed by experts in adult literacy from around the world and are based on responses to a global survey of effective adult literacy programmes.
 

1.      Literacy is about the acquisition and use of reading, writing and numeracy skills, and thereby the development of active citizenship, improved health and livelihoods, and gender equality. The goals of literacy programmes should reflect this understanding.

 

2.      Literacy should be seen as a continuous process that requires sustained learning and application. There are no magic lines to cross from illiteracy into literacy. All policies and programmes should be defined to encourage sustained participation and celebrate progressive achievement rather than focusing on one-off provision with a single end point.

 

3.      Governments have the lead responsibility in meeting the right to adult literacy and in providing leadership, policy frameworks, an enabling environment and resources. They should:

-       ensure cooperation across all relevant ministries and linkages to all relevant development programmes,
-          work in systematic collaboration with experienced civil society organisations,
-       ensure linkages between all these agencies, especially at the local level, and
-       ensure relevance to the issues in learners’ lives by promoting the decentralisation of budgets and of decision-making over curriculum, methods and materials.
 

4.      It is important to invest in ongoing feedback and evaluation mechanisms, data systematization and strategic research. The focus of evaluations should be on the practical application of what has been learnt and the impact on active citizenship, improved health and livelihoods, and gender equality.

 

5.      To retain facilitators it is important that they should be paid at least the equivalent of the minimum wage of a primary school teacher for all hours worked (including time for training, preparation and follow-up).

 

6.      Facilitators should be local people who receive substantial initial training and regular refresher training, as well as having ongoing opportunities for exchanges with other facilitators. Governments should put in place a framework for the professional development of the adult literacy sector, including for trainers / supervisors - with full opportunities for facilitators across the country to access this (eg through distance education).

 

7.      There should be a ratio of at least one facilitator to 30 learners and at least one trainer/ supervisor to 15 learner groups (1 to 10 in remote areas), ensuring a minimum of one support visit per month. Programmes should have timetables that flexibly respond to the daily lives of learners but which provide for regular and sustained contact (eg twice a week for at least two years).

 

8.      In multi-lingual contexts it is important at all stages that learners should be given an active choice about the language in which they learn. Active efforts should be made to encourage and sustain bilingual learning.

 

9.      A wide range of participatory methods should be used in the learning process to ensure active engagement of learners and relevance to their lives. These same participatory methods and processes should be used at all levels of training of trainers and facilitators.

 

10.     Governments should take responsibility to stimulate the market for production and distribution of a wide variety of materials suitable for new readers, for example working with publishers / newspaper producers. They should balance this with funding for local production of materials, especially by learners, facilitators and trainers.

 

11.     A good quality literacy programme that respects all these benchmarks is likely to cost between US$50 and US$100 per learner per year for at least three years (two years initial learning + ensuring further learning opportunities are available for all)

 

12.     Governments should dedicate at least 3% of their national education sector budgets to adult literacy programmes as conceived in these benchmarks. Where governments deliver on this international donors should fill any remaining resource gaps (e.g. through including adult literacy in the Fast Track Initiative)

 

Contribution from Cecilia Alemany
Social Watch - Uruguay

 

In March 2005 Social Watch developed a Benchmark for the 5-year Review of the Millennium Declaration. The Benchmark was a tool for advocacy and position-building.

Social Watch is a network present in 70 countries and position-building is always a challenge and the electronic communication is the main way to do it. In this sense, we need to be clear on our strategic goals and the tools to achieve them. Social Watch was involved in the critical analysis and progress measures of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) since 2000 and the 5-year review was identified as an advocacy opportunity at the UN level.

The “advocacy” opportunity: From 14-16 September 2005 the implementation of the Millennium Declaration was assessed in the light of developments that have taken place since its adoption in 2000. The benchmark was a key advocacy tool in September and during the preparations for the review in the preceding months.

Key principles: the first part of the benchmark was an introduction to the political momentum and the core text of the benchmark was based on the key principles defined by SW. The main subjects for which WS requested a review or redefinition were raised, and the reasons or critics were argued.

Concrete proposals: The main challenge was to develop concrete proposals for each one of the areas set as a priority. Concrete demands and calls were raised to United Nations member governments, and the arguments concerning the means available for this purpose were explained.

In this case, the benchmark’s basis was, on the one hand, the accumulation of discussions and debates on ODM in which SW had taken part and, on the other hand, the researches and publications developed by the SW research team. These elements were the basis for a draft that was sent round among the members of the network in order to receive contributions and recommendations. In this way, we obtained a shared document that was sent round among counterparties and allied who adhered to the benchmark.

