Education specifically targeted at individuals who are regarded as adults by their society to improve their technical or professional qualifications, further develop their abilities, enrich their knowledge with the purpose to complete a level of formal education, or to acquire, refresh or update their knowledge, skills and competencies in a particular field. This also includes what may be referred to as ‘continuing education’, ‘recurrent education’ or ‘second chance education’.
General or vocational education provided for adults after initial education and training for professional and/or personal purposes, and which aims to:
• provide general education for adults in topics of particular interest to them (e. g. in open universities);
• provide compensatory learning in basic skills which individuals may not have acquired earlier in their initial education or training (such as literacy, numeracy) and thus to
• give access to qualifications not gained, for various reasons, in the initial education and training system;
• acquire, improve or update knowledge, skills or competences in a specific field: this is continuing education and training.
Comment: adult education is close to, but not synonymous with continuing education and training.