GAPS IN PROVISION AND TAKE UP
The deficits in coverage indicated in Table 11 are increasingly important in the current socioeconomic context. This is because a “very low educational level” has gone from being a
“deficit” to becoming a factor of “social exclusion” (Subirats et al., 2004). The main gaps that
appear in today’s scenario in the training of adults with a deficit in basic skills are related to:
• The difficulty of integrating the adult population with a deficit in basic
skills into lifelong learning.
To overcome this difficulty, it is necessary to reverse the dynamics of training polarisation in
which, initially, better trained adults have greater access to on-going training. Paradoxically, a
deficit in basic skills makes access to on-going training more difficult, and despite the efforts to
train adults with deficits in basic skills, the mainstream continues provide additional training for
the most highly trained. Reversing this tendency requires increasing the attractiveness of ongoing programmes for those sectors of the population, which, due to their deficits in basic
training, may be excluded. Improving attractiveness also requires improving the methods and
organisation of this training (cost, location, programmatic, effectiveness).
• The challenge of reducing the rate of school failure among young
people in compulsory education.
In the near future, these young people will be adults with basic skill deficits, increasing their
risk of social exclusion and, in particular of the training opportunities throughout their lives. This
fact requires the establishment of “preventive measures” in order to avoid school failure which
is a central aim of the LOE.
• Basic skills training for new groups: older adults and immigrants.
The Spanish population is changing, and the changes that most affect and will continue to
affect adult training in basic skills are: on the one hand, the ageing of the population
simultaneously due to the decrease in fertility rates and the increase in life expectancy and, on
the other hand, the increasing proportion of the immigrant population in the population as a
whole. This is why both groups, older adults and immigrants, will increase their proportion in
adult training activities in basic skills and will require more resources and specific attention both
quantitatively and qualitatively.
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The new law (LOE) includes these subjects both in its aims and intent. Over the next few
months, Educational Administrations will focus on: a) the regulatory development of the
recently passed LOE,
which includes the aforementioned subjects, and b) the definition of the
resources available for this development. The quality of the work performed by Spanish
Administrations in this field will greatly determine its gaps in the future.
Finally, we should point out that, for quality knowledge, follow-up and assessment of policies in
this field, an improvement in the information tools available is necessary. Improvements need
to address both the Spanish statistical and documentary sources and the coordination of the
information related to the schemes developed by the Autonomous Communities directly in
charge of the programmes