SECONDARY EDUCATION IN THE ADULT EDUCATION AND TRAINING CENTERS IN CATALONIA

The concept of adult education is complex and has evolved in order to respond to the social requests of different historical moments. Basic education within adult training, understood as the graduate in secondary education focused on Catalonia, does not escape this complexity and evolution either. Generally, it has many different features compared to the rest of regular education, the main one being the socio-educational characteristics of its students. That is because, on the one hand, they must combine their training process with the responsibilities of their age; and on the other, more and more students are younger as a result of the school failure of the regular educational system. This means that, among other things, dropping out of school represents one of the most serious problems with which this type of education must face, which implies a restructuring of it to respond to the challenges posed in this society of continuous and accelerated change. Therefore, analysing compulsory education in adults implies taking into account several factors, because of the multidimensionality of the process. The article deals with some institutional, curricular and personal aspects that correspond to the macro, meso and microsocial systems respectively, to later provide some proposals that go through, among other things, the need of a flexible curriculum, the adoption of a social and community model and, fundamentally, the educational guidance within this training field.