MODEVAL AND THE RECOGNITION OF INFORMAL LEARNING

Grundtvig, a decade of European innovation in adult learning

In January, we had the opportunity to present the results of Modeval at the conference «Grundtvig, a decade of European innovation in adult learning. The presentation was made in the workshop "Recognition of non-formal and informal learning: towards innovative changes in formal educational systems ". The Modeval system of evaluation and training of adults is designed not only as a remedy but as a complete system linked to individual development and place in the social system. We have stressed that the assessment should enable trainers to develop training courses available to adults struggling with basic skills. An important issue that concerned the validation is how to integrate this system and these results in the process of formal recognition. We insisted on the necessity for policy makers to put into place ambitious policies on adult education, but also to harmonize the educational processes in the EU and to consider the dual approach Bottom Up and Top Down.

The Lisbon objectives and Modeval

The European Union has recently published a paper related to the achievement of the Lisbon objectives in relation to benchmarks. It is interesting to note that since 2000 the educational performance has greatly improved in many areas. Somehow the EU is closer to its goal of becoming a knowledge society extremely powerful. Nevertheless there are still gray areas and some benchmarks that may never be reached, especially regarding the low levels of qualification and skills of reading and writing. For example, the percentage of poor readers is increasing in many European countries with extremely large values for some of them. This situation reinforces the need for efficient tools for evaluation of knowledge and skills to baseline levels, and especially to train teachers so they can act at the operational level, with people in difficulty. Otherwise it seems obvious that the goals of democratic participation and citizenship may well remain a dead letter for many of our fellow Europeans. The approach Modeval2 focuses on the real world in its social dimension of literacy. The results provided by PISA2006 strengthen us in this determination Far from a "politically correct” approach of illiteracy, we must develop tools that enable actors to act on what is often called the" social divide "

PEER LEARNING ACTIVITY on BASIC SKILLS

The 24th of March in Oslo, we have been invited by the EU Commission to have a reflexion about how to integrate the skills acquired in an informal way into formalized evaluation processes. In our speech the following issues have been considered: Knowledge, skills, competences, attitudes, capabilities, key competences, validation, certification, recognition, social inclusion and work inclusion as well as the public concerned and the concept of literacy. It was a good opportunity to disseminate the proejct and to remind the main principles of adult education including a real andragogical approach. We have told the participants that according to the Modeval philosophy, recognition is the main element of validation of skills and that literacy fundamentals are not the same for all persons. We have provided some suggestions to stake holders and to the EU Commission and we hope to be heard:

• To be aware of the contradiction between the need of a Bottom-Up approach to achieve the LLL objective and the reality of a Top-Down approach which is currently destroying the andragogical approach because of its technical answer to human/learning process
• To be aware of the contradiction between the need of a Bottom-Up approach to achieve the LLL objective and the reality of a Top-Down approach which is currently destroying the andragogical approach because of its technical answer to human/learning process
• To create LLL structures in the EU countries able to apply the Grundtvig and Liberal education principles
• To train the trainers and to provide them a EU recognition