Adult education ranges from the traditional literacy processes and the achievement of basic education to training leading to employment or leisure activities.
The aim of adult education is to offer people over 18 the possibility to acquire, update, complete, or expand their knowledge and skills for their personal and professional development.
Exceptionally, access to adult education:
- is provided to people over the age of 16 may, at their request, if they have a work contract which does not allow them to attend mainstream educational institutions or if they are high-performance sportspeople
- is also guaranteed for the prison population.
The specific objectives of adult education are the following:
- acquire basic training, increase and refresh adults’ knowledge, abilities and skills on a permanent basis, and facilitate access to the different types of provision within the education system
- improve their professional qualification or acquire the necessary training for the practice of other professions
- respond adequately to the challenges related to the gradual aging of the population, ensuring older people the opportunity to increase and update their skills
- foster real equality of rights and opportunities between men and women
- acquire, increase, and renew the knowledge, abilities, and skills required in order to create companies and carry out business activities and initiatives.
Adult training provision comprises different types of programmes, which are organised by education, employment, and local authorities:
- the education authorities provide adults with an opportunity to acquire basic education or complete the different types of provision of the education system leading to the award of an official qualification. In addition, they periodically organise entrance examinations to have access to different types of provision or to obtain an official qualification.
For more information, see Provision to raise achievement in basic skills y Provision to achieve a recognised qualification during adulthood.
- the employment authorities organise a series of training actions aimed at both employed workers and unemployed people, with the aim of improving the employability of the population.
For more information, see Provision targeting the transition to the labour market y Other types of publicly subsidised provision for adult learners.
- local authorities are responsible for organising popular education through popular universities, which offer a wide range of educational, training, and cultural activities.
For more information, see Provision of Liberal (popular) adult education.