The crisis in life planning, adult education and perspectives on training

This contribution stems from the idea that adulthood is a period marked by growth, evolu- tion, crisis and change. When we talk about adults today, we are referring to subjects who are experiencing a crisis in planning: today’s adults display a sort of self-referentiality which renders them unable to grasp the relationships of interdependence that exist between themselves and their surrounding environment. Consequently, the choices they make tend to be driven by individualism rather than by a sense of responsibility. This situation calls for pedagogical reflection and leads to the recognition of the importance of adult education, which is aimed not only at the acquisition of knowledge, but also promotes the development of the individual and offers itself as education for life. The challenge for adult education is how to educate and encourage people to be able to plan their futures and redesign their lives. In this, there seem to be three goals and paths to be pursued and followed: education towards self-determination, education towards sharing, and education towards social commitment. How can these goals be achieved? The UNESCO documents highlight the urgency of focus- ing on lifelong learning, arguing that the challenges humanity is facing require learning societies.