The ‘GrundbildungsPFADE’ project at a glance

Empirical studies have shown for years that a significant proportion of the adult population in Germany has low basic skills. According to the 2018 LEO study, around 6.2 million adults have difficulty reading and writing. The 2023 PIAAC study also indicates that around one in five adults has only low levels of reading, everyday maths and problem-solving skills.

Many adults with basic learning needs have so far been unable to access educational and advisory services, or have dropped out of learning programmes because the provision does not suit their learning requirements or because there are no opportunities for progression. Basic learning pathways address this by providing guidance, making access easier and supporting long-term learning.

Adults with basic learning needs are not a homogeneous group. Their learning prerequisites, life situations and support requirements vary significantly. The network projects therefore tailor their activities to the specific target groups identified in their respective regions. These include, for example, jobseekers, employees and apprentices requiring support, young adults transitioning into training and employment, and adult immigrants with basic learning needs.

An important basis is provided by the guidance document on the target groups of the basic education pathways, which describes which groups of people are the focus of the funding priority and how a target group-specific definition can be made.

→ Guidance document “Target groups of the basic education pathways”

The BMBFSFJ’s funding guidelines have broadened the focus to include people with low literacy levels and set out the principles of ‘higher, broader, more inclusive’ for the ten collaborative projects. “Higher” means that people with Alpha Level 4 (erratic or slow reading and writing at text level) can also be the target group for basic education pathways. “Broader” means that basic education can encompass not only reading, writing and arithmetic, but also digital, social and financial skills, for example. “More inclusive” responds to the fact that 47.4% of adults with low literacy levels in Germany have a language of origin other than German. Therefore, programmes should address both immigrants and people who grew up in Germany (see figure “Guidelines”).

The collaborative projects adopt different approaches tailored to their respective regions. Basic education pathways are not designed as self-contained programmes with linear stages. Rather, the collaborative projects build on existing provision and structures in their regions, identify needs and gaps, and develop and pilot complementary, preparatory or accompanying support approaches on a pilot basis. Working together with various stakeholders in the network, they improve access to the target groups and further develop existing structures in a sustainable and basic education-sensitive manner.

This includes, for example, better integrating existing advisory and educational services, creating preparatory programmes that facilitate entry into further education pathways (e.g. catching up on school qualifications), and further developing formats such as partial qualifications or nursing assistant training in a way that takes basic education needs into account.

What all these approaches have in common is that basic education pathways can only succeed through close, networked cooperation between various stakeholders. Depending on the target group and regional context, this involves education providers, advice centres, employment services (Jobcentres, Employment Agencies), professional bodies, businesses, and other local and social institutions.