Foreword
People’s skills are at the heart of Slovenia’s vision for the future – a society in which people learn for and through life, are innovative, trust one another, enjoy a high quality of life and embrace their unique identity and culture.
As globalisation and digitalisation transform jobs, how societies function and how people interact, the impetus for getting skills right is growing. People will need a well-rounded set of skills to flourish in life at work and outside of it, including cognitive skills such as literacy and numeracy skills, as well as social and emotional and job-specific skills.
Slovenia has achieved significant improvements in student performance and tertiary attainment in recent decades. Slovenian youth today have higher proficiency in reading, maths and science than the OECD average. Tertiary attainment continues to grow, and fewer students are entering adulthood with low levels of educational attainment. However, many adults today have low levels of literacy and numeracy skills, and are therefore less equipped to succeed in work and society. And those with higher skills today cannot count on their skills being sufficient for the future.
It is up to Slovenia’s adult learning system to give adults and employers the opportunities they need to upskill and reskill. However, Slovenia has struggled to raise adult learning participation over time, particularly among certain groups of adults and enterprises. A diverse range of ministries, municipalities, enterprises and institutions are involved in adult learning policy making and delivery. This is a strength of Slovenia’s system, but it also poses a real challenge – ensuring coherence and minimising fragmentation in responsibilities, initiatives and spending.
Effective co-operation between these diverse actors is integral to the success of Slovenia’s adult learning system. It requires a comprehensive strategy and effective cross-sectoral oversight, as well as high-quality information to enrich decisions. It requires ministries, municipalities and stakeholders to improve how they co-operate, including on awareness raising and funding for adult learning.
There is no single or simple way to improve governance in adult learning systems. However, after widespread engagement in Slovenia and consideration of numerous international examples, the OECD has recommended in this report several actions to help Slovenia along this path.
The OECD stands ready to support Slovenia as it seeks to implement better skills policies for better lives.