EAEA is annually awarding a Grundtvig Award for an outstanding product/project result in Adult Learning. The award focuses on different themes each time.
GRUNDVIG AWARD 2008
The first Grundtvig Award in Adult Education was launched in 2003 by EAEA in order to recognise and celebrate excellence in adult education. The Award was to be given to the organization or participants who presents the best product of a transnational project in adult learning. Adult education projects which at least one Transnational partner were eligible to enter a product for the award, and products included videos, photographs, books, power point presentation, slides and posters, and so on. Indeed any product that is accessible to the public, that is presented in a comprehensible way, and that may be useful and/or transferable to others was eligible to enter this competition.
This was called the Grundtvig Award in Adult Education, after NFS Grundtvig, the Danish educator who has been centrally influential in the development of adult education, and non-formal adult education in particular, in Europe and the worldwide. Grundtvig has also provided the adult education sector with a foundational philosophy that underpins much of the work in lifelong learning.
The symbolic significance of Grundtvig´s small beginnings and the momentum of the movement in adult education is also central. We hope that this award will be the first of many, which will reach out to every region in Europe, and will inspire the practitioners, providers, participants and all concerned to value their work, and to link more closely with one another.
Grundtvig´s thinking on the connections between social movements and personal learning is also very important. Grundtvig laid the ground work for the development of centres of learning, in all kinds of contexts, from residential educational institutions to money and agricultural co-operatives. He linked intellectual and cultural growth with group development, a prelude to civic relationships.
Grundtvig´s emphasis on the intrinsic value of learning, as a foundation to living useful and enjoyable lives is central to the adult education that EAEA are promoting, with its focus on basic skills, valuing learning and active citizenship. Grundtvig highlighted the connections between the real human lives, as lived in the real world, and the peoples´ situations as citizens. This is central to the work of EAEA, and it echoes our contribution to adult education thinking in Europe.
Grundtvig Award 2008
