Thematic Review on Adult Learning - The Netherlands: Background Report
There is a long tradition of adult education in the Netherlands, which acquired a major stimulus after the Second World War in the form of non-formal and informal learning. This tradition was supported for a long time – until about 1975 – by “private initiatives”. It was associated with terms such as “personal development”, “popular education” and “liberal education”. The organisations that organised learning for adults were in fact responsible for the further development of a system for a “life long of learning”, at least until the mid eighties. These organisations included the National Institute for Popular Education and Friends of Nature [NIVON], the popular universities, folk high schools and rural organisations. Most of these organisations, as was the case with the organisation of formal education and the organisation of Dutch society as a whole, were organised on the basis of ideological formations in associations at the national level. All these organisations were united in the Dutch Centre for Popular Education (NCVO after the Dutch abbreviation) in 1965. In its work, the NCVO was inspired by and large by ideas about “permanent education” that were first voiced at the 1960 UNESCO conference in Montreal.
Long abstract
