Task force report on adult education survey

European Commission Eurostat

Description

Population and social conditions
Education policy
Target audience: Specialised/Technical

Sujets

• Adult education
• Statistics
• Computer networking
• Report

Informations

• Publié par: EUROPEAN-COMMISSION-EUROSTAT
• Nombre de lectures: 41
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Task force report on
adult education survey
THEME
Population
EUROPEAN and social
COMMISSION conditions
2005 EDITION
The views expressed in this document are the author’s and do not necessarily
reflect the opinion of the European Commission.
For more information about this publication: Agnieszka Litwinska
European Commission, Eurostat Unit D5, Office BECH-B2/394, L-2920 Luxembourg
Tel.: [phone] – Fax: [phone] – E-mail: [e-mail]
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Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2005
ISBN 92-894-8565-5
ISSN 1725-065X
© European Communities, 2005


PREFACE

Adult education is today recognised as an essential enabler of economic growth and social
development within the rapidly evolving knowledge based society and economy of the
European Union. This is particularly so in the context of an ageing labour force and
internationalisation of activities.
Adult learning is one of the key components of the Lisbon strategy. It is a major factor for the
improvement of human capital of citizens after leaving initial education and is therefore a key
element of both Employment, and Education and Training policies.
Consequently, the EU requires the collection of broader and higher quality statistical data on
adult learning, in order to inform policy making, policy monitoring and benchmarking
activities at the international and European level. Recent reviews of available data at the
national level carried out for Eurostat, confirm that national initiatives, where they exist, are
not at this time harmonised at the EU level.
Eurostat undertook in 2000, in parallel to the Lisbon Strategy issued by the Council, to
operationalise the concepts needed to achieve a harmonisation of statistics on lifelong
learning. Two task forces the task force on measuring lifelong learning (2000-2001), later
succeeded by the task force on the Adult Education Survey (2002-2004), were created with
the active involvement of EU countries, as well as non-EU countries (Switzerland, Canada)
and international organisations (OECD, Unesco Institute for Statistics, International Labour
Office) having experience and interest in the field.
The present report is the final contribution of the second task force, whose objectives were to
explore the feasibility and the requirements for launching an EU Adult Education Survey.
This report has been presented and endorsed by the group of Directors of Social Statistics in
September 2004. On this occasion, a large majority of EU member states were in favour of
launching a first adult education survey in 2005-2007.
This important achievement could not have been achieved without the high quality work
performed by the successive task forces. Eurostat wishes to express its gratitude to the
delegates who participated to this debate.


Luxembourg, 15 February 2005
Michel Glaude
Director
Single Market, Employment and Social statistics


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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE................................................................................................................................................................................3
TABLE OF CONTENTS........................................................................................................................................................4
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.......................................5
1. BACKGROUND..........................................................................................................................................................7
1.1. LIFELONG LEARNING IN THE EUROPEAN UNION..................................................................................................7
1.2. EUROPEAN UNION STATISTICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM ON EDUCATION AND LEARNING (ESIS/EL).................9
1.3. ORGANISATION OF WORK OF THE TF AES ........................................................................................................12
2. OBJECTIVES OF THE ADULT EDUCATION SURVEY – POLICY NEEDS .................................................14
3. SURVEY SUBJECT AND OUTPUT.......................................................................................................................16
4. A SURVEY OF SURVEYS.......................................................................................................................................18
5. CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS...........................................................................................................................19
5.1. TF AES GLOSSARY - THE NEED TO SPEAK A COMMON LANGUAGE ....................................................................19
5.2. CLASSIFICATIONS FOR LIFELONG LEARNING19
6. GENERAL OUTLINE FOR EU ADULT EDUCATION SURVEY.....................................................................25
6.1. SURVEY SPECIFICATIONS...................................................................................................................................25
6.2. SURVEY CONTENTS............26
Module AA - Background information .............................................................................................................27 B - Self-reported skills.......................................................................................................................28
Module B – Social and cultural participation ..................................................................................................28
Module C – Participation in education and learning access............................................................................28
7. SURVEY METHODOLOGY...................................................................................................................................30
7.1. DEFINITION OF THE POPULATION.......................................................................................................................30
7.2. REFERENCE PERIOD...........................................................................................................................................30
7.3. METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION ........................................................................................................................31
7.4. SAMPLING DESIGN..............31
7.5. SAMPLE SIZE......................31
7.6. QUESTIONNAIRE.................32
7.7. MEASUREMENT ERRORS.....32
8. DESCRIPTION OF THE SURVEY CONTENTS..................................................................................................34
8.1 BACKGROUND INFORMATION (MODULE AA)....................................................................................................34
8.2 SELF-REPORTED SKILLS (MODULE AB).............................................................................................................37
8.3 PARTICIPATION IN CULTURAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITIES (MODULE B) ................................................................37
8.4 PATION IN EDUCATION AND LEARNING/ACCESS (MODULE C) ...............................................................38
8.5 CHARACTERISTICS OF EACH LEARNING ACTIVITY (MODULE D)........................................................................42
9. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE AES ........................................................48
9.1 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FIRST AES................................................................................................................48
9.2 WORK PROGRAMME FOR AES IN 2004 ..............................................................................................................48
ANNEXES ................................................................................................................ 50


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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Task Force on Adult Education Survey (TF AES) has been created at the request of the
Directors of Social Statistics of the European Union with the mandate to reflect on the
development of a harmonised reporting system on education of adults from the perspective of
the individual which could take the form of a specific survey. The TF AES continued the
work of the Eurostat Task Force on measuring lifelong learning (TF MLLL) which had
produced its report in February 2001. The TF MLLL has already proposed the contents of a
European Union Adult Education Survey. It should include demographic and socio-economic
information on the individuals and their (self-reported) skills, on their participation in
cultural, social and civic activities, on their participation in learning activities and on the
characteristics of learning activities in which the individual person has participated. This
information should cover all types of learning activities (formal, non-formal and informal)
according to the European Union definition of lifelong learning. Additional central
recommendations were to cover all adults o