By Martha Baxter and Bathylle Missika. Humankind has experienced more than two centuries of almost continuous progress since the Industrial Revolution, but will this trend continue? And as we prepare to adopt a new set of Sustainable Development Goals to guide our policy choices, how can we best capitalise on progress made while anticipating challenges ahead such as the youth bulge or massive droughts? A new report by the OECD Development Centre supported by the Rockefeller Foundation cautions that that a number of global trends could slow or even reverse the progress made. Securing Livelihoods for All: Foresight for Action looks at how the world’s livelihoods may change between now and 2030. More...

By Patrick Love. It’s the start of civilisation as we know it. The Neolithic Revolution I mean. That period around 10,000 years ago when we moved from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies. But why did we bother? After all, hunting and gathering was quite a nice life, especially for the hunters, who probably worked less than 15 hours a week (otherwise they’d have killed everything that wasn’t likely to kill them first), leaving most of the responsibility for the groceries to the women and children doing the gathering. More...

By Patrick Love. “There is no homogeneity in the solutions offered by industry to the two major issues of employment and retirement of the older worker, indicating not only the complex nature of the problem but also the lack of factual material upon which to base a solution.” That’s Dr W.M. Gafafer, writing in Public Health Reports in 1957. More...

By Patrick Love. Anecdotal evidence suggests there are loads of grumpy old men and women around. A new, evidence-based report from the OECD offers some clues as to why this should be. The media are full of articles about the best places to retire to, and the typical result is a small town in a largely rural county, near the sea and maybe a golf course. The reality, according to Ageing in Cities, is that nearly half of the over-65s in the OECD area live in cities. More...

The revision of the 1976 Recommendation on the Development of Adult Education requested by the Belém Framework for Action has reached its final phase. In accordance with UNESCO’s rules and regulations, a final report on the revision process has recently been sent to Member States together with a draft text of the revised Recommendation.
The draft will be submitted to the 38^th General Conference in the autumn for adoption. The document is now available online in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese. More...

UNESCO HQ, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), the European Training Foundation (ETF) and the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) launched the 2015 edition of the Global Inventory of Regional and National Qualifications Frameworks at the 5th Asia-Europe Education Ministers’ Meeting (ASEM ME5), which took place in Riga, Latvia, from 27 to 28 April 2015. More...

A total of 139 participants representing governments, NGOs, academia and education practitioners from 27 European countries and international organizations attended the second conference of the European Literacy Policy Network (ELINET), which took place in Budapest from 20 to 22 April 2015. The conference reflected the progress of the ELINET work programme, offered a selection of workshops and provided networking opportunities. UIL is a core member of ELINET, which links up 78 partner organizations in 28 European countries and is striving for the improvement of literacy policies in all member countries. More...

Within the framework of the Enhancement of Literacy in Afghanistan (ELA) 3 Programme, which is funded by the governments of Japan, Sweden and Finland, UNESCO Kabul and the Afghan Ministry of Education’s Literacy Department organized a three-day workshop in Kabul from 13 to 15 April 2015 in order to develop the core competencies for the literacy curriculum. More...

EUA has launched the Trends 2015 report, which presents the universities’ perceptions of the changes that have taken place in European higher education over the past five years, particularly in relation to learning and teaching. Based on survey responses of 451 higher education institutions from 46 countries (48 higher education systems), the report outlines the changing context in which higher education institutions operate.
In most EHEA countries, universities are coping with the consequences of the economic crisis, which in some places is paired with negative demographic trends and migration. The report identifies a number of steps taken by universities to respond to this context as well as to other European and international trends.
To download the report click here. More...

On Wednesday, 29 April 2015, the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with EUA and its European Platform of Universities in Energy Research & Education (EUA-EPUE). More...