Motivations and barriers in adult education in the Czech republic.
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2008 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | LLinE-Lifelong Learning in Europe |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | http://sivistys.net/about_lline/ |
| Field | Pedagogy and education |
| Keywords | adult educartion; motivation to adult education; barriers to adult education; formal education; non-formal education |
| Description | A mere 9 per cent of Czech adults enter formal education and approximately one third of the population participate in nonformal education. A survey undertaken in the Czech Republic in spring 2005 found out which internal and external barriers individuals have to adult education. We found several types of psychological barriers to formal education, and especially the perception towards the Czech labour market should be emphasized. The Czechs tend to perceive their education as an unimportant factor for their participation in the labour market. They think that It does not matter whether you improve your education or not, your working position (and your employment) is going to be the same anyway. Other barriers are important with respect to personal development and, more generally, to social and civic involvement. They amount to preference for the traditional model of education, contentedness with his or her knowledge and skills, little interest in self development through education and not very positive experience from his or her school age. The question is: how can we change these deeply rooted opinions and attitudes? Our analysis of barriers to participation in non-formal education was based on three types of barriers: situational, institutional and dispositional. We found that some factors from each of the three domains play a role. As to situational barriers, financial barriers are most significant, followed by time related barriers; as to dispositional barriers, people fear that there is no point for them to participate in such courses, that they would not manage or that they are not educated enough. Institutional barriers did not play a major role, which is one good finding: it seems that the respondents do not use something over which they have little influence as an excuse (little information, bad quality of courses etc.). |
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