1 Conference on Adult Learning, Competence and Active

Conference on Adult Learning, Competence and Active Citizenship, 3-4
October 2006, Espoo, at the Hanasaari Swedish-Finnish Culture Centre
Adama Ouane
Director, UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, Hamburg
on
Transcultural Mobility, Identity and Challenges of Adult Learning
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I welcome the opportunity to make a presentation at this important conference
and particularly to share some thoughts on the subject of transcultural mobility,
Identity and challenges of adult education. My position of an international civil
servant or bureaucrat if you wish, in charge of lifelong learning in UNESCO and
my African origin will undoubtedly biase my presentation but will hopefully bring
another perspective or rather other perspectives in this European Forum.
I will also venture not to succumb to my research background and enter into
deep conceptual and analytical analysis of discourses and deriving models and
schools of thought and fights.
This conference on adult learning, competence and critical citizenship is very
timely and will greatly contribute to the agenda set by the EU and most
importantly to the goals put forward by UNESCO and the international
community, namely achieving the effective exercise by all of the right to quality
and empowering education by building learning societies aiming at peace and
prosperity for all human being irrespective of their origin and location. The
central questions to address are the following: the right to education and
learning for all, strategies to institutionalize and democratize LLL, the importance
of critical citizenship and the conducive factors for its implementation in view
particularly of the planetary dimension taken by mobility in a world both
promising and tumultuous, full of hopes but also facing risks and fears.
The movement of individuals, families and communities is part of human history.
What is new in migration in the 21st century is that it is accompanied by
globalization which has facilitated not only more people travelling but also a
more diverse mobile population. No region is untouched by receiving or sending
migrants. Along with “
success stories”and the accompanying remittances from
the migrants themselves, media has provided images of economic opportunities
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and possibilities of a different life. They have also often in real time zoomed on
situations and conditions forcing people to move as an act of survival and
resistance. What is new is the instant transport of events and realities to hitherto
isolated and disconnected localities. This is not a surprise today, but you may like
to know that there are not only high speed wireless polyvalent community
telecentres in Timbuktu but private internet cafes are mushrooming and there is
also at least one mobile telephone in each household. This has far-reaching
consequences for learning and mobility. What is also new is the questioning of
the premises under which the new Europe has emerged from the ashes of wars
and conflicts, namely the questioning of the human venture of making the world
and object of critical inquiry and creative action. This is particularly true of
Europe which is described and perceived as the greatest effort in modern time of
building a new community aiming to be the most competitive economy, a
knowledge and learning society based on its traditional non-negotiable values of
democracy, respect of human rights and freedom. Europe discovered and went
to other with a model to spread by force if required. Now others are coming to
Europe maybe because of its model but bringing with them their underlying
cultures, perceptions and understanding of togetherness, with their unfinished,
shifting identities in the making, their inherent human urge to know, to become
and their firm belief in community of destiny and community of solidarity. Many
will say today that this stand is naive and utopian. The new motto is opening to
business and closing to people with new centripetal and implosive inward looking
policies. The new entities thus created with large communities of people of
different cultural and social background have until now being unable, in very few
exceptions, to build new identities torned as they are between where they have
come from, their current station and the road to a common future. It is thought
in this context, that there is indeed a need to invent humanity, re-invent and rediscover ways to transcend the nations. As Habermas put it “
The artificial
condition under which national consciousness arose argue against the defeatist
assumption that a form of civic solidarity among strangers can only be generated
within the confine of the nation.” (Jürgen Habermas, The Postnational
Constellation. Political essays: Cambridge 2001, pp 102). I know that many of
you will disagree with that but it is worth giving it a serious and thorough
thought.
Last year alone, international migrants numbered 190 million, 115 of them found
in developed countries and 75 million in developing countries. Financially this is
translated into US$232 billion transferred as remittances in 2005, 72% of which
(or $167 billion) were sent back to developing countries. Migrants do not only
contribute to their families and their countries, they also bring their educational
qualifications and skills to their host countries. Data show that nearly 60% of
highly educated migrants living in OECD countries in 2000 come from developing
countries. Migrants are not only employed in menial activities, where their
presence seems welcomed. However, as the numbers show “
highly skilled
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persons constituted just under half of the increase in the number of international
migrants aged 25 or over in the OECD countries during the nineties”
.
