The findings of the first and second round of OECD's Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) indicated that a considerable number of adults in developed economies lack basic skills. In the first round of PIAAC, on average, around 19% of adults across the whole sample scored at level one (the lowest) in literacy or did not even reach that level (OECD, 2013). The results of the second round of PIAAC also confirmed the same findings for other countries (OECD, 2016). Meanwhile, significant country-to-country as well as within-country differences were reported in the "low achievers" group.

Subsequently, a press release issued by the European Commission in June 2016 stated that 70 million Europeans lacked adequate literacy skills; while even more demonstrated poor numeracy and digital skills. In 2016, the Commission developed a Skills Agenda to highlight the strategic importance of skills for sustaining jobs, growth and competitiveness. According to the Skills Agenda (2016), the term “skills” is used “to refer broadly to what a person knows, understands and can do.” In 2021, the shift towards a green and digital transformation in both the economy and society, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, made it clear that even more people will need to upskill and reskill in the new work environment and to acquire skills for life: the new comprehensive European Skills Agenda for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness and resilience was born. In her State of the Union Speech in September 2022, the Commission's President, Ursula von der Leyen, declared 2023 as the European Year of Skills. It is noteworthy that she spoke in German during this part of her speech talking about “das Europäische Jahr der Aus- und Weiterbildung” in the original text (the European Year of Initial and Further Education), which eventually metamorphosed into the European Year of Skills, a term apparently more compatible with the output orientation of educational processes and the learner-centered approach in EU documents.

In this context, European adult education associations such as the EAEA or the Lifelong Learning Platform pleaded for a holistic understanding of the term skills, including basic and social skills, transversal skills, and skills to strengthen sustainability, democracy, and social inclusion. They consider the European Year of Skills as a chance to pay attention to education and learning processes and their outcomes, as well as to stress the empowering potential of these outcomes for the individuals involved.

The European Skills Agenda sets ambitious targets to be achieved by 2025, whereby it should be noted that setting overambitious objectives seems to be a chronic disorder of the Commission. The Agenda aims to increase the participation of low-qualified adults between 25-64 in learning by 67% (from 18% in 2016 to 30% in 2025). The aimed increase in the share among unemployed adults aged 25-64 is even higher: 82% (from 11% in 2019 to 20% in 2025).

To achieve these ambitious objectives, it is clear that more learning opportunities should be created that are aimed at people who are hard to reach with traditional education and training provision. The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated the existing inequalities, affecting education provision through the shutdown of educational institutions and the shift to online offerings.

Why is the provision of learning opportunities so important?

Because this is a necessary - though not sufficient - condition for a person to acquire knowledge and skills. In the absence of opportunity structures for education and training, a person cannot achieve the expected learning outcomes in terms of skills acquisition or successful transitions to the labour market; thus the ambitious European objectives cannot be reached.

Besides this instrumental role of education and training which refers to skills and employability for the labour market, the provision of learning opportunities is a matter of social justice: it can lead to empowerment and to the expansion of people's capabilities also to other social spheres. Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, points out the empowering role of education that enables people to live the lives they value and can lead to a more just and secure world.

Thus, providing inclusive learning opportunities to many people, ideally to all those who lack basic skills, is a matter of policy priority and social justice. To be inclusive, these learning opportunities should be available, accessible, and affordable to as many people as possible.

Let's go back to the numbers again: 70 million Europeans were found to have insufficient literacy skills, while one in four Europeans have an apparent lack of numeracy skills. One might feel tempted to ask: What prevented these people from going to school, learning to read and write, and to do arithmetic? Are these poor learning outcomes a personal failure? A stroke of fate? An individual choice? If lack of basic skills is a personal failure or an individual choice, then why are we finding that more people are experiencing poor skills or early school leaving in certain populations (e.g., Roma, foreign born migrants)? Or in European regions that have experienced extremely low growth over time (so called lagging regions), such as certain regions in Greece, Spain, Portugal, or Italy? 

What factors affect individual learning outcomes?

The latter indicates that failing to reach a certain level of skills is neither merely due to personal inability nor is it a matter of an individual choice. The overarching emphasis on individuals' own responsibility for failing to reach a certain level of competences is rather misleading and not necessarily supported by scientific evidence. On the contrary, research findings repeatedly point out the interplay between contextual conditions, including territorial disparities, and individual capabilities that can lead to poor or insufficient skills. There are several factors affecting individual learning outcomes and skills acquisition including:

• Education and training provision, which can be very diverse in different national, regional, or local contexts.
• Making use of learning opportunities, which can be enabled or hampered by contextual conditions and individual capabilities.
• Socio-demographic factors, with educational attainment and employment status identified as being particularly important for the take up of learning opportunities.
• Socio-economic contexts that shape industrial relations, welfare arrangements and regional skills ecosystems (e.g., union power, paid education leave, family care).
• Policy programmes, targeting for instance youth at risk, early school leavers, workers in occupations at high risk of automation, low-skilled adults, and vulnerable groups.

Inclusive learning opportunities

When talking about inclusive skills opportunities, we consider all external factors that shape the learning opportunities available to individuals and affect the expected outcomes. This includes institutional and structural conditions (e.g., education and labour market institutions, economic and demographic structure, welfare arrangements), public policies as well as culture and norms.

Skills acquisition is the result of many different factors, individual and contextual. It is also a dynamic process that takes place during one's lifespan; we constantly acquire new skills (at the workplace, in leisure or in the social sphere) and lose others, because we stop using them or they become outdated. Not only skills acquaintance but also skills obsolescence is very disperse across EU countries. This is due to several factors including industrial restructuring, socio-economic transformation and the changing needs of skills.

Many low-skilled and low-qualified adults, foreign born immigrants, people from certain ethnic minorities or lagging regions have left school with poor basic skills and see themselves often trapped in unemployment or precarious jobs in regions with few learning opportunities and limited prospects of personal development.

Insufficient basic skills is considered as a reliable indicator for educational poverty, which, in turn, is associated with low income, marginalisation, risk of social exclusion and poor health.

Creating inclusive skills opportunities means to help more individuals, especially those in vulnerable positions, to avoid these risks, achieve their personal goals and successfully manage life transitions and labour market risks. It also means not only providing them with instrumental skills but also with social and transversal skills, skills that can strengthen civic engagement and participation in political, social, and cultural life. And it also means that more attention will be paid to issues of spatial justice in regard to the provision of education and training opportunities as well as to the conditions affecting learning outcomes in European regions. 

Photos in this post: Centre for Ageing Better image library