(This recent report to the EC is now available and here is the introduction. If you are interested in an electronic copy of the report, contact the CRADALL Office.)

The professional development and the improvement of the quality of adult learning staff have been recognised as a priority at European level. However, at European and national levels there is not always a clear view of the competences needed to fulfil the professional tasks in adult learning, partly due to the diversity of the field. In several European countries, competence profiles and standards for adult learning staff (referred to hereafter as adult learning professionals) have been developed and implemented, although their scope of application differs considerably between institutional and regional levels. Therefore, the European Commission decided to finance a study on key competences for adult learning staff. The aim of this study is to come up with a set of key competences which can functions as a reference for Europe and which can be used by Member States on a voluntary basis.

This study has been carried out by Research voor Beleid in partnership with the University of Glasgow, University of Thessaloniki, and the University of Leiden . During the last year the research team has studied a large number of documents on the duties, tasks, responsibilities, roles, competences and work environments of adult learning professionals, described them in a narrative, organised an expert meeting for modeling the key competences and discussed the outcomes of this modelling exercise with a broad group of stakeholders all over Europe. Overall the research team’s opinion is that this study has triggered an intensive and stimulating professional debate, and we are confident that the set of key competences could play an important role in structuring future debates and developing policies for improving the quality of adult learning. This study would not have been possible without the cooperation of numerous stakeholders in the field of adult learning. Therefore, the research team would like to thank all the respondents around Europe for their willingness to cooperate in this study by providing feedback on the set of key competences. Moreover, the research team would like to thank the steering committee for their support during the study and for their valuable remarks on the draft version of the report.

This report contains the outcomes of this study. Chapter 1 presents as an executive summary the set for key competences of adult learning professionals. Chapters 2 to 6 contain the report on the study on key competences of adult learning professionals. Chapter 7 and 8 provides information about the sources and literature used in this study. In this last chapter a short description is given of the educational programmes and job descriptions used to ground the set of key competences in empirical reality. These educational programmes and job descriptions have been taken up as case-studies in the report.