Recognizing the critical economic contribution of migration to both sending and
receiving countries, a UN High Level Dialogue on International Migrations and
Development was convened two weeks ago (14-15 September) in New York. A
key document for this high-level dialogue is the Report of the UN SecretaryGeneral whose main thesis is that international migration “
constitutes an ideal
means of promoting co-development, that is, the coordinated or concerted
improvement of economic conditions in both areas of origin and areas of
destination based on the complementarities between them.
By establishing the trends on this new era of mobility, the report advocates for a
more nuanced appreciation of migration which means breaking off from our
stereotypes of migrants. For example, no longer does the vast majority settle in
developed countries as data show that while one third of the international
migrants have gone from developing country to developed country, an equal
proportion has moved from developing country to another developing country. In
other words, those moving from South-North are about as numerous as those
moving from South-South.
It is also no longer possible to divide ourselves easily into “
countries of origin”
and “
countries of destination”since countries may be sending their people as
well as receiving migrants at the same time. Countries like Ireland, Italy and
Spain, which not long ago sent thousands of their citizens abroad, are now
hosting thousands of migrants every year.
For the migrants themselves, no longer do they separate themselves as
thoroughly as they once did from the families and communities they leave
behind. Advances in communication technology and cheaper air tickets have
made it possible for many migrants to not only stay in touch more frequently
with their loved ones, but also to visit them and commute more often.
These trends supported by more compelling arguments from economic experts
and advocacy by leading business partners are far from convincing and calming
the growing fear surrounding the transcultural mobility. How are education
systems, education offers and particularly adult education addressing these
societal issues?
Given the above, one could say that for the 21st century, international migrants,
more than ever before, constitute a dynamic link between economics, culture
and society in our globalized world. The operationalization of such linkages,
however, poses a huge challenge. When migrants reach and finally settle in their
places of destination, they are confronted with a more complex reality. The
receiving countries and their respective communities are not as hospitable as
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their communities at home are. Jobs - if they are to be found at all- require a set
of competencies which they are not equipped with or too overqualify to perform
forcing them to enter into the training market. The people they come in contact
with come from diverse cultures and it becomes a challenge to relate to several
“
others”
. In Spain for example, an Africa migrant might find himself/herself living
amidst a South American community, working side-by-side Eastern Europeans
and meeting Asians.
Clearly, it is not only a question of the economics of remittances but also a
question of immigration policies and the fate of the migrants as well as the
receiving communities.
There is also the attitude of some sections of the native population of the host
country which consider migrants as competitors, not to mention the racist
overtones.
As the migrant population and the receiving countries face up to each other, they
realize that migration is not only about giving or taking jobs but it is also about
learning to live together peacefully. It is also understanding different cultures
and giving meaning from one own´s cultural perspective. Given the complexity
of encountering many different “
others”
, the task of inter-cultural learning is
indeed a key challenge for adult learning.
Identities are not fixed, they are a question of reconstruction and negotiations,
they are between “
ought”and “
is”
. Ideal identity is utopian, forever, not yetattained, vexingly elusive and always at odd with reality. Identity in some
discourses implies sameness and it is in such recognition that categories and
categorizations emerge. Seeking to promote social inclusion heightens awareness
of difference and social exclusion. The intrusion of so many foreigners or
strangers into the daily life of ordinary people is making hard the individual road
on the search of self and the connection to so many and different others.
Learning from the chaos thus created and learning to balance risks and
responsibilities is an imperative not well covered in the core curriculum that adult
education is bound to address in its constant quest for relevance and
acceptance. Even the strongest reference to the adventurous underpinning of
the European vision and the nurturing of curiosity is overwhelmed and defeated
by the scope, intensity and frequency of the encounter with the others. The
seemingly permanence, persistence and intensity of what used to be regarded as
provisional, passing and time bound is shaking the established roots, references
and comfort. To assimilate, to integrate and to adapt are among other the
demands made by leaders and the larger public to regulate this equation. I am
not going to dwell on the battles raging over these questions and the responses
and their achievements overshadowed unfortunately by their limitations.
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Some issues on the relationship between identity and learning have been
addressed in the UNESCO Faure Report of 1972 entitled “
Learning to Be. In
1996, the UNESCO Delors Report, presented the four pillars of lifelong learning:
learning to be, learning to do, learning to know and learning to live together.
