spall/ ercmove

Emine Dalyan (SPALL-Ercmove), 21 March 2006

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SPALL/ ERCMOVE

THE CASE OF THE NETHERLANDS

Emine Dalyan, Capelle a/d IjsselMarch 2006


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The Two Different Perceptions within the Dutch Society Towards the Life Long Learning

The autochtonus Dutch Adults

The allochtonus Dutch Adults


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The autochtonus Dutch adults need the LLL,

because:

They need to acquire new skills to have a better chance in the job market.

The living and working conditions of the 2nd modernity (Giddens, 1994; Beck, 1994) makes it necessary that employment requires a bunch of new skills from the individuals. They must learn to deal with individual and general questions and problems in a new manner and besides of traditional discourses. (often called as key skills).


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The autochtonus Dutch adults want the LLL, because:

of their leisure times. Dutch adults tend to learn new languages or attend recreational activities in their leisure times. Volksuniversiteit is a private institution offering language, photography, pottery, drawing, fashion, cooking... etc classes and workshops. There are app. 10,000 adults/ year attending to their courses.


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The allochtonus Dutch adults are forced to participate the

LLL, because:

of the Dutch Immigration Law. According to the new adopted section of the law, the immigrants have to pass the language and integration tests before they are accepted to live in the Dutch society. To pass the test, a basic knowledge of Dutch is required. There are even Dutch language schools opened for the ‘candidate immigrants’ in their home countries. (burden is exported to the home country)


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The allochtonus Dutch adults need the LLL, because:

They need to acquire new skills in their new environment and transfer some of their former skills to empower themselves. The immigrant adults need to develop new skills to become wanted in the job-market.

The Dutch business world has two equally important characteristics: traditional & international. The traditional aspect of the business world requires the new comers at least seek for a better understanding of the Dutch way of doing things.


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The allochtonus Dutch adults want the LLL, because:

They want to become equal members of the Dutch society.

Adult migrants want to further develop their skills. However, there are certain restrictions for them. They usually feel uncomfortable when they follow a LLL activity with the autochtonus Dutch adults. They feel intimidated and neglected. They usually follow the LLL programmes developed by the

migrants civil society organisations.


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(Continues from the previous page)

Most of the migrants civil society organisations lack the rigour, knowledge, capacity and the human resources to provide an effective LLL.

Unlike the formal education, there is no code of conduct or a transfer system of the organisations giving education and training services for the immigrant adults.

The Dutch authorities are unwilling to co-operate with such organisations. Only some local authorities co-operate. (i.e. Delfshaven: Mekan Vereniging)


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The migrant adults (allochtonus Dutch) feel neglected by the Dutch government.

The LLL facilities provided by the civil society organisations do not perform according to their needs. For this reason, the migrant adults tend not to follow the LLL programs.

The private sector refer the migrant adults reluctant to pay for the LLL, therefore they do not develop programmes especially designed for the migrant adults.


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Is there a need for adult migrants’ participation to the LLL?

The findings of this research showed that:

The allochtonus and the autochtonus Dutch agree upon the importance of the term integration. It is referred as the most important problem of the Dutch society.


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There are basically two groups of indicators of integration. The structural-functional and the socio-cultural indicators. The autochtonus and the alloctonus Dutch adults agree upon the first group. (work, language, housing).

Their view differ with regard to the second group of indicators. (inter-ethnic marriage, friends, religion).


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The local Dutch adults expect the migrant adults to be less demanding about their civil and cultural rights, while the immigrant adults tend to expect respect to a great extent.

Above all, the LLL is simply required to foster the education of the migrant adults about their civil liberties within a democratic society.


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Tentative Conclusions and Recommendations:

The strategies to manage the adult migrants participation to the LLL would be:

- Flexibility of the time schedule- The enlargement of accesibility

(percentages of part-time students, positive discrimination)


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- to overcome the lack of national measures, a general code of conduct regarding the LLL activities.

- to promote co-operation between the civil society organisations providing the LLL.

- to accelerate professionalization of adult educators, especially in the civil society sector.

- to develop communication and co-operation between three sectors.


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- to facilitate the availability of information and counselling services for migrant adults.

- to further democratic participation and be effective on decision-making. Lobby to change the policy statements (laws, regulations, recommendations or reports) that are incapable of promoting and generating the LLL.


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- to expand the extent of the LLL through the involvement of other sectors such as agriculture, environment, health and justice.

- to create funding sources for adult education.

spall/ ercmove

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