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EDUCATION OF PEOPLE OF THE «THIRD AGE»,
THE DISABLED AND OF OTHER SOCIAL GROUPS IN THE SYSTEM OF CONTINUOUS EDUCATION. NON-FORMAL EDUCATION
NON-FORMAL ADULT EDUCATION CONTRIBUTING TO LIFELONG LEARNING IN FINLAND
L. Saloheimo
The Finnish have always valued education highly. It used to be a means of social mobility for centuries until the 1980’s in this country. Today, education tends to ‘accumulate’ around particular individuals and groups. Those with quite a lot of education benefit the most. This challenges the national aims of equal opportunities in education, and conflicts even with the Finnish Constitution.
As a member state of EU since 1995, Finland is committed to implementing the EU startegies of life-long learning, but the concept is older - UNESCO launched it in the 1960’s. According to it, the learning of a hu-man being is not limited into any certain age or place, but he or she is able to learn and to develop his or her konwledge, skills, and personality throughout the lifespan and in the multiplicity of situations. The EU discourse has brought the aspects of competitivity and employability into the framework.
This article describes some of the challenges the Finnish non-formal adult education sector has been facing recently in offering the population possibilites for life-long learning. The perspective is that of a practitioner of the non-formal adult education.
The Comission of the European Communities defines formal learning as typically provided by education or training institutions, structured in terms of learning objectives, learning time or learning support, and leading to certification. It is intentional from the learner’s perspective. Non-formal learning accordingly is not provided by an education or training institution and typically it does not lead to certification. However, it is structured, in terms of learning objectives, learning time or learning support. It is intentional from the learner’s point of view. Informal learning results from daily life activities related to work, family or leisure. It is not structured, and it may or may not be intentional. (Commission of the European Communities, 2001.) In the Nordic countries where there is a strong tradition of institutional non-formal adult education, the definition of non-formal learning includes the learning taking place in the institutions, but the aim of learning is not a certificate or qualification, but it may be a better knowledge, understanding or mastery of the subjects studied, or more generally, better competences for one’s personal fulfillment or social participation. Nationally, the term liberal adult education (vapaa sivistystyo) is used for non-formal adult education.
Finland has a well-developed network of 330 non-formal adult education institutions, which operate today in the field of adult education but outside the
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formal or working-life oriented education. The network spreads all over the country, and has been built along with the Finnish nation-state and civil society since the end of the 19th century, almost 150 years. The folk high schools, the municipal adult education centers (originally worker’s institutions) and the study centers of study associations are the oldest forms and pro-vide the main part of the nonformal adult education. The summer universities (a sort of Open University) and physical education institutions are new comers in the network. It has been asked if all five forms of institutions are really necessary, but with their different backgrounds, histories, and profiles they perform different functions, and also reflect the pluralistic nature of the society. The nationally or regionally operating folk high schools are mainly internate schools for full-time studies of young adults. The local adult education centres offer night and week-end courses. The national study associations work often with social issues and co-operate with NGOs by providing them with educational services and resources. The regional summer universities offer academic courses in various subjects all year around, and physical education institutions organize full-term or shorter courses in different aspects of physical culture.
The essential features are the diversity of curricula, voluntary nature of participation and use of learner-based methods. The institutions set up their objectives independently and they have independent respon-sibility over the usage of the state subsidy. There are no pre-requirements for accessing the studies. The employability or competitivity are not emphasized, though, but the joy of learning, communality, and well-being. Learning as Cultural studies - arts, music, handicraft and languages - are the most popular courses, followed by humanistic and education studies, and then social, health and physical studies.
Equality and demographic challenges. Each year over one million participants take part in non-formal adult education. That is a very good result in a country of 5,2 million inhabitants. Most of the participants are adults between 18 -65 of age, but there are quite a lot of younger and also older people involved regularly. The majority (70 percent) are women. There is a strong tradition of women studying and developing themselves that dates from the era after the Second World War when Finland was industrialised in a very vigorous manner. Women are great consumers of education and culture today. Many women study languages, arts or social sciences as a hobby in their spare time.
It worries us a bit that men are missing from the groups devoted to nonformal learning. Men may be found at home reading newspapers, watching TV and surfing on the Internet, possibly participating in sports club activities or taking their kids to sports activities - or at work. Men do participate in work-related adult education (paid by the employer and taking place during the working-hours) more than women, a fact that may show a more instrumental motivation. It also shows that the contents or the methods used in non-formal adult education don’t appeal to men, especially in local adult education centres, summer universities, and folk high schools. Some of the adult education centres have recently started offering “real-man” yoga, mo-tor-cycle repair, wild game coockery courses etc., and have been able to attract more men to participate.
On the other hand, a Finnish professor of adult education has pointed out that even the men sitting by the holes in ice and fishing can find a myriad of
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challenges and possibilities for learning if they feel motivated. Life-long learning takes place everywhere, not just inside the walls of educational institutions.
Over the last decade, the non-formal field has taught the elderly Finnish people - both men and women - all over the country the skills needed in the information society. The social and other services are being moved on the Internet, and many of them are to be reached only via Internet, especially in the sparsely inhabited regions. In order to be able to take care of one’s financial affairs, to buy tickets for travel, or to use the services of the Social Insurance Institution, one has to master technical devices and to use the web. The first wave of educating elderly citizens has been completed, and the groups with the best motivation have been reached. Now the challenge is to motivate those with less readiness to learn new things and with a greater risk of marginalizing.
