“While there is a growing demand for adult education and an explosion of information, the disparities between those who have access and those who do not are also growing. There is a need to counter this polarity, which reinforces existing inequalities, by creating adult learning structures and lifelong learning environments that can help to correct the prevalent trend.”
CONFINTEA V Agenda For the Future
Adult Learners Week is celebrated at the beginning of Spring with hundreds of events and activities promoting the benefits of learning. There are so many opportunities to learn available across Australia.
Adult Learners Week is a UNESCO initiative supported in Australia by the Commonwealth Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and coordinated by Adult Learning Australia. Adult Learners Week runs from 1–8 September and incorporates International Literacy Day, which is celebrated annually on September 8.
Adult Learners Week in Australia is part of an international festival of adult learning.
The move to create broad celebration of adult learning began with the American Association for the Advancement of Education (AAAE) in the late 1980s. In 1990, governments met in Jomtien for the Education for All world conference. The aim of this conference was to set goals for:
- universal access to and completion of primary education
- reducing the adult illiteracy rate to one half its 1990 level by 2000.