The world of work is changing. Digitalisation, globalisation, and population ageing are having a profound impact on the type and quality of jobs that are available and the skills required to perform them. The extent to which individuals, firms and economies can reap the benefits of these changes will depend critically on the readiness of adult learning systems to help people develop and maintain relevant skills over their working careers.
High quality is essential to ensure that the resources devoted to training programmes help workers to keep their skills relevant in a changing world of work. This report addresses the crucial question of how quality can be ensured in the field of adult learning. It provides an overview of quality assurance systems across Europe, highlighting their implementation features, governance structures and success factors. In particular, the report focuses on non-formal adult learning, which is “institutionalised, intentional and planned by an education provider” outside of the formal education sector and which does not lead to a formal qualification recognised by the national or sub-national education authorities.
The report is structured around five chapters. Chapter 1 provides some background information necessary to put the study into context, including definitions of the main concepts under scrutiny and the challenges faced by institutions in setting up quality assurance systems for adult education. Common tools used to ensure quality in adult training across European countries are then examined and carefully detailed, distinguishing between those imposing minimum quality requirements on providers (such as quality labels in Chapter 2) and those relying on less strict requirements (e.g. self-evaluations in Chapter 3). The importance of adopting a wider, holistic approach to quality in adult education is emphasised in Chapter 4, with a discussion of the role played by additional support structures, such as the validation of prior learning, the professionalisation of the teaching staff, and the involvement of the social partners. Chapter 5 concludes, proposing a decision tree to help authorities identify what are the main areas of discussion and action to develop a quality assurance system for non-formal adult learning.
This report was prepared by Michele Tuccio from the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, under the supervision of Glenda Quintini (Skills team manager) and Mark Keese (Head of the Skills and Employability Division). Useful comments were provided by Stefano Scarpetta and Julie Lassébie (OECD), Patricia Perez-Gomez and Claudia Piferi (DG REFORM, European Commission), and Antonio Ranieri and Ernesto Villalba (Cedefop). The OECD Secretariat would also like to acknowledge valuable feedback on the report by staff at the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and at the Public Service of Wallonia.
This report is published under the responsibility of the Secretary General of the OECD, with the financial assistance of the European Union via the Structural Reform Support Programme. The views expressed in this report should not be taken to reflect the official position of OECD member countries nor the official position of the European Union.