International Adult Learners Week
in Europe

Network of Learning festivals

Related Materials

• A set of tools to enrich an ALW or learning festival have been recently published by the UK National Insitute for Adult Continuing Education. Support and pragmatic tips are provided for regional coordinators in the "ALW Planning Guide". You might want to plan events for a special "Cultural Diversity Day Guide", or need some input to convince stakeholders about the benefits of ALW and its main components and "What's in it for me?" If you need help in finding arguments to motivate learners, have a look into "New Horizons".

• More than 300 participants from over 90 countries took part in the CONFINTEA V Midterm Review Conference held in Bangkok, Thailand, 6 -11 September 2003. The conference was organized by the UNESCO Institute for Education in collaboration with the UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education and with support from the Department of Non-formal Education of the Ministry of Education of Thailand, to follow up on the implementation of commitments and recommendations made at the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA V), held in July 1997 in Hamburg, and to prepare the ground for CONFINTEA VI, which will take place in 2009. The International Adult Learners Week brochure, reporting on the growth of the network and prepared with contributions and material from the network members was disseminated to all participants.

• In August 2002, a first survey on adult learners weeks in Europe was carried out, entitled The Role and Impact of Adult Learners Weeks and Lifelong Learning Festivals in Europe. An Assessment of European Learning Festivals as Tools for the Democratization of Lifelong Learning.

• The Learning Festivals Guide, published in the year 2000, was the collective product of coordinators of adult learners weeks from all continents. It is a pragmatic handbook to provide guidance to those who wish to organize and mobilize for a learning festival in their country. Following a workshop in May 2000 in which the groundwork for the publication was laid, it grew and was finalized through the input from a large group of individuals either already having sound experiences with the setting up of learning festivals, or posing the right questions as to what kind of information is needed to set up such a festival.