ENHANCE Interactive Roadmap

Systemic Barriers

Interpersonal Barriers

Media Visibility & Public Discourse

Breaking Barriers

Material Support

Safe Spaces

PoliticalRepresentation

Engagement Strategies

Quality and Accessible Information

Gathering & Organising

Alternative spaces & methods

Solidarity & Recognition

Community Based Actions

Strong & Heard Voices

Strong & Heard Voices

Building Communities

Building Communities

Educators & Institutions Training

Dowload the ENHANCE Roadmap

Intersentionality

Listening in Policy & Practice

Listening in Policy & Practice

Accessibility & Belonging

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

Step 1: Building Communities

Key Action Points

Building communities is the starting condition for any meaningful learner voice process. Across the ENHANCE workshops and recommendations, participants consistently showed that learner participation does not begin with formal consultation, policy meetings, or governance structures. It begins much earlier, in whether learners experience adult education spaces as places of trust, belonging, and mutual recognition. This step should therefore be understood as more than a preparatory phase. Community-building is not what happens “before the real work starts.” It is itself a political and pedagogical practice. It creates the social conditions in which learners can move from isolation to connection, from private experience to shared reflection, and from individual need to collective expression. Learner voice is relational. It does not emerge only from giving individuals a chance to answer questions. It grows through sustained relationships, peer support, shared experiences, and repeated opportunities to reflect together.

Policy makers

Civil Society & Learners

Providers & Practitioners

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Step 2: Understanding the Power of Policy Representation & Visibility

Key Action Points

Policy makers

This step concerns the visibility of adult learners, adult education, and learner voice within public discourse, institutional processes, and political representation. If adult learners are absent from media, public narratives, consultation spaces, and institutional communication, then their concerns remain peripheral and are treated as exceptions rather than as legitimate policy priorities. Visibility must therefore be understood in at least three ways: first, visibility of adult education as a field that matters; second, visibility of learners as knowledge holders and contributors; and third, visibility of issues that are often hidden by technical or bureaucratic language. In this sense, policy representation is not only about being “included” in policy documents. It is also about being audible and intelligible in the spaces where policy meaning is produced. Where learner voice is made visible, institutions are more likely to recognize participation as a legitimate expectation rather than a temporary experiment. Where visibility is absent, learner participation remains vulnerable to tokenism, marginalization, and dependence on individual champions.

Civil Society & Learners

Providers & Practitioners

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Step 3: Addressing Barriers & Enablers to Active Participation – Accountability of Policymakers

Key Action Points

Policy makers

Civil Society & Learners

This step addresses the structural, cultural, linguistic, economic, and institutional conditions that enable or prevent adult learners from participating meaningfully. It is one of the strongest and most validated steps in the workshops, especially because participants repeatedly moved from individual stories to structural diagnosis. The roadmap should preserve that strength. Participation is not blocked only by personal hesitation or lack of confidence; it is also blocked by inaccessible systems, rigid funding structures, institutional prejudice, childcare costs, policy language, narrow citizenship frameworks, and the absence of meaningful response mechanisms. The accountability dimension is crucial. Barriers should be identified clearly between those generated at the level of educator behaviour and those produced by wider systems. This distinction matters because it changes where action must be directed. Without accountability, “barriers” becomes a neutral term that hides power.

Providers & Practitioners

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Step 4: Developing Engagement Strategies with Adult Learners & Practitioners

Key Action Points

Policy makers

Civil Society & Learners

This step should focus on the concrete strategies through which participation becomes possible in practice. Importantly, several workshops suggested that the step should not be framed as strategies designed for learners and practitioners, but with them. Engagement strategies are not generic participation tools. They must be grounded in actual preconditions. Across the workshops, participants made clear that engagement cannot be built on aspiration alone. It requires time, trust, coordination, accessible communication, flexible formats, supportive staff, and material enablers such as childcare or translation. A workshop, survey, or council is not enough if the conditions for participation are absent.

