Research

New Opportunities for Learning: Going LLL (2011-2012)

FINAL REPORT

The New Opportunities Initiative was the most important governmental programme of the last decades in the field of education and training in Portugal.
It was designed to enhance the school certification and qualification levels of the adult population, and at the same time to implement a national Qualifications System and create the New Opportunities Centres.
From 2005 to 2010 this programme has reached more than 1.6 million people. By 2010 almost half a million low-skilled adults have received their certification or qualification diplomas for basic and secondary levels of education and professional competences.

The National Agency for Qualification (Agência Nacional para a Qualificação, ANQ) coordinates a network of more than 450 New Opportunities Centres. The Centres support and counsel the adults locally, and promote their educational and training paths. They are also responsible for the recognition, validation and certification of competencies acquired in formal, non-formal and informal contexts.

Going LLL was a partnership project of the National Agency for Qualification and the Portuguese Catholic University (Universidade Católica Portuguesa, UCP). Since 2008, the university researchers have been developing a nation-wide study to assess the adult-targeted provisions of the New Opportunities Initiative, and offering critical insights to its development.
The main goals and expected outcomes of Going LLL are to improve the current New Opportunities Centres' quality and efficiency patterns, strengthen their capacities of targeting individuals and employers' needs, and boost local interaction.
In the near future the Centres - which were the so-called "entrance door" to qualification during the first cycle of the New Opportunities Initiative - will form the basis for the creating of Lifelong Learning Centres (LLL Centres) .

Both the National Agency for Qualification and the Catholic University, at this important step change, expect to involve a selected group of New Opportunities Centres, and emergent local networks in the project to facilitate the assessment of the key factors which will clarify the modelling of LLL Centres. Furthermore, the project aims at identifying good practices, sharing reflections with experts and strategic stakeholders, and publishing a "road map" and a Lifelong Learning Centres Quality Guide that will be extensively disseminated.

Seminar Going Lifelong Learning (Going LLL) - The challenge
15 th of February, Lisbon

Objectives

The Seminar, organized in collaboration by ANQEP - National Agency for Qualification and Vocational Education - and CEPCEP, Portuguese Catholic University, will focus on Going LLL main findings.
Policy makers in charge of the Lifelong Learning public policy, Portuguese social partners and other stakeholders and experts and professionals in this specific field will discuss the policy and shape its future in Portugal. A few MENON and UNESCO experts will also join the debate considering the mutual benchmark of national and international strategies, experiences and studies in the Lifelong Learning field.
The Seminar aims to raise awareness in Lifelong Learning Portuguese Strategy considering the experience and the achieved results from New Opportunities Initiative in Portugal (2005-2010) and identifying main critical factors to build learning communities led by Lifelong Learning Centers.

Approach

The seminar will last one day and will gather around 700 experts, professionals in the field and several other stakeholders.

The Seminar will be structured along the following questions:
- How it is possible to establish proximal - community and local based - institutions capable of providing coaching, mentoring, personalized guiding and counseling in search of further learning opportunities?
- How this can be achieved by local partners having New Opportunities Centers (NOCs) as core "guidance nodes" for Lifelong Learning?
- How this can be induced and supported by institutional strategies at regional and national levels, especially in what concerns regulator intervention?
- What will it take to attract more and new publics and to strengthen the guiding role of the centers in a system of Lifelong Learning that effectively crosses all levels of education?
- How to involve local communities in the Lifelong Centers?
- What is the role of public funding in LLL?
- How to get the community involved in the financing of Lifelong Learning?
- What should the relationship between lifelong learning and employability be?
The opening and closing will have the assistance of one of the president of the project partner's institutions and MENON or UNESCO experts.
There are also two discussion panels that will be composed by:
- A member of CEPCEP, UCP, that led one of the Development WP of Going LLL, and will present the main findings;
- A European researcher dealing with LLL experience, policy or strategy that will comment;
- A representative of a national organization who moderates the session and the public debate.

Main Outputs

During the Seminar will be available a printed version of e-book including the proposals of Road Map to Lifelong Learning Society and Lifelong Learning Centers Chart of Quality.
This e-Book and the Final Seminar Conclusions will be also available at both partners' sites in Portuguese and English.
The seminar will generate or reinforce networks between different partners, professionals, organizations, experts and researchers mainly at national level.

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