A good two-and-a-half years after the EU's lifelong learning education programme began, the German National Agency has drawn up an interim balance and reflects current trends of the 2009 applications in the programme. GRUNDTVIG for general adult education. There is increasing demand for established forms of funding, affecting both learning partnerships and continuing education funding for individual workers in the field. Since 2009 the EU has put forward various new funding programmes. There ha…
Interdependence of context, selection criteria and usability of assessment methods Competence assessment is a broad field increasingly difficult to structure. The article distinguishes different assessment methods regarding their relation to different definitions of competence (competence as a collective term vs. competence as an organizing function), purpose of assessment (summative - formative) and objects of assessment (action - resources - reflection). There are contingencies shown which s…
The author presents the idea of Web 2.0 providing new opportunities for the political participation of citizens. First, he evaluates possible target groups. Corresponding empirical observations reveal a distinction between those who have arrived in the world of digital content and those who have not. Political education focuses on so called »digital outsiders« to avoid long-term representation deficits caused by an increasingly digitalized democracy. In conclusion, necessary competences of poli…
Continuing education at schools of higher learning – data on developments in the context of the Bologna process Wide-ranging, different and at the same time diverging factors are having an impact on schools of higher learning, causing uncertainty among staff as well as institutional insecurity. This also goes for scholarly continuing education. In general it would appear that there is a trend towards commercialisation of universities linked with a growing autonomy of sub-units, faculties and…
Cooperative education arrangements are confronted with manifold anticipations which can be subsumed as ‘synergy’. This article which presents qualitative-empirical partial results of a current research project, is dealing with the question how Volkshochschulen (folk high schools) which are part of an integrated cooperation, are broaching the issue of synergy and how they describe their handling with this demand of cooperation. There are five strained dimensions of synergy and a broad spectrum o…
The German Society for Promotion of Research at Old Age (Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Forschung im Alter – DGFFA) wants to give an impulse for the intensification of the discussion on those aspects of the demographic change, to which the universities/colleges would need to devote themselves to in due time, if they strive to consolidate their future viability in a society of lifelong learning. The presented suggestions in this contribution are components of a position paper that a wor…
Education for sustainable development is being practiced exemplary in Sweden, Finland, Great Britain, France and the Netherlands. This outcome is the result of the present attempt of a European comparison in sustainable education. Since reliable indicator systems are absent at present, with which one could measure whether a country practices sustainable development more efficiently than others, the estimation of the author is based on surveys with official institutions and conventional assessme…
In view of the demographic change the investments in education for elderly population are becoming increasingly more important. At the same time the educational system’s endeavours of repair are rather targeted at the very young. How can the educational investments be divided usefully between the old and the young? By showing examples of Scandinavian countries, the author elucidates a double strategy of high educational investments for the phase of youth and in adult life. The countries have su…
In modern society, the production of knowledge is multiplied and taken from the universities who were traditionally dedicated to this task, into the general public. The role of institutions of secondary education changes from diffusing to producing knowledge; teachers representing, in this context, the once-universal authority of science. Against this background, the authors present their DFGfunded project „Wissensgesellschaft. Umgang mit Wissen im Kontext sozialer Welten vor dem Hintergrund de…
In the area of scientific further education the international market situation is eminently conspicuous. The present text distinguishes with the example of Master Studies (Executive MBA Programme) four business models of foreign providers. (1) A foreign programme is exported as a complete package. (2) A foreign programme is offered with licence at a native national university. (3) Business-School-Alliances: a programme is offered in equal shares of two or more university institutions in differe…