Providers & Practitioners

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Step 5: Developing Community-Based Advocacy Actions

Key Action Points

Policy makers

This step moves the roadmap from expression to influence. Community-based advocacy is where learner voice leaves the immediate learning environment and enters public, political, and institutional arenas. It is especially important because several workshops stressed that voice without action or implementation risks becoming frustrating and symbolic. Advocacy transforms lived experience into collective pressure, proposals, and demands that can shape decisions. Advocacy in this case should not be understood narrowly as professional lobbying. The workshops reveal a broader range of practices: peer networks, community councils, learner-led public events, ambassadors, municipal participation, testimonies, union-related channels, and grassroots storytelling. These practices matter because they allow learners and communities to act even where formal access to policymaking is weak. In this sense, advocacy is also an enabling bridge between local participation and system-level change.

Civil Society & Learners

Providers & Practitioners

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Step 6: Listening in Policymaking

Key Action Points

This step is about moving from symbolic consultation to responsive, accountable listening. Listening is not a moral posture or a soft interpersonal skill placed near the end of a roadmap. It is a structural practice that should shape how institutions work, how policies are developed, and how educators and decision-makers respond to lived experience. The workshop evidence suggests that this step needs both expansion and reframing. It should not apply only to formal policymakers. This step should therefore be reworked so that it includes: early listening, relational listening, accountable listening, and reflexive listening. It should also require visible follow-up. If institutions gather input but do not respond, trust collapses and participation becomes performative. Listening in policymaking must mean that institutions show what was heard, what changed, and why.

Policy makers

Civil Society & Learners

Providers & Practitioners

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Step 7: Strengthening the Role of Learners in Decision-Making

Key Action Points

Policy makers

This final step concerns the shift from participation as expression to participation as power. If learner voice remains limited to feedback, consultation, or representation without influence, then the roadmap stops short of transformation. Strengthening the role of learners in decision-making means recognizing adult learners as co-determining actors in education and, where possible, in the wider democratic structures that shape it. This step is the culmination of the roadmap, but it is also dependent on the previous steps. Decision-making power cannot be built without communities, visibility, barrier removal, engagement strategies, advocacy, and listening. At the same time, several workshops made clear that learner power should not be postponed indefinitely until every condition is perfect. Learners need real influence now, even if it begins through smaller mechanisms such as curriculum co-design, language ambassador roles, municipal advisory councils, or learner-organised events.

Civil Society & Learners

Providers & Practitioners

In Context

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Quality Information and Data

Quality information and data are fundamental to ensuring that learner voice is meaningful, visible, and actionable. Participation cannot exist in environments where information is unclear, inaccessible, or overly technical. Adult learners must be able to understand the systems they are part of, the opportunities available to them, and the ways in which they can contribute. At the same time, institutions must move beyond collecting feedback as a procedural requirement and instead develop structured, transparent systems for capturing, interpreting, and responding to learner input. Information is not neutral. The way it is communicated determines who can access it and who remains excluded. When language is too complex, ambiguous, or bureaucratic, it becomes a barrier rather than a bridge. As one participant expressed:

Accessible, plain, and multilingual communication must therefore be treated as a core condition for participation, not an optional adjustment. Learners should not have to adapt to institutional language; institutions must adapt to learners. Equally important is the quality of data that informs decision-making. Learner voice must not be reduced to symbolic consultation or isolated feedback moments. Instead, it should be embedded in continuous feedback loops, where learners can see how their contributions influence change. Transparency is essential: learners need to know what happens to their input, what decisions are made, and why.

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Accessibility & Belonging

Flexible learning opportunities, including varied timings, modular structures, and blended formats, are therefore essential. Accessibility must be embedded in institutional design. This includes:

• ensuring that participation mechanisms are easy to understand and use,
• providing support structures such as coordinators or facilitators,
• and designing processes that do not assume prior knowledge or confidence.

Ultimately, accessibility is about removing barriers before they prevent participation. It requires a proactive approach that anticipates diverse needs and ensures that all learners have the opportunity to engage fully and equally.

Accessibility is a structural condition for participation. Barriers to accessibility are often interconnected. Financial constraints, lack of childcare, rigid schedules, limited digital access, and language barriers combine to restrict participation, particularly for learners in vulnerable situations. One of the most consistent challenges is the economic cost of participation. Education, childcare, and time all carry financial implications. Without addressing these, participation remains unequal. Similarly, language continues to act as both a visible and invisible barrier. When communication is not multilingual or adapted to different levels of literacy, learners are excluded from both learning and decision-making processes. Accessibility also involves the flexibility of learning systems. Fixed schedules, rigid course structures, and standardized pathways often fail to accommodate the realities of adult learners, who may be balancing work, family responsibilities, and other commitments.

