Luis Scasso, a director of lifelong education with the Organization of Ibero-American States, has described Korea as a role model for adult learning.

“We start to see Korea as a country we can learn a lot from. Because it made a huge progress in education over the 50 years,” Scasso told The Korea Herald at the fourth annual International Conference on Lifelong Learning in Daejeon. Korea has an adult literacy rate of 98 percent.

Scasso, who directs adult education programs for the 24 member Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, and Colombia, noted Latin American countries have significantly developed educational systems over the past two decades.

“But despite the progress made, there are more than 34 million who are considered absolute illiterates in our region,” he added.

He noted that more than 7 million young people aged 15 to 24 are unemployed in Latin America because they have no formal education.

“We still have a lot of people who are illiterate, and a lot of young people do not finish school. And we also have many people who never went school. Only through lifelong education can we meet all different needs,” he said.

“Our goal is to offer to all people the opportunities for lifelong education by 2021, but we can’t make it on our own, we need strong partnerships with Korea and other countries,” he added.

Over 120 practitioners, academics and policy planners participated in the form to share their experiences and discuss future challenges under the theme of “Learning Unlimited: Learning and the world of work.”

It was organized by the state-run National Institute for Lifelong Education in Korea.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)