Adult Education and Globally Engaged Trainers: The Case of Vocational Training Institutes

Abstract

Globalization provides access to people, services, goods, ideas, beliefs and values in a new way and poses fundamental challenges for all areas of education in every country. Education on global issues is a process of individual and collective growth which allows for transformation and self-transformation. In this vein, this quantitative study seeks to investigate the perspectives of 310 adult educators on global education training. The accessible population of the study was adult educators working in the public and private vocational training institutes in the region of Western Greece during the academic year 2021–2022. The random sampling technique was applied. Research findings show that teachers recognize the necessity and importance of training on global competence and most of them have attended one or more courses mostly during their undergraduate or postgraduate studies or during their participation in training programs. They also regard the University as the most appropriate training actor, and they are in favor of optional training programs and of mixed type. Regarding training topics, they proposed interculturalism, diversity, current events, religion, history, immigrants, environment, geography, human rights and culture. Finally, participants’ aspects do not seem to be affected by their employment relationship and years of service. On the contrary, gender, ICT knowledge and additional studies seem to affect the results of the research.