Music, Drama and Storytelling Resources for Competence Building with Marginalised Adults Erasmus Project

Project Title

Music, Drama and Storytelling Resources for Competence Building with Marginalised Adults

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Access for disadvantaged; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Available statistics show that around one in four adults aged 25-64 in the EU, approximately 70 million people, have not completed any formal education beyond the level of lower secondary education. This figure includes around 20 million people who left the education system with no more than primary education. The OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIACC) found that on average, in the 17 countries that took part in the first round of this survey, 19.9% and 23.6% of adults respectively have a low level of achievement in literacy and numeracy.

Research also highlights the fact that adults with low level or no qualifications; those in low skilled occupations; the unemployed and economically inactive; older people and the least skilled are less likely to participate in lifelong learning.

There are a wide variety of barriers to education identified in the Adult Education Survey, most notably family responsibilities 21.8%; reconciling education with work schedules 13.6%; financial issues 13.3%; and insufficient ‘prerequisites’ 7.1%. However, perhaps the most important finding is that 80% of adults who do not participate in education and training do not express any interest in becoming involved in organised learning activities.

The strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training adopted in May 2009 set a number of benchmarks to be achieved by 2020. For adult adult participation in learning the objective was that at least 15 % of adults aged 25 to 64 years old should participate in lifelong learning. In the partner countries involved in the ARTSKUL project on Denmark with a participation rate of 26.8% in 2017 has achieved and exceeded the required level. For the other partner countries, the rates in 2017 were, Croatia 2.3%; Cyprus 6.9%; Italy 7.9%; Spain 7.9%; Ireland 8.9% and Portugal 9.8%. It is the opinion of partners that new approaches are needed to try and attract those on the margins of provision back to lifelong learning.

The ARTSKUL project proposes an innovative new service offering that uses performance arts disciplines including music, drama and storytelling to build a suite of embedded learning educational resources to build key transversal skills of low skilled adults. Partners are convinced that the traditional ‘sage-on-the-stage’ model of education is of little initial value in the current context. If educators are to attract adults on the margins of provision a new more holistic approach to teaching is required. In a pedagogic context, the performing arts of storytelling, drama and music have faded into the background and are rarely now considered as appropriate techniques for key competence building. However, in the current context, with the low levels of literacy and numeracy within the marginalised adult target group activities like storytelling, drama and music workshops could be considered as effective techniques to help overcome social and cultural barriers and build key competences among the marginalised adult communities.

It is the intention of the ARTSKUL partners to develop the following intellectual outputs to support the reintegration of adults:
1) A tool-kit of embedded learning resources to build basic skills and competences that are based around the different performing arts disciplines. Research conducted by Eurydice highlights the fact that even the briefest learning experience can be of real value for engaging marginalised adults, therefore, a series of new modular resources that can be broken down into small individual lessons will be developed
2) A digital skills training framework that is based on the most popular digital media platforms to support adults to record the storytelling, drama and music ‘performances’ that emerge as a result of their engagement during the project life-cycle
3) An in-service training programme for adult educators to enable them to harness the potential of the different performing arts disciplines for building basic skills and key competences and to develop alternative teaching strategies that allow them to work as facilitators of learning within group settings
4) A bespoke online learning environment to support adult educators engaged in the project and to record the learning experiences of the adults engaged

As there is clear evidence that adult education in its current form is not attractive to the most marginalised adults the ARTSKUL project will place a significant emphasis on the design of the proposed learning resources; the presentation of learning opportunities; the scheduling of different learning activities; to try and address the negative disposition of marginalised adults.

Project Website

http://artskul.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 209978 Eur

Project Coordinator

FO-Aarhus & Country: DK

Project Partners

• Ustanova za obrazovanje odraslih Dante
• The Rural Hub CLG
• SPEHA FRESIA SC
• CENTRE FOR ADVANCEMENT OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY LTD-CARDET
• Proportional Message – Associação
• ASOCIACION CULTURAL Y MEDIOAMBIENTAL PERMACULTURA CANTABRIA