Adult basic education (ABE) is an essential part of adult education, which is organised very dif­fer­ent­ly across Europe. Respective teacher training pro­gram­mes often lack a syste­ma­tic basis. This is where the Erasmus+ project “Bridging Barriers — Competence Development of Trainers in Adult Basic Education” comes in with an attempt to streng­then the foun­da­ti­ons for adult basic education by col­la­bo­ra­ting with prac­ti­tio­ners and working towards higher levels of pro­fes­sio­na­lism in the field.
Since 2019, the project partners have been analysing the essential skills of ABE teachers and deve­lo­ping methods to make these skills visible. Different approa­ches have been developed by the project’s partners in Austria, Italy, Slovakia, and Switzerland, which we are going to present in the conference.
Moreover, the project’s outcomes are discussed against the backdrop of current policy deve­lo­p­ments, both at the European Union level and at a Member State level. Two pre­sen­ta­ti­ons will explore the place of adult basic education in current EU policy making and how the project’s outcomes might con­tri­bu­te to the pro­li­fe­ra­ti­on of this important, yet still often unde­re­sti­ma­ted field of lifelong learning.