These pillars of learning take a more urgent note in the context of transcultural
mobility where both the migrants and the host population have to confront
themselves with several different “
Others”even as the self or the “
I”is also in
the constant process of being reconstructed and reconstituted.
The question is not only how can but how is adult education addressing the issue
of transcultural mobility and identity.
Adult educators often make greater claim for the role of adult education in
promoting democratic values, pluralistic, reflexive action and critical and active
citizenship and helping thus to create a fairer, more equal society. These are
often normative statements directed mainly towards the end and self-proclaimed
goals of the programme and not really the means to achieve them or the
account of the results they have actually achieved.
The term adult learning will be used specifically to acknowledge and reflect the
proliferation and diversity of contemporary forms and sites of learning within a
global complex world. This does not mean seeing learning mainly in
psychological and individualistic term rather it reflects a need to give a wider
social and cultural context to a range of adult activities. Here I support a broad
commitment to social purpose learning with its baseline values of social justice,
greater social and economic equality, the promotion of a critical democracy and a
vision of a better, fairer world where education has a key role to play.
Adult education thus understood has to be connected with and be grounded in a
clear understanding of what citizenship means. It ultimately comes down to
exploring how programme offers mainly under the realm of citizenship are
blending ethnicity, language and other specificity or differences with national
goals and more importantly with the claimed primary goal of contemporary
societies to introduce, develop and nurture democracy as the only possible state
of affairs and governance between people.
A key and often neglected question is the exact relationship between adult
learning and citizenship. A rounded and fruitful conceptualization of citizenship,
as promoted by critical adult learning approaches has to embrace both individual
rights and political and other forms of participation as well as to analyze the
relationship between the two.
For adult education the challenges are then multi-fold. It is learning about
citizenship, learning through citizenship and for citizenship.
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- Learning about Citizenship: this is the traditional role of civics and it
often covers historical and cultural understanding as well as information and
discussion about rights and responsibilities and is mainly concerned with status
- Learning through Citizenship: this kind of learning draws on everyday
life. It is mainly incidental with elements of reflection and discussion of different
experiences of citizenship
- Learning for Citizenship: different modalities formal, non-formal and
informal of both individual and collective citizenship are explored to make
dynamic connections between citizenship as a status and citizenship as a practice
The citizenship education is more concerned with issues of social exclusion and
learning for social inclusion under which leap services are paid to trans-national
mobility and migration. At the best, the so-called migration background is evoked
and considered among the deficit and deviances to be fixed. In this connection,
several recent studies raised critical questions about the inter-relationship of
widening participation in social inclusion. The whole idea of widening
participation is being increasingly seen as some sort of social and economic
panacea or a convenient proxy for social inclusion.
In connecting adult learning and citizenship, four different overlapping
dimensions of learning for citizenship are identified: learning for inclusive,
pluralistic, reflexive and active citizenship along four axes situated in the
processes of action, reflection, communication and cooperation highlighted
through the triangle creativity, power and responsibility.
What I want to argue here following many others is that inclusion is primarily
positioned within a philosophy of identity that denies difference. Within this
stance, inclusion and exclusion are described as binary opposites, in which the
latter can be transcended to achieve the former. Inclusion can be overcome or
transcended by changes in the social and economic policies and practices
including LLL. Inclusion conquers exclusion.
Positioning education itself in any way either as the root of exclusion or maybe
even the route to inclusion suggests casual relationships that are clouding or just
in the way of other alternative analysis. Non-inclusion is not the same as
inclusion and we must avoid taking away the freedom of those who choose not
to be included. I am reminded here of the illiteracy of resistance, the refusal to
be literate and alienated in another language or culture l’
analphabétisme de
resistance developed by Serges Wagner from UQUAM, Canada. This does not
give the ground to accept the revendication by families of alternative schooling
to protect their children from contagious trans-national influences and other
related national or religious values or models which are then thought to be in the
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way or in blattant contradiction with their family identity, religion and core
values.
