Accelerated and quality adult education is the way to overcome the economic crisis – From the functionally illiterate to well-developed people

Abstract

Futurologists have predicted the current economic, financial and social crisis. Economic growth has limits. The only way out of the crisis is in restructuring of the values, enabling people to function in a new way in order to survive. To do this they need far more knowledge; therefore, adult education is becoming one of the major factors in overcoming the global recession. A society’s vitality depends on the level of its human resources development (average number of years of completed education per person, infant death rate and life expectancy). The functionally illiterate strata of the population are not able to make their own living in the new working and living conditions of the information society, the society of change and risk. Slovenia has a high rate of functionally illiterate population, who are permanently unemployable. Just learning new skills does not suffice any longer to make a person employable. Only by gaining a higher level of education and by becoming actively involved in the opportunities offered in their environment can people develop fully and become self-reliant. Once the mass of the uneducated (augmenting together with the unemployed) is too big, the question arises: who will support them? The basic skills and competences needed today can be developed only through new quality education, using the dialogue that stimulates critical thinking. Constructivism advocates the development of a person rather than mechanical memorizing as practiced by the overburdened school system.