Page 232 - Working-and-ageing-Guidance-and-counselling-for-mature-learning

3062_EN_C1_Layout 1 11/23/11 4:22 PM Page 226

Working and ageing
226 Guidance and counselling for mature learners

competitiveness and social welfare of the country depend, to a great extent,
on ability to tackle this structural weakness effectively.
However, despite the extent of this problem, for many years adult education
policies did not face it systematically. Between 1974 – the year when half a
century of dictatorship ended – and the 1990s, public policies for adult
education were still characterised by:
(a) a compensatory approach, namely second-chance education that
repeated the curricula and methods of formal education;
(b) occasional, intermittent policies or measures;
(c) a lack of official expertise and financial investment (Freitas, 2009;
Guimarães, 2009).
From the mid-1990s, public policies on adult education opened up to
modern trends and approaches, and embraced the importance of adult
education as a contributing factor to social and economic modernisation and
development (Freitas, 2009). On the other hand, some lessons were learned
from the past. A case in point was the method used in experimental adult
education courses, designed by non-profit local organisations after the
democratic revolution of 1974, based on prior knowledge and experiences of
low-skilled adults (Guimarães, 2009). In the late 1990s, public policies began
to implement a national system of recognition and validation of competences
in partnership with these local organisations. The qualification pathway was
based both on the adultʼs experience and development of skills needed in a
more demanding and changing labour market, thus contributing to
modernisation of the country.
In 2005, the recognition, validation and certification of competences (RVCC)
system became a key element of the new opportunities initiative – a
government programme aiming to adopt a massive and assertive adult
education policy to address, as effectively and systematically as possible,
serious low qualification levels in Portuguese society.

12.2. The new opportunities initiative and the
national qualifications system

The new opportunities initiative ( ) is a governmental programme launched
43
jointly by the Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity and the Ministry of
Education. It is a clear political commitment in budgetary, institutional,

43
( ) http://www.novasoportunidades.gov.pt.