Meeting of ALE Platform in Orhei

On 11 November 2023, DVV International Moldova conducted in Orhei the regular meeting of the Platform for Adult Learning and Education (ALE Platform). The activity was a continuation of the Adult Education Festival "Learning in the Community - Strength, Assumption and Value", which aimed to promote in the community the idea that adult and lifelong learning is joy for the beneficiaries and responsibility for decision makers who should ensure access for a diversity of offers. The activity was attended by permanent members of the ALE Platform as well as representatives of education stakeholders in Orhei. The session started with an interview - a success story about the impact of non-formal education on personal and professional affirmation.

The current ALE Platform meeting was somewhat different from other meetings and focused not so much on discussing policy documents in the field of Adult Education in our country, but on sharing international experiences for possible replication in Moldova. Guests from Germany Dr. Ingrid Schoell, until recently Director of VNS Bonn and Dr. (H. c.) Heribert Hinzen, former Director of DVV International and participant in international processes promoting ALE, shared relevant experiences. Ms. Schoell elaborated on the issue of adult education and learning centres from a traditional and modern perspective, but the key message was that adults do not have an intrinsic attraction to learning, this can only be cultivated through personalised and attractive offers not found in other institutions. VHS in Germany has the statutory backing to offer courses that are perceived as a national need (professionalisation, German language and integration, foreign languages, digitalisation, etc.) but also the freedom to develop wholly innovative courses that express the author team's belief in usefulness and topicality and that have the potential to attract people as they reflect some common desires of people - e.g. small-scale gardening in urban spaces, beekeeping during the beekeeping year, Christmas carol singing in English, quiz night in general knowledge and much more.