engleski

Adult education in Croatia - Globalisation, Europeanisation, Modernisation

Lifelong learning commits the humanity in gaining and creating new knowledge with a help of education, either social or personal, by putting the responsibility of its application into our hands. Institutional education (formal education) has failed to educate individuals who work in companies and societies with the level of knowledge not high enough to satisfy the needs for knowledge for life and work. Non-formal education presents in that sense the possibility of catching up with omitted, through skills, competences and knowledge obtained with the aim of applying the learned into everyday practice for more responsible decision-making. Without knowledge growth there is no development of the awareness of oneself, of the society in which we live and of the world. The usage of the newly created knowledge supposes the use of moral before the usage of that knowledge. Therefore, adult education should have its goal in creating awareness and raising the consciousness about knowledge use with the aim of preserving life forms of any kind on the planet Earth. The development of democracy in the world and Croatia and harmony of international relations is proportional to the consciousness development. Biological dynamic of world population reflected in demographic changes with different outcomes for each continent, results in overall very rapid population growth. Europe’s demographic future warns about issues that are currently becoming the most discussed political issues (e.g. youth and employability, working hours per week, migrations and immigrants, older workers, innovation, competitive market, etc.). Those issues are also part of Croatia’s everyday life. Adult education as intervening variable could help solving some of the issues, but is not given an important place in the society and is not being recognised among Croatia’s population as an individual and society value. If Croatia is aiming to become the part of European Union than adult education should be given an important place on political agenda as a step in securing Croatia’s future membership. Economical issues shaking Croatia’s society can not guarantee survival on European and global market. Adult education should have a long-term perspective in Croatian society if Croatia and its citizens want to become equal players on the global market. This work is investigating whether Croatia has recognised the potentials of its population and the importance of adult education. Croatian society was not prepared for the changes that took place after 1990. Everything what was before was considered “not good”. Changes that happened were very fast and it was already too late when the citizens realized what happened. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Croatian society is still dealing and trying to solve problems and issues from 20th century instead of reacting to present and preparing itself for future (21st century). The managing capacity of the society is dealing with less important problems (e.g. privatisation of welfare) while it spends less time in creating new values which can not be created without higher level of consciousness of all citizens. Croatian political management is dealing/is occupied with the past instead with the future. There is still much to be done in adult education area in Croatia. The question is whether it is possible to make use of all the benefits adult education can bring into one society if there is no organised action, no communication, no collaboration, no understanding and not even the willingness to take responsibilities for actions and decisions towards real problems and the future. Adult population is the active population that carries the Croatian economy, market, and production and creates the present and the future. Living in the past with the burden of the war gives the society no impulse of movement and action. Case study on Croatia tells us that Croatia has dramatic social situation that demands urgent interventions of the society, educated minority (7%) towards uneducated majority (93%) in the context of accessibility of necessary knowledge.

obrazovanje odraslih; Hrvatska; globalizacija; cjeloživotno učenje; europeanizacija; modernizacija; europske politike obrazovanja odraslih; financiranje obrazovanja odraslih

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