Learning & teaching
This category offers articles on best practices in learning and teaching, as well as the benefits and challenges of adult education and lifelong learning. These articles also explore global societal phenomena and their connections to lifelong learning.

Permaculture skills improve food security and generate income
A Zimbabwean NGO teaches local people about permaculture and agroecology. New skills have encouraged people to grow their food in a sustainable manner and start businesses around organic foods.

Regaining the revolutionary power of education: Alisha Heinemann on Gayatri Spivak
In this dialogue with the past, Alisha Heinemann, Professor of Education at Bremen University, discusses the insights and importance of postcolonial theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak across the educational divides.

Future skills for a brave new world
Understanding how artificial intelligence (AI) works is a key skill – now and for tomorrow – says leading computer science and information technology professor Matti Tedre.

How should we define artistic skills?
How should we go about cataloguing artistic skills? Is the mere thought of reducing art to a catalogue of skills an affront to the artist’s creativity? Isn’t art an end in itself? These questions were discussed in Évora, Portugal during a recent workshop framed in the European Year of Skills 2023.

HOPE project: Identifying skills gained in life
Nikolina Garača, social service worker based in the Balkans, answers three quick questions on the project “Helping women gain power in their lives” (HOPE). The project’s aim is to help women to identify their competences gained in informal environments, be it in family or through coping with challenges in their life.

The case for critical literacy, Hasan Aksoy on Paulo Freire
In this dialogue with the past, Hasan Aksoy, Professor of Education at Ankara University, discusses the role of Freirean education, the educational landscape in Turkey, and February’s tragic earthquake.

Data literacy helps in the recognition of warning signals
Data literacy should become a new objective in the curriculum of life, demands data expert Katharina Schüller from the German Association of Founders.

Climate literacy key to help Africa unlock Loss and Damage Fund
Climate literacy remains low on the continent that is suffering disproportionately from the effects of climate change.

Millions of Indian women still struggling to read
New Literacy policy in India aims at improving learning amongst the women and disadvantaged. To achieve the goal to become a leading economic powerhouse for the 21st century, the country is aiming to make sure that every Indian can read.

Illiteracy – a forgotten problem in Europe?
Domenico Cersosimo, a former professor at the Calabria University, discusses the threats of functional illiteracy. At its worst, it limits people’s access to citizenship rights.