To mark the 21st anniversary of the Institute for International Cooperation of the German Adult Education Association – DVV International in Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 23 to 25 June 2021, a conference „Adult Education and Pandemic: Challenges. Opportunities. Future.“ was held.
The conference gathered key actors in the field of adult education: former and current ministers of education, heads of departments and advisers within the ministries, representatives of the organisations providing adult education, as well as representatives of the academic community, who discuss the ways the COVID-19 pandemic has changed experiences and practice of adult education in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the region and Europe, aiming to discover the best practices and good examples how to develop adult education in the future adequately.
Migration from the formal to non-formal and informal education, an intense application of information-communication technologies, change of teaching models and patterns, adjusting the adult education system with all its segments to the „new normal“ are some of the challenges adult education faced in the previous pandemic year. Even though all of the mentioned challenges are global, responding to them was not the same in all parts of the world. The aim of this conference is, thus, to lighten the ways in which Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also the region of South East Europe, has coped with those challenges, and based on that derive some recommendations for the future, not only for adult education but education in general, particularly in the context of its transformative potentials and possibilities to enhance social practices.
DVV International began its work in Bosnia and Herzegovina in June 2000.