2. THE NATURE OF THE CHALLENGES THAT SPAIN FACES IN REGARD TO ADULT BASIC SKILLS EDUCATION The majority of the over 35 million adults pres...
2. THE NATURE OF THE CHALLENGES THAT SPAIN FACES IN REGARD TO ADULT BASIC SKILLS EDUCATION The majority of the over 35 million adults presently living in Spain were born between the beginning of the 1930s and the end of the 1980s (see statistical appendices). To understand challenges facing the population of adults with basic skill needs, we first need to understand the particular challenges facing each generation. The main factors conditioning the history of these generations with regard to the skills available are, on the one hand, the training opportunities each generation has had and, on the other hand, the demographic phenomena which have influenced Spain’s current adult population. But, during the same period,
the needs for basic skills have also changed due to the evolution of society in every field, increasing the level and modifying the kind of “necessary” basic skills. The most important consequences of these factors are the following: - Today’s Spanish population has lived and been trained in very different educational contexts and have had very unequal training opportunities. Until the end of the 70s, there was no modern and generalist educational system guaranteeing real compulsory schooling for all in Spain. This appears in the level of studies of the Spanish population. The generations born at the end of the 60s have an educational level which, with the peculiarities that are specific to each country, can be compared to that of the other countries of the European Union. However, the generations born between 4 1940 and 1970 only had an old-fashioned and minority educational system available1 , with rates of schooling that were very different from those of the other countries of the European Union for the same generations (Beduwe and Planas, 2003: 172-175).
- Until the 1970s, labour training was developed through experience (Köhler, 1994). 1 As the tables show (Beduwe and Planas, 2003: 172-175), the qualifications reached by each generation are very different depending on the country: Born 1940 Germany UK France Italy Spain 1a. no quals. 9% 39% 28% 56% 32% 1b. certificate of compulsory education 24% - 27% - 57% 2. lower secondary 1% 9% 6% 23% - 3. vocational education 51% 34% 20% 3% 3% 4. upper secondary - 3% 7% 12% 2% 5. higher ed. 14% 16% 12% 5% 6% Born 1950 Germany UK France Italy Spain 1a 8 24 18 31 12 1b 14 - 18 - 63 2 2 12 7 34 - 3 53 38 30 5 5 4 - 4 10 20 8 5 21 22 17 10 13 Born 1960 Germany UK France Italy Spain 1a 9 16 23 10 4 1b 11 - 4 - 54 2 3 23 9 43 - 3 56 30 31 7 14 4 - 7 12 30 12 5 22 25 21 10 16 Born around 1970 Germany (1965- 1966) UK (1973- 1974) France (1972) Italy (1968- 1972) Spain (1972) 1a 8 11 16 6 2 1b 9 - 1 - 38 2 3 23 5 41 - 3 58 31 23 7 20 4 - 9 18 39 18 5 20 26 37 7 23 5 - In the Spanish adult population we find different levels of educational attainment based on variables such as age and sex (see statistical appendices). - In addition, the increasingly long initial training period, and dizzying changes in social and work life not only affect younger adults but adults in general.
To maintain their basic skills, they must participate in training programmes throughout their lives. This fact increases those challenges arising from the previous training deficits of older generations. - The Spanish Educational System has provided most people born at the end of the 1960s and after with the basic skills corresponding to longer and modern compulsory education, which has increased from four years prior to 1970 to eight years with the introduction of the General Education Law (Ley General de Educación). However, between 25 and 30% have still not attained the aims of compulsory education. Reducing the high level of school failure continues to be one of the main challenges of the Spanish Educational System; furthermore, to address the deficits in basic skills of those who did not have this training when they were teen-agers and are adults today is one of the greatest challenges for adult education in Spain. - With regard to access to on-going training, we see that, in Spain as elsewhere, the natural tendency is for the most highly-trained people to receive more training, whereas those who have more deficits in basic skills are generally excluded (Planas and Rifà , 2003). - The ageing of the population is an important demographic trend in Spain. About 20% of the population will be over 65 in 20152 . - As noted above, today’s adults in Spain were born between the 1930s and 1980s. During the second half of the twentieth century, Spain went from being a country of emigrants to being a country of immigration. Today, the native Spanish population has a very low emigration rate, whereas immigration has attained 8.5%, which in absolute terms is 3 731 000 individuals, most from north Africa, Africa, Latin America and eastern Europe. - In the case of young people, the high rates of school failure recorded in Spain also represent a major problem, primarily in relation to the hindrance it represents in access to lifelong training. This is especially serious for the young who have many years of social and work life ahead of them. However, the training deficits of young adults are not the same as those of older adults: whereas illiteracy in older adults relates to basic knowledge due to the lack of access to schooling, illiteracy in young adults is due to school failure. Despite the fact that the latter is a subject that is far from the aims of 2 Elaborated by us based on the data provided by the National Institute of Statistics (INE, Instituto Nacional de EstadÃstica)
–population projections on the basis of the 2001 census. 6 this report, we should not ignore it as an eventual source of problems, and a barrier to the development of lifelong learning for the whole population. Finally, Spanish society has been transformed from a society of emigrants (up to the 1960s), to a society receiving immigrants over the last few decades. This situation has meant new challenges in the capacity to provide access to the basic skills required by our society of adults who have been trained in cultural and linguistic environments very different from Spanish society. However, on average, these immigrants have a level of initial training that is higher than that of the average of the Spanish population, primarily due to their young age.
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