AINova is an AE organisation in Slovakia that coordinates the Designing Modern Policy of AE project as part of a national project for the implementation of the EAAL in the 2018–2020 period. The project’s objective is to prepare proposals and recommendations for designing a modern and effective EA policy system and its implementation in practice. They aim to improve the level of participation of adults in Slovakia in lifelong learning and bring it closer to the EU average by 2020.
There are 12 partners at the national, regional and local levels: MESS, the Society of Adult Education Organisations, associations in the areas of culture, career counselling, universities, schools and individual educational organisations.
The project has three phases:
- monitoring – analysis of the state-of-affairs in the area of adult education in Slovakia;
- evaluation – data gathering and analysis as well as their comparison to the data from other countries (Slovenia and Estonia) and the EU (EAEA);
- proposals to politicians – formulated by the partnership.
The seminar upon the conclusion of the first phase entitled Adult Education in Regions of Slovakia was organised by the coordinator AlNova on 14 and 15 March in the town of Svätý Jur near Bratislava.
It was attended by approximately 50 representatives of project partners from Slovakia who were joined by their counterparts from the main national and local organisations, experts in the fields of formal and non-formal education. They presented their work and results of the first phase of the project and outlined the good practices in Slovakia. Gina Ebner, Secretary General of the EAEA, focused on the preparation of a new background for financing AE at the EU level (Erasmus+, ESF) and the role of the EAEA in these activities. As the representative of the SIAE, I presented the system and situation in Slovenia, while my colleague Tania Jääger, President of the Association of Organisations for Non-formal Adult Education in Estonia, presented these two aspects in her own country.
The second day of the seminar was devoted to a discussion limited to project partners and invited external professionals. We discussed the results of the first phase of the project and compared the situations in Slovakia, Slovenia and Estonia on various issues: the system of AE, practical experience and examples of good practice that would be interesting for the development of the AE model and policy in Slovakia.
You can read more about the project at AINova website and view the materials.
Andrej Sotošek, MSc (andrej.sotosek@acs.si), SIAE
