Professionalisation of adult basic skills teachers – issues and challenges across Europe

This paper starts from two premises. Firstly that that adult basic skills are highly important in modernsocieties, in both economic and social terms, and secondly that this area of education provision is among the mostchallenging and skilled areas of teaching. It will argue for the importance of subject specific initial and continuingprofessional development as a key element of the policy structure needed for an effective basic skills teacher trainingsystem.In developing this argument we will draw on discussions within a recently completed EU Learning Partnership.BASKET – Professional development of basic skills trainers11 was funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme of theEuropean Commission, under the Grundtvig learning partnership action. The project was implemented within theperiod 2011-2013 by a consortium of 8 partners from Europe: Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Scotland,England12, Romania and the Czech Republic13, each at a different stage of development of systems to supportimprovements in the basic skills levels of their adult populations. The aim of the project was to explore nationalsystems for the professional development of adult basic skills teachers. It also explored country specific challenges