Dear ICAE members and adult education colleagues, globally
It has been a few months since I have been in the position of Interim General Secretary for ICAE. It’s been a steep learning curve in getting on board with the activities and the range of partnerships that our organisation engages in within the adult education space. The ICAE board, fellow staff members and my predecessor, Katarina Popovic, have all been very supportive over these months.
Needless to say, we understand the importance of adult education in confronting the many socio-economic challenges faced by adults and communities in all corners of the globe. Similarly, we are aware of the ongoing marginalisation of adult education – a situation that cannot be normalised.
Therefore, we continue to lobby and advocate for adult education to ensure that all in the wider education space and beyond understand the important role that adult education can play in addressing what is being referred to as a global poly-crisis:
– the debilitating conditions, particularly in post-colonial countries and countries experiencing high levels of migration, whether due to war, famine, genocide or other conditions that destabilise human life and exacerbate planet destruction. As civil society speaks truth to power, we note, among other things, the polarisation of society and the shutting down of democratic spaces.
Increasingly, we hear from fellow actors across the international Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) space about the challenges with the reduction in funding support for adult education and other efforts in community development. While, over the past decade, as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reports, there has been an increase of 41% in military spending – ＄4 trillion in 2025 alone by some countries, particularly in the global north.
Many global initiatives through UNESCO and other progressive organisations try to promote a global system of tolerance and global peace, a system that acts against prejudice and “othering” in whichever form, it has become all too prevalent in the context of a world that is growing more unequal. The situation of growing inequality can be found no more so than in the education spend indicator in the World Inequality Report, 2026 as it notes that;
Today’s inequality of opportunity fuels tomorrow’s inequality of outcomes. Average education spending per child in Sub-Saharan Africa stands at only €200 (PPP), compared with €7,400 in Europe and €9,000 in North America and Oceania—a gap over 1 to 40, approximately three times as much as the gap in per capita GDP. Such disparities shape life chances across generations, entrenching a geography of opportunity that exacerbates and perpetuates global wealth hierarchies.
These, and other “fallout conditions” of a grossly unequal world where youth and adult are under-educated has been shown to be among the key factors that contribute to the destabilising of countries at the lower end of the economic spectrum.
Again, we note that adult education has a key role to play in our strugle for peace, tolerance, justice and a common humanity – a position from which we should not deviate. While it has also been noted that these conditions, particularly for under-resourced countries, place the potential to achieve the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in question.
With our regional and strategic partners, ICAE continues to move ahead, striving for quality adult education as a human right for all – for social, economic and environmental justice.