A boost for adult education - but forgetting the third sector

The Danish government has boosted adult education, but with an exclusive focus on formal and job related education. Non-formal education receives none of the new funding. On the contrary it has been cut on several occasions over the last 6 years.

By Michael Voss (Infonet)

"If you have ever listened to a slaughterhouse worker telling about the first time he was able to read a bedtime story for his little daughter, you cannot help getting somewhat moved today." That was the introducing word of a Danish MP, when the Danish parliament discussed a new law for doubling the number of participants in the Preparatory Adult Education (in Danish FVU).
FVU is training in literacy skills and basic numeracy, arithmetic and basic mathematical concepts.
The projected doubling of FVU-participants is financed by the so called Globalization Fund, passed by a majority in parliament in 2006. Over a period of 6 years the Fund is supposed to make Denmark more competitive and able to cope with the conditions of a globalised world. Starting with 270 million Euro in 2007 (1 Euro = 7.5 Danish kroner) and finishing with 1.350 million Euro in 2012.
A part of this money is earmarked for adult education, varying from 20 million Euro in 2007 to 75 millions in 2010 and then 30 millions in 2012.

Most of the funds will be used for job related formal adult education. Not only is non-formal adult education almost totally excluded from the Globalization Fund programmes. The non-formal sector of adult education has for more than five years experienced one cut in funding after the other.
In 2001 the new governmental majority decided to half the public funding of evening school classes. Approximately 1.800 evening schools offer non-formal adult education.
In 2005 the parliament decided to cut away the 30-40 million Danish kroner that NGOs for years had received for adult education and information in Denmark about development problems and aid.
Since 2000 government funding of the consultant work and the education of AE-teachers, that national AE federations offer, has been cut from 26 million Danish kroner to 6,6 Danish kroner.

Commenting in parliament on these figures the Danish Minister of Education said:
"The reason for this development is a rigorous priority of qualifying education, which means that it has been natural to look into how much the state can support the leisure time not-competence-giving part of the educational sector."
Equating non-formal adult education with non-qualifying education with no competencies provoked the chairman of the Danish Adult Education Association, Per Paludan Hansen, to write a comment in one of the major newspapers accusing the government of lacking competencies:
"Are competencies without formal marks of no importance? Don't you obtain competencies in non-formal adult education? What is the problem with competencies obtained in your leisure time," he asked.
Per Paludan Hansen referred to the EU definition of key competencies, including competencies that are mostly not included in the diplomas of formal education, for example communicative competencies, learning competencies, intercultural competencies and social competencies.
The chairman also insisted on the non-formal sector's special ability to attract people with no or little education to adult education and to motivate them for formal education, too.
The Minister of Education never replied to this article.

On top of all this non-formal adult education is heading for another funding problem. For many years the national federations of the evening schools and the Danish Adult Education Association have received most of their funding from a special Fund, financed by the surplus of the Danish gambling monopoly, Danske Spil. Also Danish athletic and sport and cultural activities are subsidized by Danske Spil.
But in these years the monopoly of Danske Spil is being undermined by foreign private gambling companies competing on the internet. At the same time the EU-Commission is preparing to take the Danish government to the EU-Court, because the government will not liberalize the gambling market.
With no monopoly the surplus of Dansk Spil will of course diminish and there will be less for sports, culture and non-formal adult education. This is a big challenge for non-formal adult education in Denmark in coming years.