The Adult Education Centre
Adult Education Centres are public institutions for Adult Education. In Germany in 2010 there were 938 AECs and 3,072 regional field offices in neighbourhoods or rural areas. 595 AECs are organised and supported by the local authorities (cities, counties, municipalities or user associations), 301 are registered associations, the rest have special legal status: They work in private ownership or as a GmbH (limited company). Regardless of their legal form, the Adult Education Centres work as community centres for continuing education and contribute to the local services.
A few years ago, nearly half of the funding was secured from the public funds of municipalities and states; in the meantime this share has dropped to around 40 percent. In turn, external funding (SGB III, federal and EU funds) increased to a financing share of about 20 percent. The nationwide average proportion of income from course fees is relatively stable at just under 40 percent.
The staff of Adult Education Centres is made up of 689 directors/managers, about 3,400 full-time educational staff and about 3,800 administrative staff and employees. The majority of courses (674,553 in 2010) are held by about 200,000 self-employed/freelance staffers. With 15.6 million teaching hours and 9.1 million participants, the performance potential of the AECs – despite declining staffing levels in the educational sector – has increased significantly in recent years.
Characteristic of the work of the AEC is its fundamental openness for everything that can be secured for community services at an affordable price through independence from ideology and partisan politics. The wide range of offers in the programme areas: policy, society, environment, culture, style, health, languages, work, occupation, basic education, educational certificates is aligned to the orientation, education and training interests of the participants. They serve the development of individual potential, professional further education and the recognition of qualifications and contribute to social integration. With courses in literacy, basic education and remedial education, Adult Education Centres also offer the educationally disadvantaged target groups a second chance. Since the implementation of the "Immigration Law", they work everywhere as a support for integration courses. Certificates play a role, especially in foreign languages (e.g. the "telc language certificates") and in professional education (e.g. "Xpert certificates") and show their value by contributing to the recognition of achieved performance.
A majority of AECs have even, in recent years, undergone certification processes for their quality development and assurance (both in teaching and in service areas), thus responding to the changing market situation in continuing education. In order to operate competitively in this differentiating further education market, the AECs have to act as powerful municipal education centres, acquire successful projects and contracts and balance the need for economic success with their educational mission.
Cross-sectoral programme offers (e.g. young AEC, senior education, intercultural learning), target group and milieu-specific as well as customised (company) offers supplement traditional course offers like e-learning and blended learning, which are sometimes integrated in newly conceptualised "learning centres". AECs take new service functions seriously, such as in learning consultation or as initiators and facilitators of local networks and partnerships (e.g. in the programme "Learning Regions"). Within the "local educational landscapes", the AECs want to contribute to a coherent education and transition management.
In the new position paper that was presented at the 13th Adult Education Conference, the work of the Adult Education Centres was described exactly and accurately reflected. Based on a draft text by Prof. Dr. Erhard Schultz, a renowned expert and practitioner of Adult Education, employees of the Adult Education Centres and its 16 state associations participated and contributed their expertise to the 60-page publication.
The Adult Education Centre – Education as Public Responsibility can be ordered by email for a nominal fee of five euros.
Much of the explanatory information about DVV and the AECs which can be found on this website are literal transcriptions of passages from that document.
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