Adult education is never neutral. Educators are providing knowledge, organising education and encouraging change based on the social, political and cultural situation and priorities in the society and country at the same time acting in a global world.

Adult educators take responsibility for being open to and responsible for personal development and social intervention. Engaging in adult education means interaction, which should be based on the democratic values of exercising freedom with responsibility, the values of tolerance and solidarity. Adult educators should help identifying and valuing the educational potential in diverse social practices.

Therefore

European adult educators are invited to participate in the further training course "Towards becoming a Good Adult Educator" in:

23 - 27 of October, 2006 in Vilnius , Lithuania

24 - 28 of November, 2006 in Balatonszepezd , Hungary

The course is a product of the project "A Good Adult Educator in Europe " - curriculum development project: AGADE N^o 114092 - CP - 1 - 2004 - 1 - EE - GRUNDTVIG - G11

The project comprises the partners´ discussion of the curriculum development based on the Minimum Set of criteria for a good adult educator and designing the core curriculum of the course at the European level, which can be complemented and adapted for the use in the partner countries.

The project aims at improving the quality and access to the European adult educator training courses in the partner countries and at the European level. The main aims of the AGADE project are the following:

* Testing and improving the approach of the curriculum building based on the Set of Criteria for a good adult educator.

* Acquiring the methodology of adult education www-based courses and building face-to-face and www-based (blended learning) education modules for adult education practitioners

* Strengthening the adult educator network in Europe through providing a Grundtvig 3 course with an international team of trainers as the main output of the project.

The project has identified four groups of criteria for adult educator practitioner:

1. Roles - in different learning situations adult educator acts accordingly as a teacher, guide, facilitator or trainer.

2. Personal development - the personal characteristics, which adult educator needs and should develop are self- esteem, tolerance, responsibility, communication skills, empathy, flexibility.

3. Professional development - adult educator should have:

и knowledge about how adults learn and understanding of the psychology of adults

и knowledge of methods in AE and learning

и skills in preparing value-based (democratic and humanistic) education programmes

и planning and organisational skills

и good knowledge of the subject

и ability to motivate for learning - before, during and after the learning process

и development of learning environment in accordance with students´ needs, focussing on self-directed learning

и skills to activate learners

и skills in self-reflection and critical thinking

и skills in evaluating and promoting self-evaluation in oneself and the learners

4. Professional development in the web-based environment - The distance education (DE) teaching with it´s special needs is different from the classroom teaching (CT) in the way that there is no visible direct communication. This means that there are several additional criteria for being a good adult educator:

и active interest - Means that the moderator according to the scheduled behaviour takes contact with all group members with the aim to get an answer or contact. A kind of searching activity.

и process linked - Means that the moderator has the grip of the group dynamic and continuously gives the actual feed-back to all the group members

и checker of the troop - Means that the moderator cares of all delays, reconnects the group members according to the scheduled behaviour

и being the social "magician" - Means that the moderator checks the social situation of the individual members regarding to the individual achievements and reconnects to the set goals

и being the master of the necessary techniques - Moderator should at any occasion be able to give the correct answer to technical problems and furthermore give suggestions on different ways of working that would make the work easier.