Transnational adult education governance and policy: the role of OECD and UNESCO

The chapter traces and discusses how two different international organizations, the OECD and UNESCO, both established in the wake of the Second World War, conceive and pursue adult education governance and policy. Both organizations have developed policy objectives and tools for adult education in the context of their general work, constituencies, and mandates. The OECD has mainly contextualised adult education and learning as an element of economic competitiveness and development, underpinned by human capital theory, while UNESCO has emphasized adult education as part of cultural and civic development, guided by a human rights approach to education. Over the years UNESCO’s civic agenda has gradually lost out against the priority placed on schooling in international development and the neoliberal individualistic lifelong learning and skills approach promoted by the OECD. In contrast to the OECD, which governs through metrics, UNESCO’s role in adult education is based on normative rather than empirical governing.