The demographic processes bring other challenges, too. The population is getting older and very soon there will also be masses of well-educated, well-to-do, retired people looking for meaningful activities. In the same time, the countryside is being emptied of people as they move closer to the cities and other centers and jobs. Many rural municipalities have already applied the non-formal adult learning services as a strategic tool for keeping the countryside alive.
Non-formal adult education is considered as public service. The nonformal adult education field has been economically well-looked after as the state subsidy covers approximately 45-60 % of the total costs of organizing studies. The rest is covered by the owners (municipalities, associations etc.) of the institutions and by the participants. The question of whether and how long non-formal education should be offered as a public service rises every now and then, especially in the municipalities, where the adult education centers have offered their people educational services close to home and with very easy access. The Parliament elected a year ago decided to cut the funding by 15 % this year. This means less hours of teaching, less courses, and possibly higher participation fees.
The fees are mostly still very moderate, but there is a constant discussion on the equality of participation going on - whether the groups most needing the possibilities of non-formal learning are left out because they lack the money. We know, though, that money might not the only reason that keeps some groups out of organized learning. For instance there is the part of population who links the word learning with the bad experiences they have had of school learning of their youth and who swears not ever to return into a class-room.
Political priorities - government steering. Ministry of Education and Culture has indeed pointed some political priorities for the non-formal field. The groups that don’t normally participate in adult education have been pinpointed -immigrants, retired, un-employed, small business entrepreneurs, men in the agricultural areas, groups in the danger of social exclu-sion or with learning difficulties. The government supports the education of the prioritized groups by granting a special subsidy to be used to cover the participant fees: participants coming from these groups are given a sort of study voucher. The priority groups for study vouchers in 2010-2012 are immigrants, un-employed, senior citizens with little education and people with learning difficulties.
The institutions may also apply for extra money for developing certain areas connected to negotiated national aims. In 2011 - 2012 the prioritized areas are
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such as the information society and social media; well-being and health; multiculturalism, sustainable development. The study centers - many of which are connected to political parties - focus on increasing and diversifying social participation and action, well-being and life-skills and sustainable development and multiculturalism.
The new Government Programme (2011-2014) and the Development Programme of Education and Re-search obligate the non-formal adult education for providing the elderly and immigrants with educational services. Cultural issues are seen as important, as significant immigration is still very recent in Finland. The new nationalistic movement opposing immigration is gathering followers very fast, though, and we are witnessing racism, too. The institutions offer voluntary integration education - language, cultural and citi-zenship studies - for immigrants, especially those outside the work-force. On the other hand, Ministry of Education and Culture has asked the non-formal sector to increase the amount of studies focused on active citizenship, social issues, multiculturalism etc.
The new government has also brought up some new ideas. One of the new issues is the social guarantee for the young people in order to conquer the increasing unemployment. The idea is to guarantee every-body under 30 completing an education and all young people under 25 young a job, an internship, an access into further studies or rehabilitation. The adult education centers and folk high schools may apply extra funding for organizing work-shop studies for young adults. Another new tool for life-long learning is the citizen’s personal study account, the preparation of which Ministry is investigating the moment. The idea is to create a system in which, following certain principles, citizens can build up a personal account to be used for voluntary studies of various kind.
Documenting the effects. We know from experience that the non-formal adult education makes a difference in the lives of the partic-ipants, but the results and the effects are documented very poorly; we need more research. A study by Saara Luukannel and Jyri Manninen of University of Helsinki (Luukannel, Manninen 2008), however, did show the positive impact of adult non-formal learning. The research material was collected through inter-views and an online questionnaire. The focus in the study was on the effects at an individual level, and the result showed increased enthusiasm to continue learning, mental well-being, increased knowledge and skills, improved self-esteem, improved general wellbeing, creativity, self-confidence, and improved general knowledge.
The results allow us to make some conclusions about the wider effects, too. Improvements in the content and quality of life, mental, physical and occupational well-being as well as the ability to cope with everyday life are reflected in the wellbeing of families and workplace communities as well as society at large. The results clearly show an increased desire to study and improved self-esteem and self-confidence, which sup-port participation in adult education. The development of active citizenships skills, which support the de-velopment of a civil society, is also noteworthy. The open answers in the online questionnaire emphasises the importance of international and intercultural skills and language knowledge as well as the opportunity to learn to understand other cultures.
A European project on studying the wider benefits of voluntary adult learning in nine European countries (BeLL Benefits of Lifelong Learning) has been started in the end
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of last year. One of the interesting points will be the comparison of effects of learning in different systems and circumstances of adult education. The coordinator is DIE (Deutsches Institut fur Erwachsenenbildung e. V.), and Professor Jyri Manninen, now of University of Eastern Finland, is involved in the project, too.
References
1. Making a European Area of Lifelong Learning a Reality. (2001) Communication from the Commission. Brussels: Commission of the European Communities.
2. Luukannel, S., Manninen, J. (2008): The effects of adult learning. The meaning and
significance of non-formal learning in the lives of adults. Palmenia Center of Continuing Education, University of Helsinki. The report in Finnish: http://www.vsy.fi/doc/Raportti_Vaikutukset.pdf. Abstract in English:
http://www.vsy.fi/en.php?k=14441
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