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During her visit, Yoko established contact with education authorities in Uruguay and visited ICAE’s offices, where we asked her about the condition of adult education in Japan and her expectations regarding the VIII ICAE World Assembly to be held from 14 to 17 June in Malmö, Sweden.

Yoko told us that in Japan there was a sudden increase of privatization in the field of adult education, a tendency that started slowly in the 1970s and consolidated after 2003.Following the enactment of the Local Autonomies Act and the concession of the Ministry of Education and Science in January, 2005, some municipal governments started to get outsourcing finance as of 2006 for the administration of some public institutions of adult education.

One of the reasons of this tendency, Yoko explained, “is the municipal finances crisis that took place after the enactment, in 1995, of the Decentralization Act”, a measure taken by the central government with the purpose of reducing national public expenditures. According to the government, it was a “democratic” measure as it enabled to transfer responsibility in many areas from the central administration to local governments. But in practice, what the central government did was to interfere in the financial management of the local administrations. Due to the need that local governments had to reduce their own financial expenses, and according to the central government decisions, they had to introduce policies of privatization in many areas, including adult education.

Considering that the State has kept under control some areas of adult education (for example, family education, the one related to community participation, and vocational education), what can be seen in Japan is an actual division of adult education in two areas: a public one and a private one. According to Yoko, popular Japanese movements of adult education have historically helped to improve the professional level of the staff working in that area, mainly in the communities. On the other hand, recent decentralization and external financing policies in Japan generally lose sight of the importance of the staff and its freedom of practice for adult education, as what governs is a mercantilist practice of the activity. “We must publicly support adult education for it to be stronger, even under outsourcing policies in finance”, Yoko explained. “To achieve this it is necessary to work in two dimensions: the financing of adult education and the system of staff recruitment and training”.

In this context, Yoko awaits with expectation JAPSE participation in the next ICAE World Assembly, which she considers a great opportunity to establish more fluid contact with other representatives of the world movement for adult education. This meeting will make possible to share strategies and exchange information on different domestic experiences in other countries. This, Yoko concludes, could help in transmitting new ideas to other colleagues involved in adult education in Japan.

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Raul Leis, Panama.

Secretary General of the Latin American Council of Adult Education – CEAAL.
By Julie Wong
Translation by ICAE

J: What contribution, from youth and adult education, do you think Latin America and the Caribbean can make to ICAE’s Assembly?
R: Despite that in recent years a progressive increase of investment on EPJA is perceived, which is expressed on specific programmes of coverage widening, systems of scholarships and labour training grants, social assistance plans and others, it can still be stated that youth and adult education, in many cases, suffers some kind of exclusion as governments assign them a secondary role regarding importance, resources and competences.

But it must be stressed that EPJA, the education of those who remained outside the system, the excluded ones, must be not only for them but with them. That’s why the old-fashioned concept of “compensatory” education must be changed for the concept of lifelong education, participatory education, with quality and equity within the framework of human development progress.

But not only the excluded ones. Documents and statements stress the comprehensive and proteic dimension of all subjects, which is fostered by highlighting the dimension of transforming citizenship of EPJA. This is why a plan that convenes all sectors to significantly move forward towards the re-thinking and re-making of education as an instrument to build a society that overcomes poverty and social exclusion is urgently needed.
Popular education, participatory action research, popular communication, the Theatre of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire’s thinking, all native of Latin America linked to the actions of social and citizen emancipatory movements constitute a significant contribution for another education and another world to be possible.
Latin America is the most unequal continent in the world, but at the same time, it has the greatest environmental potentiality, threatened by predatory macro investments. This invites us to choose and to build another development model inspired on another paradigm, as the concept of Good Living that comes from Sumak Kawsay in Andean expression, or from Balu Wala de Kuna Yala, well defined by Donald Rojas: “It is the philosophical axis of individual and collective thinking and action of indigenous peoples, it implies an indissoluble and interdependent relation between the universe, nature and humanity, where an ethic and moral base favourable to the environment, to development and to society is built, in which harmony, respect and balance are revealed and become necessary”, as well as a decent life for all, we add. Good Living is very different from “living well”, understood as an irrational, dehumanizing and depredator consumerism.
It is urgent to work jointly in critical, creative and inclusive actions and educational expressions, so it is necessary to strengthen and update debates and systematizations which give a meaning and coherence to educational and organizational actions to contribute to the knowledge inclusive society, to deepen democracy and to building the new society we ambition.

Aportes desde América Latina a la Asamblea Mundial del ICAE

Des apport de l’Amérique Latine à l’Assemblée Mondiale de l’CAE

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