The Middle East is in the process of embracing adult education as an important component of lifelong learning.
With the stated aim of improving adult education in the region, a conference on ‘Closing Gaps, Opening Opportunities: Adult Education and Lifelong Learning in the Middle East’ was organised in Amman, Jordan by the Regional Office Middle East of the Institute for International Cooperation of the German Adult Education Association (dvv international) from 27 to 29 November 2012.
The purpose of the conference was threefold

• To leverage adult education to enhance employment and social development
• To recognise adult learning achievements, and
• To support adult education providers

Over 80 participants, including senior government officials from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, and Egypt, as well as experts from key national, regional and international institutions and networks attended the conference. Princess Basma`Bint Talal, founding patron of the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development, inaugurated the conference. In her address, Ms Madhu Singh, Senior Programme Specialist at UIL, advocated that ’Developing Quality Frameworks for Recognising Adult Learning Achievements’ should be an essential component of support environments in adult learning. She also presented a short background on UNESCO’s Recognition, Validation and Accreditation of Non-formal and Informal Learning (RVA) guidelines. UIL and the dvv Regional Office Middle East committed to continue their close collaboration in future, with UIL planning further meetings in the Arab region for implementing the UNESCO RVA Guidelines. More information: Article in the Jordan Times.

By Laila Azzeh. As a communication skills trainer, Samira Siouf felt that she “lacked something” despite her many years of service. Working at the Queen Zein Al Sharaf Institute for Development for eight years, Siouf said that she was “good” at what she was doing, but could not attribute the communication methods she was teaching to their corresponding social sciences.
“It was teaching by experience, rather than by knowledge,” she told The Jordan Times on Wednesday.
After getting the chance to attend a three-month intensive course held by the Institute of International Cooperation of the German Adult Education Association (dvv international), Siouf said she felt more “confident” and better equipped to “fulfil the requirements of her job”.
Siouf was among 25 beneficiaries who received training under the Adult Education for Development programme, which was highlighted at a conference titled “Closing Gaps, Opening Opportunities: Adult Education and Lifelong Learning in the Middle East”, which opened on Wednesday.
Addressing the conference, HRH Princess Basma underlined the importance of the adult learning approach in building societies, ensuring the participation of everyone in the development process and eliminating poverty and unemployment.
“Lifelong learning was one of the strategies that we adopted in the work of the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development [JOHUD], but we used different names to describe what we were doing,” the princess said, noting that developing the capabilities of human resources was one of the terms used to refer to the fund’s activities. Read more...

The United Kingdom Green Building Council has released a new sustainability search engine called Pinpoint, a tool that allows users to search, filter and post reviews about sustainability tools, courses, guidance, benchmarks, case studies, etc.
The project has been possible thanks to the increase of sustainability information now available to people working in the construction and property industry, and wants to provide a framework for organizing what already exists – getting the user from A to B as easily as possible, and enabling an exchange of views between users on the resources available.
Pinpoint has been developed with the help of a Task Group of industry representatives, which scoped what information was currently available and how best to present it in an easy-to-use format. For more information follow this link.

In this article the author explores the evolution of tertiary educational institutions in three South American states, including non-university options along with their systemic differences and similarities and their contributions to higher education in the region.
Diversity and Diversification in South America
Over the last few decades, different social and production needs have given rise to new types of higher education institutions outside the university sector. This process of diversification has led to an increase in education alternatives and a re-conceptualization of higher education beyond the scope of universities.The higher education landscape within most countries has changed as a result of institutions’ growing diversification. Many of the ‘new’ providers have been built on the foundations of earlier models with limited research traditions (e.g. teaching and technical schools) and have a ‘specifically regional mission’ (OECD, 2007, p. 36). The early stages of the diversification process were strongly influenced by the French system of écoles normales supérieures, which served as a model for the establishment of escuelas normales or teacher-training colleges. Such institutions spread rapidly throughout the region from the second half of the 19th century onwards, particularly in Peru, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay (Ávalos, 2003; OEI, 2003). Read more...

