Over45.net

Glossary

A new group of learners: This is a group of “learners” whose role will be more and more important within the European labour market, as the most recent documents of European Commission testify. Actually, the European objective to raise persons’ active age – as an answer to the actual demographic changes – will be obtained also thanks to an improvement of the available training offer, taking into account the exigencies of over 45 workers.
See, for instance, “Commission Of The European Communities Brussels, 2.4.2003 Sec(2003) 429 Commission Staff Working Paper” - in which the objectives of Stockholm and Barcelona are showed: to raise the employment rate of senior workers and to delay their exit from the labour market. For what concerns the importance to define suitable training policies to senior workers, see the communication of the Commission “Cohesion Policy in Support of Growth and Jobs: Community Strategic Guidelines, 2007-2013 - The development of lifelong learning strategies and systems including mechanisms such as regional and sector funds, with the aim of increasing investment by enterprises and participation of workers in training” – in which the exigency to increase low skilled senior workers’ participation in training and updating activities is clearly expressed.
The last report of the OCDE “Teachers Matter: Attracting, Developing and Retaining Effective Teachers” - June 2005 – strongly emphasizes the need to adequate trainers’ knowledge and competencies to a changing labour market: this document affirms that the development of trainers’ knowledge and competencies is a priority at worldwide level.
Informal learning: Learning daily life activities related to work, family or leisure. It is not structured (in terms of learning objectives, learning time or learning support) and typically does not lead to certification. Informal learning may be intentional but in most cases it is non intentional (or incidental / random).
Pilot Project: Actions managed by a transnational partnership aimed to develop and diffuse innovation in the field of vocational training. Pilot projects may concern a development of quality within vocational training, a promotion of new vocational training methods or new professional guidance in the framework of lifelong learning (Definition from Constitutive decision of the Leonardo da Vinci Programme 2000-2006).
Leonardo da Vinci Programme: Leonardo da Vinci (www.programmaleonardo.net) is the Action Programme of the European Union that aims to realize a policy for vocational training.
Lifelong learning: All learning activity undertaken throughout life, with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competences within a personal, civic, social and/or employment-related perspective.; According to Knowles, motivation represents an essential pre-requisite for adults learning.
Malcolm Knowles: Knowles can be considered as one of the most known experts in the field of adult learning. Knowles elaborated a typology of features of an adult learner, introducing in its learning theory two important dependent variables: persons age and experience. The interrelation among life experiences, age and learning defines the framework of learning itself, and drives Knowles to a progressive attention towards the uniqueness and the individuality of each learner, the qualitative dimension of the processes, the cases and the individual biographies. The cases, the biographies, the life histories, the learning contracts themselves represent a strong individualisation in the learning process. The valorisation of experiences, meant as individual and situational differences, gives a deep thickness to the dimension of learning context, that sometimes seems scarified by andragogy. Different experiences produce transformations in adults, even in the shape of reluctance towards development and learning, making them adults without autonomy, without any capability of self- realisation, without any trust in themselves.
People ageing: One of the most important problems that Europe is facing – and is going to face in the next future at both transnational and local levels-, concerns the management of people ageing, to which a worrying – and incoherent – tendency towards exclusion from the labour market of low skilled adult workers corresponds.
A recent study commissioned by the European Council shows a “spectacular” demographical evolution in Europe, characterised by two main dynamics: a fall down in the birth rate and an increase in life expectancy. Those factors interact, generating a radical transformation in the composition of the Old Continent population. According to the same document, within the 2020 the amount of European population will decrease; moreover, within the 2050 the number of persons in working age (15-64 years of age) will decrease in a percentage of about 18%, while the number of over 65 persons will increase of the 60%. Consequently, the ratio between retired and working persons will move from the actual 24% to the 50% within the 2050.
According to the evaluations made by the European Commission, within the 2030 the number of over 65 persons will move from 71 (figure related to 2000) to 110 millions, and population in active age will be of about 280 millions (while now it consists of 303 millions of persons).
Knowledge based economy: At the beginning of the last decade of the past century, the modus vivendi and the economies of the inhabitants of the whole planet begun to change under the effect of two main forces. Firstly the globalisation, meant as an increasing interdependence among the economies of the world and the raising of a “whole economy”; secondly, the technological revolution determined by Internet and the new Information and Communication technologies.
So the political leaders of the Union understood that it was necessary to radically modernize the European economy, in order to maintain its competitiveness towards the other big world protagonists. The European Council, met together at Lisbon in the March 2000, conferred to Europe a new strategic objective: “to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy of the world, able to realise a sustainable economic growth with new and better workplaces and a better social cohesion”.
So the European Council defined a global strategy for the attainment of such objective. The “Lisbon strategy” conglobates actions finalised to the promotion of scientific research, education, vocational training, access to Internet and online transactions. But also a reform of the European systems of social providence. Such systems are not able to provide the necessary stability to manage structural changes; it is necessary to modernize them so as to make them sustainable and enjoyable also by next generations.
Each year, in the spring, the European Council meets to check the progressions made in the implementation of such strategy.