One way to advance in the building of policies orienting recommendations is to start from the key principles and to visualise how they would reflect in policies if they were implemented. The ideal is to identify simultaneously the resistances that may arise as well as the strengths and positive effects of these policies recommendations and how reality could be changed depending on the application or not of the recommendations proposed.

The results of the use of SW Benchmark are certainly more than those identified by the network, but they can be sumarized as follows:

- The use of a common benchmark to be used at an international level was the basis for the claims of national groups before their governments and for some regions (Europe, mainly).
- The annual report of the United Nations Secretary-General submitted to the General Assembly on Septembre 2005 quoted some passages of the SW Benchmark.
- The international press took up some passages of the Benchmark that had been quoted on SW newsreleases.
 

 

LEARNING AS CITIZENSHIP:
THE REENCHANTMENT OF “ANOTHER” EDUCATION
Contributions to CONFINTEA VI

Jorge Osorio Vargas
“Citizens´ Foundation for the Americas”
 

                 
I would like to share with you some points of focus for a debate in preparation for Confintea VI.

In this opportunity, I would like to recover two registries. One lies in context with the policy crisis, and the other in relation to the crisis formed by the disposition taken in exercising citizenship. These deficiencies have in turn given way to an outburst of new voices also in the field of education: the possibilities of a democratic policy where “lifelong learning is citizenship” and the reenchantment of the “other” education which is focused on the schooling received by each individual.

Perhaps the most decisive issue for a reflection on the actual education and  lifelong learning policies (Delors 1997) may be the stressed relationship between the economy and the citizens´ way of life. 
In the context of the economic globalization and the modernization of communication technologies, the expansion of the human power on the everyday form of life and on the “civility” of social relationships is an issue that puts the very idea of democratic modernity at risk.
        
What does citizenship mean? And, what form of education is needed in order for an active citizenship to be freely exercised?

With the Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century, chaired by Jaques Delors, it appeared in the educational introspection a paradigm of citizenship based on the right of lifelong learning for all.  This vision, centered on an optimistic vision for the possibilities of the knowledge society, suggests the social distribution of power and the demand for the foundation of an educational city conscientious of post-industrialist discriminations, as well as being able to construct a new altruism and a concept of cooperation and solidarity in the process.

This planetary notion of a society and an education without exclusions emerges like an ethical horizon, which marks a new “moral estimation” for education. According to Delors, citizenship is learning, as a right, as a possibility of cooperation, as a cultural creation, as a democratization of knowledge and an opening to a supportive way of living. 
        
Since we are living a cycle supported on an “instrumental rationality” of the educational policies, the approaches exposed by Delors open a promissory window to view education from a reconstructed modernity with the hopes and the sensibilities of the new century.
It is spoken about more and more of a new “education agreement or contract” to articulate education, productivity, and citizenship in neo-modernity. It has been maintained (by Tedesco) that the key issue of education lies in the citizenship, knowledge and skills that demand citizen education and the institutional ways through which this education  process is to  take place. 

According to Tedesco, the situation to be resolved is whether or not nowadays school itself, which was created as a socializing institution par excellence, will remain so in the future and whether “learning society” will require the same institutional design in the future.
The productive, social, and communicational changes have strained the school paradigm which was capable of mobilizing society from a school which emphasized its “functions” to a vision of understanding the end of education to mean all that had social utility over the individual education as a citizen-individual. In this horizon of evaluation, citizenship becomes possible if there is a communicative and intercultural education.

The Delors Report is very clear at the time of proposing the programme for this new education:

-       The education policy must be sufficiently diversified and must be so designed as not to become another contributory cause of social exclusion.

 

-       The socialization of individuals must not conflict with personal development. It is therefore necessary to work towards a system that strives to combine the virtues of integration respect of individual rights. 


-       Education cannot on its own solve the problems raised by severance (when this happens) of social ties. It can however be expected to help to foster the desire to live together, which is a basic component of  social cohesion and national identity. 

 

-       Schools cannot succeed in this task unless they make their own contributions to the advancement and integration of minority groups by mobilizing those concerned while showing due regard for their personality.

 

-       Democracy appears to be progressing taking forms and passing through stages that fits the situation in each country. Its vitality is nevertheless constantly threatened. Education for conscious and active citizenship must begin at school.

