High quality education and training are important to promote smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Adult education can make a significant contribution to achieving this goal. Quality in adult learning is explicitly on the EU- agenda since 2006 and more recently made explicit in the Renewed European Agenda for Adult Learning (2011) which states that attention should be paid to the quality and efficiency of provision. In particular the agenda points at the importance of making better use of ICT to widen access and to improve the quality of provision and to explore and exploit new opportunities for distance learning.
The professional development and the quality of educators is one of the most important factors in shaping the quality of adult learning. Adult learning staff help learners to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes. But the traditional role of the educator increasingly changes into that of a coach, a facilitator and a moderator. New professional skills are required for working in new (online and digital) learning environments, to include learning strategies based on ICT (e-learning, blended learning) in the classroom, and to guide and support adult learners throughout their learning processes.
This is especially challenging as many courses in adult learning are not facilitated by qualified (formally trained) adult educators but by (motivated!) people from a variety of backgrounds, including teachers in compulsory education but lacking experience with adult learners, or experts with no educational background at all.
The AAA-StepUp2-ICT project’s target group are adult educators who are key to improving the quality of the adult education and who have a direct impact on the end users (adult learners). The AAA-StepUp2-ICT project focuses on building the ICT capacity of adult educators in their specific occupational context. It is mainly focused on training and workplace practices, not on curriculum and structures but aims for impact on the awareness of strategic and operational inclusion of the potential of technology for learning by adult education provider organizations.
