Understanding civil society's role in lifelong learning

Dragoș Pîslaru, a member of the European Parliament and Chair of its Employment and Social Affairs committee, said that in order to meet Europe’s vast skills needs, ideology must be muted, dialogue with CSOs entrenched, and the work of the ETF supporting civil society engagement in skills development in the EU’s neighbouring regions promoted.

Without CSO actors who can deliver skills training at local level, “we have a big problem in implementing skills development”, he said, calling for structured dialogue and more best practice sharing across the Europe and beyond. Gina Ebner, secretary general of the EAEA, stressed that CSOs help to bridge formal and non-formal learning, they reach out to diverse groups of people, and know people’s skills needs. 

Manuela Geleng, Director for Skills in the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion at the European Commission, highlighted the importance of skills development whatever people’s age, and the important role that CSOs have to play in passing on the message. And Gina Ebner, Secretary General of the EAEA, stressed that CSOs help to bridge formal and non-formal learning, they reach out to diverse groups of people, and know people’s skills needs.

A diversity of learners

The first session focused on how CSOs address the skills needs of a diversity of learners. The importance of CSOs as service providers also came through clearly. Further, governments should not overlook the key roles of CSOs in implementing skills policies.

Anna Gherganova, a senior official in Moldova’s Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, described government initiatives involving CSOs in local skills provision for marginalised youth. Given capacity constraints, it is only by harnessing the capacities of government, CSOs and other social partners that skills development at scale could be achieved. Find out more from the interview with Anna Gherganova featured below. 

Monica Verzola is a board member of the European Vocational Training Association and vice-president of conference co-organiser the LLLP, an umbrella association that gathers together 42 organisations active in education, training and youth that represent 50,000 education institutions.

“CSOs create bridges between skills actors and stakeholders, moving in the ecosystem that surrounds learner needs. Within this ecosystem we act as mediators with a two-way approach: on one side linking the bottom level to the top one; on the other side operating as a dissemination agent of all initiatives implemented at European level, ensuring outreach to the grassroots level,” highlights Verzola.

National skills strategies

The second session at the event, on national skills strategies and the roles of CSOs, was a conversation with Andrew Bell, Head of Skills Strategies at the OECD, and Mairead O'Connor, Skills Development Senior Manager at the Wheel, Ireland’s national CSO association.

Bell said most people think of skills as being for a specific occupation. However, there are many kinds of skills – cognitive and metacognitive, technical and professional and sector specific, and social and emotional skills. “Skills strategies must speak to all of these skills.”

He pointed out that a range of policy areas impact on skills development and use – education, industry, innovation, housing and transportation, migration, taxation and social – and there are skills policy implications for a wide range of partners across the public, education, private and civil sectors. “So governments engaging widely and meaningfully is a key input for a skills strategy, and to be meaningful it must be sustained.”

Mairead O’Connor described three interlinked key roles that the CSO sector plays in national skills strategies – providing a vital workforce, advocating for lifelong learning, and as an essential partner of the state in social change.

O’Connor said that what has helped CSOs to contribute effectively in the skills arena in Ireland has been: providing an evidence base through independent research; trust and a good relationship with government; good models in other sectors for closing the gap between CSOs and government.

Nicolas Jonas, team leader of the inclusive learning programme at the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, spoke about the inputs of CSOs in discussions around adult education and lifelong learning, including at a gathering of 142 countries and social partners in Marrakech, Morocco, last year. It called for a renewed social contract for adult education.

“At UNESCO we see CSOs as key partners to follow up on commitments made by countries.” Civil society contributes to “unfiltered” reporting on country progress made in adult and lifelong learning. “We would like to give even more space to CSOs in monitoring the Marrakech declaration implementation,” he said.

Civil Society needs funding

“Resilience is the art of navigating transitions. There is social transition, green and digital – everything is changing. Civil society, people and organisations with their feet on the ground, are absolutely indispensable to navigate this transition,” concluded Siria Taurelli, Senior Human Capital Development Expert at the ETF

 “Policies, dialogue, development – everyone wants more and more from civil society. But the Year of skills is also about increasing the financial resources for skills.

“We cannot move from 37% to 60% of adults in training if there is not more financial allocation, from national budgets, and public and private. We can find different formulae, but financial allocation is absolutely key. We have to move from the logic of project occasional funding, to the logic of long-term sustainability in order to support the delivery of skills.”