The first cycle of the University of Malta’ s first UNESCO Chair draws to an end in December 2025. A renewal of the Chair , in Global Adult Education, will be sought, involving new blood as co-Chair to ensure continuity.
Ever since its inception in September 2021, the UNESCO Chair, which is being held by , has been actively engaged in promoting Adult Education globally, in keeping with its remit. It revived Convergence. An International Adult Education Journal, following its lengthy hiatus, for which the University department housing this Chair is mainly and financially responsible, from the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE). All issues, since the Chair revived the journal, are available on this website: CONVERGENCE - An International Journal of Adult Education
In addition, the UNESCO Chair in Global Adult Education has been organising numerous other activities. This Autumn/Fall saw the publication, in paperback, of the book of papers from the May 2023 International Conference on Critical Education in general (ICCE XV) which included International Critical Adult Education and Learning.
The conference was organised and hosted by the and the UNESCO Chair in Global Adult Education with funds and organisational efforts shared by these two entities within the University of Malta’s These two entities were also responsible for editing and producing the book that emerged from the conference, Stretching Boundaries of Critical Education. Past, Present and Future Possibilities (Faculty of Education, University of Malta).
The previous year also saw the launching, under the aegis of the UNESCO Chair in Global Adult Education, of the international online MA degree in Adult Education. The participants have thus far completed their two foundational courses, one in the Theoretical Foundations of Adult Education and the other in Research Methods in Adult Education. This Autumn/ Fall, they worked on their dissertation proposal. There are ten participants in this cohort, from Malta, Australia and the UK. A second cohort is expected to join in 2026.
Ever since its inception, the UNESCO Chair has been responsible for holding annual webfests celebrating momentous events in adult education. In 2021, there were web fests celebrating the Birth Centenaries of Paulo Freire (three days) and Raymond Williams.
2022 saw the celebration of the Birth Centenary of Julius K. Nyerere while similar birth centenary webfests were held in 2023 for Don Lorenzo Milani and in 2024 for Alberto Manzi. .A similar web event was held to commemorate the third anniversary of the passing away of bell hooks.
The 50th Anniversary of the 150 hours Italian experiment in Working Class and Women’s Adult education was also marked by a web fest in Italian and English. The different web fests involved Zoom connections with different corners of the earth; some of the most prominent global scholars on the topic participated. All recordings of the different web fests are available on the UNESCO Chair UM website. This May's web fest is being planned to celebrate Chilean educator and poet Gabriela Mistral (Lucila Godoy Alcayaga), marking the 80th anniversary of her being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
2023 also saw a ’Web Fest on Equality, Democracy and People's Enlightenment: Ideas of Dr B.R. Ambedkar and Dr Paulo Freire for the Uplift of the" Underprivileged Community" held at the University of Kalyani, the University of Malta’s UNITWIN partner, on 24 May 2023. It was organised in connection with the Chair and recorded. Recording is available on website: Access the recording (Passcode: $4kQtG#j).
In 2023, a UNESCO Chair Global Adult Education two-day on site Seminar started being organised around November. The 2023 seminar invitees discussed challenges and trends in adult education. The participants were from Spain, Kenya, Palestine ( online because of the post 0ctober 7 blockade) and Canada.
November 2024 saw the organisation of the second seminar, the theme being the International Council for Adult Education on its half century of existence. The seminar involved people connected with the Council from Serbia, Brazil, Lebanon, UK and Germany.
On 4 and 5 November 2025, the third intimate UNESCO Chair Malta Global Adult Education Seminar, this time on ‘Adult Education and Communities’, will be held just before the International Conference (6 and 7 November, UM Valletta Campus Aula Prima and break away rooms)
As 2025 marks the end of the Chair’s first cycle., an International Critical Adult Learning and Education (CALE) Conference, a follow up to the 2023 one, is being planned for the latter part of 2025, precisely 6 and 7 November 2025.
Meanwhile there is also a book series for De Gruyter-Brill with around 36 books to date, the last two of which now carrying the UNESCO Chair- UNITWIN logo. There are other books in the offing, one already in press. The present UNESCO Chair incumbent, the undersigned, is being involved in two research projects closely connected with the Chair. Publishing houses have already been contacting the Chair holder to publish selections of papers presented at the conference.
The Chair is involved in research collaborative projects with the department of social research and communication at University of Rome Sapienza and the Consiglio Nazionale di Ricerca Naples branch in popular education and community education on Museums and Heritage between Italy( Naples) and Malta respectively. The Chair holder was Visiting Professor at La Sapienza, Centro Nazionale di Ricerca Napoli and Università di Napoli Federico II.
