Fifty years ago this month, in June 1976, the founding members of the ICAE gathered in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in the first General Assembly of the International Council for Adult Education. In a few weeks we will have the opportunity to commemorate this milestone event through a webinar with colleagues, like Budd Hall, the ICAE’s first Secretary General, who were not just part of our movement, but were key to establishing the foundations of our Adult Learning and Education movement. While the world issues back then may have been very different, we can argue that the critical role of adult education in helping us better understand our world, imagine a better world and learn how to transform our world, together, hasn’t changed. In fact, this role of ALE seems to be even more urgent today, as clearly described by Farrell Hunter in his reflections on his first six months as our interim Secretary General.
It is fitting that after fifty years we, the ICAE is officially located and registered in South Africa, with our Secretariat located in Cape Town and hosted by one of our member, the German Adult Education Association (DVV). It is important to remember that through the last fifty years, while our Secretariat has moved from Canada, Uruguay, the Philippines and most recently Serbia, the beating heart of the ICAE as the adult education movement, remains with each and everyone of us – the members. It is us that makes the movement alive and it is us that helps to keep adult learning alert to the realities of our world.
Sustaining the movement continues to be a challenge, as we are all aware of the massive decline in resources available for the valuable work of civil society groups, like the ICAE and our members across the world. However, the work must continue, as we find new ways of working more effectively with less, your support, through our membership fees is vital, to keep our movement agile to the demands of the times.
We want to acknowledge that amidst this leadership transition, we have managed to grow the engagement of civil society in the GRALE 6 process, particularly in a number of countries and regions, through our partnership with the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning. A number of our members were active as co-organisers in the series of capacity building workshops that were conducted across the regions. While the analysis of the national reports are on going, we will begin to prepare what we have called Spotlight Reports to help focus the attention on key issues that we think are needed to help frame the picture that will emerge from the data.
We recently called your attention to the launch of Education Beyond 2030, two global consultation processes that aim to begin the conversation about the next global education goal. We encouraged you all to nominate individuals and organisations to ensure that the vital work of our ALE movement will be visible in the series of foresight exercises that will be facilitated in the second half of the year. We are aware that a number of our members have received invitations to the first survey. We encourage you to respond in a timely manner and ensure that our critical ALE work is not just visible but central to the future education and lifelong learning agenda.
With your active support we can all ensure, that in fifty years time, our colleagues will look back and view this moment as another significant milestone in our history of how the global adult education movement has contributed not just to shaping the next education and lifelong learning goal, but in actually achieving the goal.
Regards,
Robbie
Jose Roberto Guevara, PhD
President, ICAE