Summary
Although a well recognised need, there has been little attention paid to defining the contents and processes of initial training and the further professionalisation of staff working in adult learning. Well qualified staff is needed to support adults in their learning and yet there are few education/training systems for adult education professionals across Europe (Switzerland, Austria, UK) which, in fact, do not allow cross-national qualifications comparability and recognition.

Flexi-Path will facilitate the transparency and recognition of adult educator qualifications across Europe making them comparable by having a common reference (EQF) and a common Master adult educator profile which promotes the idea of mobility through standardised educational programmes and qualification levels.

Flexi-Path will also enhance the recognition and valorisation of adult educator learning that has occurred within non-formal and informal settings by the means of a validation instrument. Flexi-Path envisages the adult educators who have acquired specific competences outside a formal setting, which simply does not exist sometimes or the job they are engaged in did not require a formal qualification in adult education as a prerequisite. With the help of this validation instrument, their awareness on the knowledge and skills they have in present will be raised and they will be able to plan their further professional development.

Description

• Flexi-Path benefits from the structure of the European Qualification Framework to transfer the national qualification levels to a common European scale.
• Flexi-Path concentrates on the defined essential competencies of adult educators on the EQF levels 6 (bachelor) and 7 (master).
• The main subject of the project in the first step is to start an analysis of the required knowledge, skills and competences of adult educators in each European country. In the second step these competences need to be compiled for a consistent European requirement.
• Main objective of Flexi-Path is to develop higher transparency and comparable qualifications to advance the mobility of adult educators on the European labour market.