 

-       Democratic participation is, so to say, a matter of good citizenship, but it can be encouraged or stimulated by  instruction and practices adapted to a media and information society. What is needed is to provide reference points and aids to interpretation so as to strengthen the faculties of understanding and judging. 

 

-       Is the role of education to provide children and adult with the cultural background that will enable them, as far as possible, to make sense of the changes taking place. This presupposes that they are capable of sorting the mass of information so as to interpret it more effectively and place events in a historical perspective. 

 

-       Education systems must meet multiple challenges posed by the information society, keeping in mind the continuous enrichment of knowledge and the exercise of a citizenship adapted to the exigencies of our time.
 

Alain Touraine, in his book “Will we be able to live together?”, provides the evidence of the most relevant dilemmas of nowadays education. As the industrial society doesn´t have any interest on citizenship education, there are arising new possibilities for an “education of the Subject”. 
        
Touraine supports the following theory:
        
“When the individual stops defining himself as a member or as a citizen of a political society, when he sees himself mainly as a worker, education looses importance, because he has to subordinate to the productive activity and to de development of  science, techniques and well-being. Some people already feel the temptation of considering education only as a preparation for life, which is defined as active, and of considering it from below, that is, as a consequence of the demands and the capacities of the market. But, at this point, can we already talk about ideas on education? Surely not, because that attitude means not to have into account all the educators demands, which are worried about their personality, their lives and their personal projects, and about their relationship with parents and mates. 
We cannot speak of education when the individual is reduced to the social functions that he should adopt. Furthermore, the future of work is so unforeseeable and will be so far removed from what most of those now in school have learned, that the first thing we need to ask schools to teach is preparedness for change, rather than specific skills that will probably be obsolete or useless for most of them before too long.  We could even add, in a more negative way, that it is dangerous to want to adapt young people to a situation of the economic society that implies a great possibility of being unemployed. So, nothing must prevent us from reflecting about the type of education that can help to resolve the effects of “remodernization” in which we are immersed, and to strengthen the possibilities of individuals of being the Subjects of their own existence”.                 
        
The recovering the modernity values (the “remodernity”) up to the educational level, led Touraine to the concept of   “school of communication”. According to him, education should point to the development of the capacity of acting and thinking in the name of the subject’s creative freedom, which can only be developed by being in direct contact to intellectual, technique and moral constructions from the present and the past. 

The education of the individual is more influenced by the cultural creation than by the adaptation to programmes or to an economic or administrative definition of professions. Following this registry, the programme of this beginning of century must be the one of the “democratizing education”, with the mission of strengthen the ability and the wish of being the “actors-readers of the social reality” of the individuals and teaching to every one to recognize in the Other the same freedom as in oneself, the same right to individual identity and to defend the right to identity-diversity, the exercise of human rights and of the “right to difference”, the exercise of the environmental citizenship and the respect to the gender equality. 

COMMENTS

Hello everyone,

We are finishing our first virtual seminar on Benchmarks, sending the last comments we have received. Tomorrow, Tuesday 10, will be the closing date, so all comments that may arrive will be put on ICAE‘s website so that everyone can have access to them. They will serve as the basis for the second seminar that will be organized after the Benchmarks’ working group meeting at the UNESCO Institute in Hamburg.

We thank and share the contributions from Imelda Arana of REPEM-Colombia, for her interesting synthesis, from Jorge Jeria of the University of Illinois, who bases the importance of defining Benchmarks, from Yoko Arai, graduated from IALLA I who, from Japan, helps us to incorporate different perspectives, and from Ahmadullah Mia from the Bangaldesh Dhaka Ahsania Mission who will certainly contribute to our next seminar with concrete proposals.
We take advantage to correct Menaka Roy’s introduction that should have read ‘independent researcher’.
Regards,

Cecilia Fernandez


From Imelda Arana
REPEM-Colombia

Hi Cecilia,

I spent the whole Sunday reading all the contributions made from different regions and talking about different experiences.
I have learned a lot as well as enjoyed them because their different approaches and points of view showed me the diversity and complexity of our way to CONFINTEA VI.
I got shocked in a positive way by the contribution of Rene Raya clarifying the concept of benchmark together with other opinions which could lead us to elaborate a consensus about the ways of facing it from the civil society, in the very sense of the term, just not to be a power interest of the great ones and not to separate from the elaborations made by agencies, United Nations offices and other spaces, where the power of decision is concentrated.
 
Hortensia Coronel is very encouraging when she emphasises the