The influence of the europeanisation of education on the marketisation and commodification of adult education policies and practices in Slovenia

Abstract

The paper deals with European influences on the policy and practice of adult education in Slovenia. In the first part the Europeanisation of education is addressed, analysing the European policy of adult education and discussing the dominant instrumental economistic conceptualisation of adult education. In the second, empirical part, we analyse the policy of adult education – Resolutions on the Master Plan for Adult Education in the Republic of Slovenia (2004 and 2013) and annual programmes of adult education 2005–2018 – and show how the national context has become suffused with European economistic discourse, as well as how financial mechanisms have marketised the area of adult education in Slovenia. We find that the Slovenian policy of adult education adjusted to recommendations from the European Union by constantly decreasing national funding for adult education between 2008 and 2016, which was the result of austerity measures in the adult education field; a gradual rise in national funding can only be seen from 2016 on. By adjusting to European standards, including the reform of vocational education, privatisation and commercialisation of adult education, Slovenia is losing its role as a leader in the adult education field which it had at the time of independence.