Monsieur le Président,
Mesdames, Messieurs,
La cinquième conférence internationale sur l’
éducation des adultes, cinquième de
la série connue sous le sigle de CONFINTEA, le rapport de la Commission
internationale sur l’
éducation pour le 21ième siècle, présidée par Jacques Delors,
le Forum mondial sur l’
éducation pour tous tenu à Dakar, Sénégal, en mars
2000, les objectifs du millénaire, les nouvelles décennies des nations unies
respectivement pour l’
alphabétisation et l’
éducation en matière de
développement durable, plusieurs études de l’
UE et la toute récente
communication de l’
Union Européenne sur l’
éducation des adultes, pour ne citer
que ces initiatives, ont souligné le rôle changeant de l’
apprentissage et la place
centrale que tient désormais la connaissance dans les industries du futur et les
sociétés de demain caractérisées par une très grande mobilité et l’
impératif
d’
apprendre pour changer tout en se transformant soi-même. CONFINTEA V en
particulier a marqué ce changement de paradigme et consacré le triomphe de
l’
apprentissage tout au long de la vie.
Les implications d’
un tel changement de perspective pour les politiques et l’
action
éducative, la nécessaire transformation des systèmes éducatifs et leur mutation
en systèmes ouverts d’
apprentissage et de formation, les défis nouveaux
auxquels sont confrontés les systèmes nationaux d’
éducation face à l’
émergence
des marchés du savoir et de la connaissance et leur conséquence sur la vie des
individus et la marche des sociétés doivent être examinés à la lueur de la
normalité que constituent la diversité culturelle, le multilinguisme dominant, mais
aussi à la lueur de la nécessaire mondialisation et de ses incidences sur la
nouvelle mobilité voulue ou forcée, désirée ou subie, acceptée ou méprisée.
Il n’
est pas dans mon intention de passer en revue ici la réaction des systèmes
nationaux à ce défi et surtout à la nouvelle mobilité transnationale qui s’
installe
partout en Europe. Dans la récente littérature on fait surtout référence à des
études longitudinale en Suède passant en revue trois moments de réaction de la
société (l’
indifférence, l’
assimilation et l’
adaptation) qui se sont ignorés et
opposés mais finalement abouti à une synthèse social stable. Le cas du Royaume
Uni et la récente politique du Danemark sont aussi couramment évoqués. Les
acteurs de ces politiques pourront en dire plus et mieux.
Quelques observations générales pour conclure :
1)
La solution des problèmes de mobilité, d’
immigration et de citoyenneté
par les approches sectorielles ou remediales portant soit sur les
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langues, la formation et le récyclage ne permettent pas de répondre à
ses défis même si la langue est un marqueur et un
support essentiel de l’
identité.
2)
L’
approche par les compétences et surtout les compétences-clés pour
répondre à ces défis doit obligatoirement mettre l’
accent sur
l’
apprendre à vivre ensemble, sur l’
apprentissage pour le changement
mais aussi et surtout sur la pensée critique, la créativité et la curiosité.
Sans ces dimensions ni l’
inclusion sociale, ni la maîtrise technique et
professionnelle ne peuvent être garanties et surtout démocratisée.
3)
Ces défis ont des implications sérieuses sur le rôle et la place de l’
État
et sa relation à l’
éducation des adultes. La nouvelle communication sur
l’
éducation des adultes éclaire bien cette dimension.
4)
Il y a deux lignes de programmes qui offrent un cadre approprié pour
aborder en profondeur de manière novatrice et holistique ces
questions, il s’
agit de l’
éducation dans les prisons, le micro-cosme de
tous les maux dans la société. L’
UNESCO et la Belgique vont joindre
leurs efforts pour une conférence mondiale sur l’
éducation de base et
l’
éducation tout au long de la vie dans les prisons. Le second domaine
de programme concerne la Validation des Acquis de l’
Expérience (VAE)
sans laquelle il n’
y a pas de système effectif d’
apprentissage tout au
long de la vie. Là encore UIL et la Commission française pour
l’
UNESCO sont en train de mener une enquête et une étude
internationale pour disséminer les politiques et pratiques novatrices en
la matière dans lesquelles l’
expérience européenne prendra toute sa
valeur.
To finish, I think that Adult Education should continue to dare. Fear and
intolerance cannot inspire creative policies nor can they guide citizenship and
form identities. Our main problem today, as recently underscored by former US
President, Bill Clinton in London, is the deeper and stronger believe even
conviction among a broader segment of world population and key-decision
makers that our differences matter more than our humanity, our communality,
our common values. This should be reverted and we should quickly and boldly
come back to the core European values. The forthcoming CONFINTEA VI –Sixth
International Conference on Adult Education – will provide the opportunity to
Europe to fill its leading role in this subject.
Thank you.
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