Official URL: https://epale.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-09/EP...

The value of diversity in inclusive adult education was the subject discussed by over 150 participants from more than 20 countries at the Austrian EPALE conference, which was held online for the second consecutive year in May 2021. The present publication comprises the reports presented at the conference. During the last decade, immigration put the European educational systems to the test. The large influx of refugees and migrants from different educational, economic and cultural contexts made the rapid creation of emergency response mechanisms imperative, resulting in a plethora of language and cultural awareness courses to promote integration. By the same token, those contingency schemes polarised the Adult Education (AE) system in most European countries, leading to a differentiation between ‘AE for migrants’ and ‘traditional AE’ along the entire cycle of the Adult Education value chain (i.e. from policy formulation, programme development, implementation, curriculum development, service delivery, etc). In many cases, ‘AE for migrants’ is even further subdivided into ‘AE for refugees’ and ‘AE for other migrants’. Thus, migrants have been considered as a ‘special’ target group of AE with specifically tailored solutions. While this approach may be appropriate when responding to and managing needs resulting from the contingency of sudden migrant inflow, it left migrants outside the mainstream AE provision; once migrants have completed the courses especially designed (and financed) for integration purposes, the current AE systems offer them little further perspective and few migrants transition into ‘ordinary’ courses. The next step must be a ‘normalisation’ of this target group in the eyes of AE and their strategic integration into the established pool of target audiences. To achieve this goal and to remain attractive, even longterm facilitators and provider organisations need to shift their perspectives and change up their internal processes, adapting management and programme planning strategies.