The University of Malta's Valletta Campus provided the setting for the '2023 International Conference on Critical Education - Critical Adult Education and Learning' convened by the host University entities, The Department of Arts, Open Communities and Adult Education and the UNESCO Chair in Global Adult Education, both Faculty of Education, University of Malta. They worked in concert with the steering committee of the ICCE, notably the founders of the ICCE, Prof. Dave Hill and Prof. Kostas Sklordoulis. The funding for hosting this event was shared equally between the University Department in question and the UNESCO Chair.
Plenary speakers were from Greece, Kenya/Canada, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Serbia, St. Lucia, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Participants came from these countries as well as from other different parts of the world including, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Greece, India, Malta, Nicaragua, Nigeria, the Philippines, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom,,the United States and other contexts.
The conference opened with a talk by a Kenyan Professor, Njoki Wane, based at the University of Toronto, who paid tribute to Julius Nyerere, whose birth centenary was celebrated last year. She focused on his concept of education for self-reliance.
There was also a recorded address by Dr Didacus Jules, Secretary General of the Organisation of East Caribbean States and former Coordinator of the Grenada Mass literacy campaign in the Maurice Bishop and New Jewel Movement led revolutionary government of Grenada. Dr Jules' talk dealt with lessons to be learnt from the literacy and popular education programmes in revolutionary Grenada.
Other plenary speakers included Elsy Wakil from the Arab House for Adult Education and Development (AHAED) in Lebanon, who spoke about Adult Education perspectives from the Arab world, Prof. Dave Hill on Marxist Policy making in education and Activism, Prof. Kostas Sklordoulis on the critique of STEM, Prof. Katarina Popovic on Neoliberalism, Postmodernism and Covid-19, Prof. Maria Nikolakaki, also from Greece, on Resistance to Neoliberalism and Technocracy in Education and Prof. Hasan Aksoy from Turkey on the Changing promises of Education from Human Capital to Emancipation or Domestication. Dr. Josefine Wagner from Austria delivered a workshop on how to write a paper for an academic journal focusing on the International Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, while Prof. Peter Mayo and Prof. Paolo Vittoria, the latter from Italy, presented their jointly authored book, 'Critical Education in International Perspective', which has just been published by Bloomsbury Academic in paperback.
Prof. Carmel Borg and Prof. Peter Mayo ( in picture) were the two main organisers and convenors for this conference, ably abetted by Ms Lucienne Bugeja and her team from the University's Conference Unit.
Further information can be obtained online.
