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LIBERAL ADULT EDUCATION:
FINNISH APPROACH
R. Kuosmanen
In what ways does Finnish adult education differ from the practices of many other developed countries? One essential difference is that vocational and general education are being developed side by side. Other countries often assume that it is enough to offer the adult population sufficient opportunities to develop their professional skills through continuing or further education. In Finland, as in the other Nordic countries, general adult education maintains a central role throughout the systems designed to promote lifelong education. This presentation will briefly describe the challenges facing liberal adult education - the broadest of the general adult education sectors - in the near future.
The most important distinguishing characteristics of liberal adult education are the following: (a) Each provider is free to decide on the goals and contents of the education it offers. If they wish, students may also play an important role in shaping the contents and all other aspects of their studies. Students know best what they need to learn. (b) Liberal adult education is mainly paid for by the national government. In addition, local municipalities provide a great deal of financial support. The goal is that study fees would not pose an impediment for anyone wishing to study. (c) Liberal adult education has been born out of the need to educate people for democracy and equality. By its very existence, in turn, liberal adult education supports the democratic system by questioning undemocratic tendencies in all areas of life.
Governmental Committee has prepared a report entitled “The Joy of Learning: a national strategy for lifelong learning”. This report outlines the basic principles of Finnish adult education policy which are being followed presently and in the coming years. The three central tenets, which influence all strategic decisions, are the following: (1) People’s intellectual and spiritual growth has an intrinsic value, and should support their development and competence in different aspects of their lives. Education should not be forced into having mere instrumental value in the service of any objective such as economic gain. Intellectually and spiritually strong and balanced people are best equipped to fill their roles in their families, workplaces, in political and other organizations, and as creators and consumers of culture. (2) Education has a central role in helping to maintain and develop the foundations of Finland’s international competitiveness, especially its human competence. A great challenge in this context is making education better correspond to the changing needs of a rapidly changing working life. (3) Adult education must improve national cohesion. Citizens must be able to trust that education does its part to increase social togetherness and solidarity. For this principle to be realized, adult education must not promote the division of people into class-A and class-B citizens. Competence and know-how must not exclusively accumulate in the few, but must be the right of the whole people.
For a long time the response to the growing need to learn has been an increase in the provision for education though educational institutions. However, this expanding and continuous need in society can only be responded to
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sufficiently by improving the facilities for learning in both the teaching provided in educational institutions and other living environments. There in no one way of creating a learning society; not even primarily by the exercise of government authority. As lifelong learners, each and every citizen is in a key position, but so too is the purposeful activity and collaborative effort of local communities, nongovernmental organizations, working communities, labour market organizations, educational institutions, provinces and the State’s various administrative divisions.
Learning is a source of joy. Studying involves effort. Sometimes life can teach you a hard lesson. Yet the basic message of lifelong learning is not to plod compulsively throughout one’s life as a reaction to mounting demands. Learning and particularly learning together, is fulfilling when it helps to solve genuine problems and when it helps to develop the good life, creativity and cultural skills, improved abilities and a strong sense of citizenship. There is a need for a new, inspiring and even passionate vision of learning as an enabling force. The learning experience can be a source of joy for everyone throughout their lives, everyone can make greater use of their intellectual resources and everyone can take pride in their improved skills. What is learnt unhappily, is happily forgotten.
Developing skills as a source of strength. The Committee (Joy of learning) sees the future as one where Finland’s greatest asset and key to success are those people and communities that actively develop their skills. There is a wide consensus in a skill-oriented society that no-one has monopoly on thinking. The hallmark of such a society is the realisation of people’s joys, desires, skills through lifelong learning. The emphasis on education shifts to the advancement of learning. A nation which learns in this way will develop better skills openly and successfully not only in the context of educational institutions but in all context of learning: learning in workplace can be complemented by learning throughout active citizenship and learning at leisure. The information superhighway opens up new and unprecedented possibilities. Knowledge never did anyone any harm.
Educational and cultural policy is the key to the future. ‘Whatever the level and whatever the task, lifelong learning is required that, together with humane, socially and ecologically sustainable development, will create a skilled society that makes life worth living, furthers employment and is even successful in a period of transition. Knowledge is the beginning of wisdom.
Whatever programme of liberal adult education an individual might be participating in, the purpose of learning always lies deeper than just learning some specific knowledge, skills or attitudes. Liberal adult education always strives to help the participants to experience their lives as increasingly meaningful. This can happen in two ways: a) an individual’s self-image must become more coherent and stronger, and b) people must experience their relationships with other people and with life in general as satisfying and rewarding.
People can make their lives more meaningful when they learn to utilize the entire range of their functional capacities. It is good for individuals to actively participate in a few things, but they must also be able to retreat into silence to listen to their deepest thoughts and feelings. Most of the time, however, individuals as learners are somewhere between these extremes, developing themselves in a rich and varied way through participation in one or more learning projects.
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Liberal adult education bases its activities on the fact that participants come to their classes voluntarily. They stay only if they are satisfied and find joy in learning. It is therefore an ongoing challenge for liberal adult education to develop its quality to correspond to people’s ever-changing learning needs.
Liberal adult education wishes to work with people’s creativity. Creativity, however, has many forms and is not only limited to or manifested in the studies of the various arts. Creativity can just as well be found in social solidarity and in the ability to empathize rather than in the ability to paint or sculpt. Creativity can also manifest itself in doing and organizing, just as well as in acting or interpreting a piece of music. In its widest sense, creativity can manifest itself anywhere where people are fulfilling themselves while respecting the humanity of others.
From what I have said above, we may note that the world of learning offered by liberal adult education is very wide-ranging in principle. This is true in practice as well. In various liberal adult education institutions it is possible to study the widest imaginable variety of subjects and skills. They truly are warehouses of learning, offering something for everyone. Supply, however, also requires demand. In the “Joy of Learning” report mentioned earlier, it is very clearly assumed that all adults are themselves ultimately responsible for their learning just as they are responsible for other aspects of their lives. Educational institutions also do many other things for the learners in addition to offering them their provision. They inform the public widely about their activities, and offer guidance in planning one’s studies. They can also give financial assistance for studies and in some cases help organize child-care for parents during class.
Studies which deal with society and the immediate community and those which improve different communicative skills are very important for citizens, who must be able to make independent decisions and choices in their own matters and in societal issues. In order to operate as equal members of a democratic society and influence decision-making actively, they must be able to understand a wide range of societal, economic and social questions. Furthermore, in a democratic society each individual has the right to develop his or her own personality, knowledge and skills. There are also various phenomena in our society which threaten its balance and social cohesion, such as growing income differences, exclusion due to unemployment and other similar reasons and an unsympathetic attitude to the growing multiculturalism of our society. Adult education has a balancing effect in this respect.
Finnish and Russian societies are under intensive change process, too. Common learning process and cooperation could be highly beneficial in this situation. During the organizational change process the City of Helsinki Adult Education Centre has learned already that changing values, and ways of thinking is always a big challenge, because they are an outcome of long evolution. But adult education centers can play an important role in consolidating the social change process. We propose to join our efforts and start a common learning process in the frames of adult education project. A concrete possibility is to start creating a new model of adult education centre, which would support implementation of our social strategies towards a consolidated, creative society in 2020.
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