The need for adult education seems to have been forgotten.
We need to defend and enhance our democracy. It should be a priority to create open minds, critical thinking, and logic with clear sightlines. It is a necessary strength to combat extremism and the constant drone of non-factual social media content.
Now the view seems as strong as ever that adult education is to serve the economy. It is a neoliberal means of fulfilling economic goals, not of strengthening democratic purpose and practice.
Adult education includes self-education and lifelong education. We constantly seek answers, and the necessary means to learn are available in our own society. Society needs to be resilient and able to make informed and logical decisions. Educated debate is a means of arriving at a necessary decision.
Adult education does not have to be the primary method of creating a functional, well-performing cog in a complex economic model.