Trade Union Education and Life Long Learning in Modern Greece —A Critical and Empirical Approach Concerning the Case of GSEE

Abstract

The issue of lifelong adult learning has a long tradition in several EU countries and specifically in the field of the trade unions which seem to function not only as having a defending role towards their employees but an educational one as well. In light of the educational philosophy in the field of adult education, Greece still lags behind most of Europe in its modernization policies of the education system thus widening the social and democratic deficit.

Based on this reasoning, in the context of lifelong learning, KANEP and INE/GSEE designed the training program “Education and Work” at a time when the applied policies of lifelong learning are faced with a number of challenges, succeeding though to combine a wide range of theoretical and technical methodological tools, in order to fully meet the several needs of the members of the trade union movement. So, at a time when the forces of labour gradually collapse, the trade union educational intervention in Greece becomes of vital importance in order for the vocational and social progress of the workers to be ensured.