CONFINTEA VI from a Canadian perspective

The 12-yearly International Conferences of Adult Education (CONFINTEA) organised by UNESCO are significant events in the ongoing global dialogues about adult learning and education (ALE) and its role within society. Thus, the latest conference held in Brazil in 2009 offered a major opportunity to consider and review developments about ALE policies and practices worldwide and encouraged both national governments and non-governmental organisations alike to examine their approaches to adult education and lifelong learning. After a review of the process that Canada adopted in following the UNESCO guidelines for preparing its country report, this paper focuses specifically on the involvement of Canada??s major academic adult education organisation and details its concerns with both the development and the substance of the report. Comparing it with the country reports of Finland, Sweden and the UK, the authors analyse the Canadian report and provide some explanatory reasons why, in their opinion, both the process and the result provided a less than complete picture of ALE in Canada and, in so doing, fell short of UNESCO??s aspirations for CONFINTEA.