In total, there are nine non-European countries that are member of the OECD, i.e. Australia, Canada, Chile, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand and the United States, which were first considered for the selection of a non-European case study country. There is no comparative data-source on time trends in adult learning for these countries, however there is PIAAC data, which can at least provide comparable data on participation in formal/non-formal education and training in a given year. Except for Mexico, all countries mentioned above are included in PIAAC.
Canada, New Zealand and the United States are the top-3 non-European OECD countries with the highest average participation rates, according to PIAAC. Their participation rates are also well above the OECD average. These countries could therefore be interesting for inclusion in the study. Within Canada, participation rates are particularly high in the province Alberta, which makes it an interesting candidate for inclusion in this study.
Although Australia’s participation rates are very similar to those of Canada and the United States, we do not propose to include Australia as a potential country for the research, because other national data sources (HILDA, WRTAL) indicate that participation rates have continuously declined in the past decade.
As mentioned above, there is no publicly available longitudinal data with respect to individuals’ participation in adult learning activities for New Zealand, Canada (Alberta) and the United States. One can therefore not apply selection criteria that are similar to those used for the short-list of European countries. This means that it (currently) cannot be verified whether the participation rates reflect an increasing or decreasing trend. However, preliminary policy research indicated that all three countries / regions place significant emphasis on adult learning. For example, New Zealand introduced major investments of NZD 168 million to increase literacy, language and numeracy skills of the workforce between 2008‑2012, Alberta (Canada) has a Ministry of Advanced Education that focuses specifically on academic upgrading and adult learning and introduced various policies on the topic in the past decade, and in 2011, the Obama administration in the United States introduced USD 500 million in grants to community colleges around the country for targeted training and workforce development to help economically dislocated workers who are changing careers.
Finally, in consultation with the European Commission, it was decided to also review time-series data on learning participation from Singapore. National registry data was used to determine how participation in adult education evolved over time. Based on data from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the participation rate increased from around 30% to close to 50% over the previous decade as a result of a moderate increase from 2011 and a stark one from 2015. The availability of time-series data, as well as the qualitative evidence on Singaporean reform efforts in the area of adult learning, led to the inclusion of Singapore in this study.