The last few months have demonstrated that non-formal adult education remains an area that needs constant lobbying and advocacy. We often take a step forward (like the renewed Agenda for adult learning) and then two steps back (the ‘Erasmus for all´ proposal).
The ‘Erasmus for all´ proposal is currently the main focus of the EAEA work, and we will see how long this process will last. It is easily possible that the decision will only be made in 2013, and we will monitor the developments and lobby all the decision-makers as long as it is necessary. We of course rely on you, dear member, to support us and lobby on the national level.
The second main European topic is of course the renewed European Agenda for adult learning. We will again rely on you to help us monitor how well the cooperation with the national coordinators works and how much progress is achieved, and we will make sure that the civil society view on the Agenda´s implementation is heard.
There are other events that will have an impact on our work in 2013, e.g. the publication of the PIAAC results (International Assessment of Adult Competences), which will probably lead to intensive discussions of Education and Training systems. This will offer us a chance to use these discussions for our advocacy work, but we will have to be prepared.
Some initiatives have proven to be very successful: we will continue working on our Grundtvig network on ‘Outreach - Empowerment - Diversity´ and we will offer another ‘Younger staff´ training course. We will also look into our membership and see how we can increase members´ satisfaction and recruit more members.
Taking this as a starting point, we have chosen to take a new direction for this work plan: in the past, we have always suggested the main topics and themes of the year. In order to have more input from our members, we will suggest a number of themes and you will have the opportunity to tell us your priorities at the general assembly. Based on your decision, we will choose the topics for our policy papers, conference topic and Grundtvig Award theme.
The EAEA executive board suggests the following topics (they are based of the priorities of the European Commission and UIL):
1. European citizenship (2013 will, very probably, be the ‘European Year of citizens´)
2. Basic skills (chosen as a priority theme for the Renewed Agenda)
3. Quality (chosen as a main cooperation topic between the European Commission and UIL)
4. Participation (as above)
5. AE in times of crisis (a topic the board is already dealing with in 2012, so the results could be further developed in 2013)
The work plan will show that EAEA will face some crucial changes in the upcoming year. I believe that we will make the best of these changes as long as we can rely on our members for support.
Sue Waddington
President of EAEA
