On the use of data for improving adult education provisions

Adult Education as a means to Active Participatory Citizenship (EDUMAP) is a Horizon 2020 research project of which the aim is to understand and develop the real and potential impact of adult education on learning for active participatory citizenship in Europe. Following the attendance of the conference, the Lifelong Learning Platform published an article on EDUMAP project website to discuss how "How access and collection of data, resource management and related competences can provide insights to improve the quality and efficiency of adult education provisions to vulnerable groups".

In EDUMAP, the “power of number” – data that can nurture policy-making to improve outreach to vulnerable groups – clearly plays a significant role. The Intelligence decision support system (IDSS), which is prototype that they have developed, is an interesting and inspiring case study for TAMPADA. What the IDSS software has to offer is to provide policy-makers with evidence-based insights, hence helping them to narrow the gap between demand and supply in adult education while improving the learning and service provisions for vulnerable groups.

Building efficient systems for the monitoring of learners’ educational and professional pathways and their acquired hard and soft outcomes is increasingly a priority at EU level, as it is a necessary element that can contribute to making any upskilling policies more successful in the long run. Seizing the opportunity of technologies and data mining software improvement, it has also become less resource-consuming to develop such tools.