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Safe Spaces

• accommodating diversity in needs, experiences, and identities.
• providing support for learners with disabilities, addressing language barriers, and ensuring that participation does not privilege those who are already confident or familiar with institutional systems.

Importantly, safe spaces are not passive environments. They are active enablers of participation. They create the conditions for learners to move from silence to expression, from hesitation to confidence, and from individual experience to collective voice. Without safe spaces, participation risks becoming superficial. With them, it becomes transformative.

Safe spaces are the foundation upon which all meaningful participation is built. Without environments where learners feel respected, valued, and free from judgment, the possibility of expressing voice is significantly constrained. Safety in adult learning is not limited to physical environments; it includes emotional, social, and cultural dimensions that shape whether individuals feel able to speak, listen, and engage. A key element of safe spaces is the recognition of learners as knowledge holders. When learners feel that their experiences are acknowledged and valued, they are more likely to participate. Safe spaces also require clear boundaries and commitments. This includes:

• zero tolerance for discrimination,
• inclusive communication practices,
• and attention to power dynamics within the learning environment.

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Intersectionality

different forms of inequality interact and to design responses that address these interactions holistically. Intersectionality also challenges institutions to reflect on their own role in reproducing inequality. Biases, assumptions, and structural norms within education systems can reinforce exclusion unless they are actively addressed. This calls for critical reflection, particularly among educators and policymakers, on how their practices may shape participation.Intersectionality strengthens the quality of learner voice. When diverse perspectives are included and valued, decision-making becomes more reflective of real societal needs. It moves beyond representation towards genuine inclusion.

Intersectionality is essential for understanding and addressing the complexity of barriers faced by adult learners. Learners do not experience exclusion through a single dimension; rather, multiple factors such as gender, migration status, socio-economic background, race, disability, and language intersect to shape their experiences. A one-size-fits-all approach to participation risks overlooking these layered realities. Policies and practices that do not account for intersectionality may unintentionally reproduce inequalities, even when they aim to be inclusive. For example, addressing language barriers without considering gendered responsibilities such as childcare may still exclude migrant women from participation. Intersectionality requires a shift from general inclusion to targeted, context-sensitive approaches. It asks institutions to consider how

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For policymakers

• Recognize community-building as a necessary component of learner participation and include it in adult education funding, quality frameworks, and participation strategies.
• Fund long-term, community-based adult education spaces rather than only short-term or output-driven projects.
• Support partnerships between adult education providers, community organisations, social services, libraries, and municipalities to sustain learner communities over time.
• Ensure that funding rules allow time and resources for trust-building, peer exchange, multilingual communication, and inclusive facilitation.

Gathering and Organising

Advocacy requires organisation, continuity, and collective action. Learner voice becomes influential when it is structured, sustained, and connected to decision-making processes. ACTION POINTS:

• Support collective organising, including networks, groups, and advocacy platforms.
• Recognize lobbying, organised pressure, and sustained follow-up as legitimate participation tools.

• Link advocacy efforts directly to funding decisions and policy accountability.
• Strengthen connections between community voice and institutional or governmental action.
• Promote diverse advocacy routes, including local councils, unions, and worker representation structures.
• Recognize peer-led and informal advocacy as equally important to formal mechanisms.
• Ensure participation is inclusive, including for individuals without full citizenship status.

Media Visibility and Public Discourse

Visibility is a precondition for participation and influence. Learner voice must be present not only in policy spaces but also in public discourse, through accessible communication and sustained representation. ACTION POINTS

• Integrate media visibility as a core element of participation strategies. Use learner storytelling, testimonies, and creative formats to make lived experiences visible.
• Ensure communication is accessible, using plain language and inclusive formats.

• Involve learners in reviewing communication and policy materials to ensure clarity and relevance.
• Extend visibility efforts to harder-to-reach communities, not only established audiences.
• Build continuous communication channels through networks, partnerships, and repeated engagement.
• Treat visibility as both a communicative and political process that shapes recognition and influence.

