The Future of Education

The aim of education for all at any stage in life has allowed the creation of new spaces and educational moments favoring new dynamics of learning and social interaction that meet some of the recommendations of UNESCO [1] and the EU [2]. The focus on lifelong learning [3], such as the creation of new educational responses that contribute to the empowerment of people and communities, as well as the recognition and valuation of multiple contexts where people acquire and share their knowledge in order to achieve universal literacy, has guided the European policy guidelines. In this article we present some results of a lifelong learning project – PROALFA, which promotes literacy workshops, focuses on learning to read and write and are directed at elderly people in residential structures. The workshops are performed voluntarily by adults, in retirement, who are students of a senior training programme of a Portuguese higher education institution. The aim is to understand the main motives, expectations and the driving forces that leads them to participate in a voluntary way, in these educational activities, meet the participants of the workshop, interact personally with them and their literacy aspects. The data we intended to presente is based on a qualitative approach, using: i) techniques of semi-structured interview, for the 4 senior facilitatiors of the workshop; and ii) documentary research, for the characterization of the 16 participants in the activity. We can conclude that the need to share knowledge and experiences, mutually stimulate cognition and interaction with near generations, are the main reason that lead seniors to streamline a socio-educational activity. They hope that their involvement can help to maintain, for some, and increase, for others, the literacy levels of the project participants. In Portuguese society this project can be understood as a good practice adult education and the ederly of the future.

Keywords: Lifelong learning, literacies, seniors;

References
[1] Delors, J. (2010). Educação, um Tesouro a descobrir. Relatório para a UNESCO da Comissão Internacional sobre Educação para o sec. XXI. Brasília: Representação da UNESCO no Brasil, 2010.
[2] Conselho da União Europeia (2018). RECOMENDAÇÃO DO CONSELHO, de 22 de maio de 2018, sobre as Competências Essenciais para a Aprendizagem ao Longo da Vida. Jornal Oficial da União Europeia. Acedido a 29 de janeiro de 2019, disponível em: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/PT/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018H0604(01)&from=EN
[3] Ireland, T. & Spezia, C. (Org.) (2014). Adult Education in Retrospective. 60 years of CONFINTEA. Brasília: UNESCO, MEC. Acedido a 30 de novembro de 2018, disponível em: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000227635