Under the project name “Bildung” (education), organisations from ten European countries have spent two years examining the question of what future-oriented adult education concepts could look like if they are to help address the major social challenges.
In this project, the term “Bildung” does not refer to education itself but rather represents a holistic understanding of education. The underlying concept originates from Northern Europe but draws heavily on philosophical concepts from the German-speaking region.
Concepts and work materials
The goal of the project, funded through Erasmus+, is to discuss the conceptual framework for a contemporary understanding of holistic education and provide foundations for implementation in practice. After a little over two years, organisations from ten partner countries, including Switzerland, have developed foundations to make the Nordic concept of “Bildung” applicable to various areas of adult education. The project focused on the thematic areas of democracy, digitalisation, sustainability and basic skills.
Concept papers were developed for all of these thematic areas, and the approaches were tested at various events. Recommendations are also being formulated for adult education providers as well as political stakeholders. SVEB has contributed to the foundation work in the working group on digitalisation.
Holistic and transformative education
The “Bildung” project continues the work of the previous project FutureLab, which focused on transformative education and was also carried out by SVEB in Switzerland. Both projects share the goal of analysing and strengthening the contribution made by adult education to deal with pressing social challenges.
The project will be completed at the end of May 2023, and a project report will be published during the summer. Most of the results from both projects are already available on the project websites. SVEB is available and happy to discuss the matter with anyone who is interested.