In this article Victoria Kandel of the Universidad de Buenos Aires analyzes the tensions between the "citizenisation" model and the traditional conceptions of professional training.
In recent years, slogans and definitions concerning the ‘social responsibility of universities’ have been circulating internationally. These formulations attribute a fundamental role to universities in terms of complementing professional training with knowledge and experiences related to citizenship. This proposed new relationship between universities and their environment raises a number of questions: why should universities educate students as citizens? Is it possible to accomplish this? What tools are available to pursue this objective? Moreover, although there are points of consensus on this issue, there are also tensions between the ‘citizenisation‘ model we describe and traditional conceptions of professional training. We describe some of these tensions and conclude by offering a series of suggestions that could serve to frame further discussion and decision-making aimed at making the university a space where students are educated for engagement in civic life.
In recent years, slogans and definitions concerning the ‘social responsibility of universities’ have been circulating internationally. These formulations attribute a fundamental role to universities in terms of complementing professional training with knowledge and experiences related to citizenship. Universities have also been criticised for being ‘ivory towers’, that is, for maintaining a degree of isolation, over the course of many years, from everything going on in their environment. Read more...

In this article Dine Brinkman of the Wageningen University, describes the evolution, tasks and scope of the Team Intercultural Dialogue and explores its relevance and main results.
The Team Intercultural Dialogue has been created by the Executive Board of Wageningen UR to advise on intercultural issues and to strengthen the dialogue between the richness of cultures within the Wageningen UR community. Both staff and students participate in the team. Intercultural dialogue is defined as a process that promotes an open and respectful interaction between individuals and groups with different cultural backgrounds. The Team has developed plans to create the conditions for intercultural dialogue and suggest solutions for problems in the event they occur. Read more...

The current Lifelong Learning Programme ends in 2013. Erasmus for All is the new programme proposed by the European Commission for education, training, youth and sport. It would start in 2014.
EAEA is urging all members to react to the Proposal. On this page we follow the procedure and offer useful resources to act in national and European levels.
Background
European Council endorsed Europe 2020 Growth Strategy in June 2010. The reform agenda aims to assist Europe overcome from the crisis, coming out stronger through a strategy for inclusive, smart and sustainable growth. Education and training are at the core in reaching the aims of Europe 2020. The planned regulation, Erasmus for All, sets out the provisions for a new single programme covering education, training, youth and sport.
Key Legislative Documents

• Commission's Legislative Proposal: Erasmus for All
• Commission's Communication on Erasmus for All
• Committee for Education and Culture Draft Report, Rapporteur Doris Pack
• Amendments for the Draft Report proposed by MEPs

EAEA's statements

• EAEA Response to Commissions proposal
• EAEA Statement on the Draft Report of Committee for Culture and Education/Pack Report
• EAEA press release on Erasmus for All vote at the EP Committee on Culture and Education.

Donations to British universities increased 8.5 percent, to $890-million, last year, boosted by new efforts to encourage schools to engage with alumni, the Financial Times writes. The annual Ross-Case report on higher-education philanthropy in Britain found that 204,000 people gave to 150 institutions that were surveyed in the 2010-11 fiscal year, a 10 percent rise from the previous year.
The study credited a three-year, $320-million “matched funding scheme” aimed at promoting alumni relations as a contributing factor in the income gain. Schools that took part in the program backed by the Higher Education Funding Council of England, a public body, boosted donations by 130 percent. The elite universities of Oxford and Cambridge continued to dominate the sector, taking in 44 percent of 2010-11 donations. In other education news, a Rice University alumni has contributed $25-million toward the Houston school’s planned social-sciences building, the Houston Chronicle reports. Read more...

By Nicole Wallace. University of the People has an ambitious goal: to use the Internet to provide an extremely low-cost college education to students around the world. And the nonprofit’s big idea is starting to gain traction with grant makers. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $500,000 to support the university’s effort to gain accreditation. The grant comes on the heels of recent awards by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Intel Foundation, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Since its inception in 2009, University of the People has enrolled 1,500 students from 132 countries. Courses are taught by professors from around the world who volunteer their time, and the university offers degrees in business administration and computer science.. Read more...