Promoting Third Age Education in the 50+ P3AE is a, ERASMUS+ KA2 project project co-founded by European Union and coordinated by LatConsul, RIGA. By and large older adult education seems to be less developed in the Nordic European countries: Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Baltic countries etc. The EUROSTAT researchers’ finding was that “in this area the North of Europe should be learning from the South of Europe”. Nevertheless the P3AE project opens the doors to equal exchange for all partners. In a true project, exchange is the most important act. It is never too early to learn from each other.
The main objective of this Erasmus+ KA2 project is to develop quality courses/educational programmes for older people and deliver them through an online platform developed in the frame of this project.
The end users of these courses/educational programmes are learners aged 50+ who would like to better understand their position in society, discover their European identity and individual ways of active ageing or would like to continue improving their language skills for better communicating and remaining integrated in society.
The two-year project will provide an array of blended courses/educational programmes. Using new technologies, older learners will be able to study at their own pace. They will have access to quality older adult education allowing them to keep up with the development of new technologies while improving their knowledge, language and communication skills as well as their confidence.
Inspirational specialised courses/educational programmes taking into account older learners’ needs, experience and aspirations will encourage older learners to either validate their experientially acquired knowledge or to acquire/ construct new knowledge in tune with contemporary social developments and needs. Moreover, they will improve their foreign language skills for travelling, meeting new people, places.
(Source: Karina Sirk and Dušana Findeisen, Slovenian Third Age University)
Personal Town tours ends up in the National Slavic Library in Ljubljana
Personal town tours was a successful Grundtvig project uniting older people who studied and created their own itinerates through their town. In Slovenia the project went on after the final project conference in the town hall. It has had many additional outcomes since then. The most recent ones are a lecture by Meta Kutin entitled Are bridges a place of urban living? The lecture was delivered n the central book store in Ljubljana. The preparation of the lecture was supported by older students. A film was shot and broadcast on national TV. An exhibition was opened up on the national Cultural Day at the Slavic Library in Ljubljana, opening up a new topic of male and female social position in urban environment.
And society. Did you know that in Ljubljana only 48 streets are named after women personalities, all others, some 1600 of them, are named after men. Slavic library added books and pictures of the women represented students of Slovenian Third Age University by their research.
Intergenerational centres have just started functioning
There are new intergenerational centres opening up all over Slovenia ,co.funded by Slovenian Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and ESS. They are open from early morning hours till 20. p.m. offering different educational and cultural events conducted by volunteers. They are a valuable labour market entrance ticket for younger generations and a place of living for the others, especially socially marginalised groups, those who are not used to attend numerous, active and very good local libraries.
New technologies support the exile from countries at war….
What are we doing in the project RefugeesIn cinema for social inclusion?
Refugees In, coordinated by AidLearn from Lisbon is an Erasmus K2 project co-funded by European Union. Slovenian Third Age University joined this project since it is a continuation of the outstanding CINAGE, European film for active ageing project in which were involved most the current project partners. We knew that our knowledge in this study area was rather limited and that a lot of studying would be needed, but we were also aware that a lot of knowledge associated with older people and their education as well as their social inclusion can be infered to the new study field: education of adult educators for understanding refugees, their culture, needs, and for shooting documentary films. So far, our research has generated several findings and generalisations.
What does exile, escaping from the atrocities of war, mean?
What does exile, escaping from the atrocities of war, mean? For instance, can we talk about the exile of Spaniards (these “strange strangers” said Jacques Prevert) in 1936 or shouldn’t we better use the plural form “exiles?” Namely, like active ageing which can only be an individual and subjective experience, utterly different for each of us, exile as well can be but personal, individual, unstable, depending on a number of refugee’s characteristics: age, sex, education, political activities, trade union activities, origin (from which country, region, town?) and depending on the political and other event in the host country.
Refugees’ identity can be constructed only through the eyes of the OTHER. Their identity is rather individual than social, group identity. Therefore one can only talk about each single refugee and not refugees, each single exile and not exiles in plural. Education and processes of inclusion should take this into account.
On the other hand refugees can be viewed and understood in a fair number of ways, not just one! The administration tries to organise soldiers who treat refugees in their military way, trying to maintain prison discipline in the camps. Local authorities can show coldness dealing with refugees. Local inhabitants can treat refuges differently as well: friendly, with compassion, hatred, despise, fear. . There can even be unhealthy curiosity, with some families observing refugees through the fence of the camps.
In any case, refugees exiled form their country at war are used to a certain type of light, certain noises, certain food which they cannot find in the new country. They feel to be somehow disturbing local people, but they cannot just melt into the new culture. In new places with new people they are searching what might be familiar to them. They cannot just become new men. This is simply not possible! They struggle to hear, since strings of words, let alone single words do not exist for them at the beginning Even physical environment with all the shops, inscriptions etc. can be agressive for them. Have you ever thought about this?
They remain connected with their families through new technologies and they more easily decide to become refugees. Oh, one thought more; “Exile is passed down to the descendants, from grandfather to father and son….
We Are Older And We Learn. Theory And Practice of Older Adult Education
A monograph that is meant to better older adult education
Ana Krajnc’s most recent scientific monograph is written in a language that is equally understandable for professional and general, truly wide readership. It is meant to be a guide to social developments; new capitalism, the new poor, demographic changes, the changed ways of learning which in the fragmented and changing society necessarily get more autonomous; the society inducing a different kind of older adult education. Today older adults have new motives for learning argues prof. Krajnc. This book dwells upon traditional theories like Paolo Freire’s learning of the oppressed or Paul Lengrand’s lifelong education but also on modern social learning theories, theories dealing with motivation and above all the author’s own research findings and generalisations drawing on her extensive reflected practice in the field of andragogy, adult education and older adult education. Krajnc, A (2017) We Are Older And We Learn. Theory And Practice Of Older Adult Education, Ljubljana: UTŽO, 260 pages.