Prospective adult educators in Austria now have the opportunity to receive training at an academic level. The Master's degree “Adult Education / Continuing Education” will start at the end of March and was described by Claudia Schmied, Federal Minister for Education, the Arts and Culture as a “breakthrough for adult education” at the presentation of the course.

The university degree in adult education / continuing education provides knowledge on teaching adults for the broad professional field of adult education and continuing education and its field of activities. It aims to give the participants a practice-oriented qualification and they will learn how to act in a professional theory-driven and research-focused manner.

Essential elements of the degree are the combination of theory, the ability to reflect on one’s situation in the profession and an orientation towards implementing the objective of academic and experience-based learning. The focal point of the course is to debate current and future topics and issues concerning adult education / continuing education.

The course was developed in recent years with the aim of making adult education more professional and reinforcing the image of “adult educators”. Despite the fact that there are already around 100,000 people employed in adult education in Austria, there has so far been no specific training focused on adult education at an academic level.

The Master's degree is not just for academics. It is also available specifically aimed at practitioners without a university degree. Thus it is possible to combine formally and non-formally acquired education. This is underlined by the fact that three-quarters of the students at the first university course, which will commence shortly, are non-academics.