Spain
Summary of Desk Research
Though Spain is not badly placed when it comes to reaching the 15 % participation target in 2020 established by the European Union, our aim to place Spain in the area of the most advanced countries must be more ambitious. To achieve the objectives of the Action Plan for Lifelong Learning, the Government of Spain proposes to Administrations, Social partners and organizations or entities interested in sector coordinating their actions and resources, and participation in the following strategic areas:
– Develop mechanisms for the return of the adult population to the educative system and obtain the title of Secondary Education Graduate.
– Generalize the recognition of professional skills, as mechanism for increasing the qualification of the active population, particularly of low-skilled workers.
– Create new access ways to vocational training, and make combined work and study for young people who leave their studies prematurely.
– Create mechanisms to improve the implementation of policies related with lifelong learning and design a system of periodic evaluation, with the participation of all stakeholders involved
The action plan is directed at the whole population, in order for it to increase its professional, personal or social competences, complementing the acquired ones during its step along the educational system at the initial school stage. Nevertheless, the Action plan establishes as a priority the attention to groups with low or void qualification to offer them new opportunities for social and labour integration.
In LLL we include all types of education and training: primary and secondary general education, VET, Higher Education, adult education, non-formal and informal education, etc. In addition, LLL also refers to all those forms of education as the formation for the use of leisure and free time, the improvement of quality of life, social participation, improvement of employability, training of elderly people in its different modalities and types etc, that is to say any training that serves the improvement of people and is useful for society. That is the reason why educational institutions but also all social partners must be involved in LLL in our country.
It is a constant and unfinished process of learning which is not confined in a formative model, nor context, nor specific period of the life: it supposes the acquisition and improvement of the relevant learning for the personal, social and labour development and allows the person to adapt to dynamic and changeable contexts. This way, we understand that LLL goes from cradle to grave. It takes place in different contexts (family, community, school …) and therefore, it goes beyond the school. It is constituted by learning formal, not formal and informal character and takes the integral development of the person as an aim, contributing to the acquisition and improvement of competences (knowledge, skills and attitudes) and qualifications that allow the personal accomplishment, the exercise of the citizenship, the social integration, the adaptability and the employability to give response to a changeable reality.
Summary of practical results
Understanding LLL like a process without time or level limits, the main aim should be to increase the citizens’ training. To obtain it, it is necessary to adapt the training offer to the personal, social and labour needs of adults through:
– The improvement of participation and the quality of LLL: there are innovative and successful experiences of learning of adults both in educational administrations and in the entities of the civil society that are necessary to spread and to generalise;
– A global and integrated action to adapt the access to the training and to guarantee the successful permanency in the formative system of adults, besides the change of regulation and the impulse of the educational Administrations to modify the results. This impulse must be in priority aimed at people with low level of qualification and it is necessary to coordinate the efforts of all the implied agents;
– The qualification or re-qualification of persons so they can join the labour market. This process of improvement of the qualification has to be within the productive sectors which generate or could generate working places, since a clear imbalance exists between the levels of qualification of the Spanish population and the needs of the future work places. Raising the training level of the least prepared population will allow to improve the labour perspectives of these persons and will contribute to the economic growth of the country.
LLL-Forum outcomes
– Design training programs for groups of 35-55 years old with certified level III (access to higher grade school and vocational training).
– Provide direct labour integration subsidized systems to facilitate the employment of groups of 35-55 years old.
– Create synergies between companies to participate in dual training programs.
– Encourage the participation of teachers in extracurricular activities.
Prominent fact
Soufflearning is a project that seeks to transfer an innovative On-the-Job training methodology from Germany to other countries throughout Europe. Soufflearning has been developed since 2005 in the framework of a pilot project that has been successively transferred to other regions and countries.
This methodology is specifically aimed at micro-SMEs because it´s not necessary to attend classrooms, it´s individualized in accordance to the individual needs, and it´s not intrusive in the performance of regular tasks.
Soufflearning seeks to spread this concept, obtaining a certification that allows trainers to validate their theoretical and practical knowledge on this methodology.
Main axis of progress for the next period
The aim of participation of adult population in lifelong learning by 2020 should be established at 20%, with particular attention to disadvantaged groups: coordinating the available resources; facilitating access routes to training; generalizing the process of validation and recognition of competences; and increasing the quality of the sector.
Strategic areas of the action plan:
- Develop mechanisms for the return of the adult population to the educative system and obtain the title of Secondary Education Graduate.
- Promote access for adults to Bachelor Studies, Vocational Training and University.
- Provide education and training, formal and informal, to people at risk of social exclusion as a strategy to support the overcoming of poverty and marginalization.
Relevant links, websites, etc. to national strategy
Educación da a conocer los plazos de presentación de solicitudes para el proceso de escolarización de 0 a 3 años para el próximo curso
El Programa de Aprendizaje Permanente (PAP)
Aprendizaje lo largo de la vida