For providers and practitioners

• Design engagement processes with learners from the outset.
• Combine low-threshold and high-influence methods: surveys, discussion groups, peer mentoring, learner councils, co-design workshops, and public events.
• Use creative, visual, and dialogical methods to widen participation.
• Ensure learner input enters course design, organisational planning, communication, and governance.

For policymakers

• Create formal decision-making and advisory roles for adult learners and learner representatives.
• Support models of co-governance in adult education institutions and local policy forums.
• Ensure participation routes are open to migrants and others excluded from standard political channels.
• Fund learner-led structures, not only provider-led participation initiatives.

Systemic and Structural Barriers

Systemic barriers are embedded in structures, cultures, and institutional practices that shape participation. Addressing them requires recognising how systems themselves can exclude, discourage, or limit learner engagement.ACTION POINTS:

• Identify and address opaque procedures that prevent understanding and participation.
• Recognize low-trust consultation environments as structural barriers.

• Address top-down institutional cultures that limit participation and initiative.
• Acknowledge that participation may be limited by the absence of participatory habits and confidence.
• Strengthen transparency in processes, decision-making, and communication pathways.

Alternative spaces and methods

Participation and advocacy do not only occur within formal systems. Alternative spaces and methods allow learners to express voice in ways that are accessible, creative, and rooted in lived experience. ACTION POINTS:

• Use creative, artistic, and storytelling-based methods as valid participation tools.
• Prioritize informal dialogue and trust-building alongside formal engagement structures.
• Expand participation into non-education sectors such as community spaces, housing, and social services.

• Support learner narratives as tools for visibility and advocacy.
• Recognize small, local, and trust-based initiatives as legitimate starting points.
• Enable gradual scaling of initiatives from local to broader levels.
• Acknowledge that participation may begin outside formal systems, especially in more centralized contexts.

For civil society and learners

• Make explicit that building communities includes learner-led starting points, where learners are asked what they want to learn from the beginning.
• Act as bridges between institutions and communities whose voices are often excluded.
• Facilitate local networks, peer groups, and supportive environments in which learners can exchange experiences and identify shared concerns.
• Use culturally responsive and accessible formats that strengthen belonging and collective participation.
• Support learner communities beyond the duration of individual projects so that engagement is not lost when funding cycles end.

For policymakers

• Create formal routes through which learner groups and community organisations can bring demands into local and national decision-making.
• Fund advocacy-capable community education and learner-led initiatives.
• Recognize community councils, advisory boards, and learner representative structures as legitimate policy interlocutors.
• Require evidence of community consultation in local adult education planning.

For providers and practitioners

• Embed listening into course design, delivery, and review, not only end-of-course evaluation.
• Treat learner voice as a starting point for reflection and improvement.
• Reform staff development so educators are trained in participatory, emancipatory, trauma-sensitive, and anti-discriminatory listening practices.
• Ensure institutions listen collectively, not only through individual staff goodwill.

For providers and practitioners

• Involve learners in curriculum design, course planning, recruitment strategies, communication review, and institutional decisions.
• Treat learner priorities as a starting point rather than as after-the-fact feedback.
• Build learner councils, representative groups, and co-design bodies with real mandates.
• Make clear which decisions learners can shape and how.

For providers and practitioners

• Use learner-led storytelling, podcasts, exhibitions, testimonies, and public events to make learner experiences visible beyond the classroom.
• Build visibility into institutional processes by involving learners in reviewing outreach materials, recruitment messages, policy summaries, and public-facing documents.
• Replace technical or abstract language with plain, accessible, and multilingual communication.
• Create internal routines so that learners see where their perspectives appear in organisational decisions.

For providers and practitioners

• Map barriers with learners regularly and distinguish between individual, pedagogical, organisational, and systemic barriers.
• Treat language as an asset and not only as a deficit.
• Build trauma-sensitive, anti-racist, feminist, and inclusive pedagogical approaches into practice.
• Develop transparent feedback systems showing what was raised, what was changed, and what still requires action.

In Context

Austria: Explicitly state that participation in decision-making must not depend solely on citizenship status, add examples of labour and union-based democratic participation mechanisms., strengthen the wording so the step refers to structural co-determination, not just involvement.Netherlands: Include representative roles such as language ambassadors as examples of shared decision-making.Show that learner influence can extend across policy, outreach, communication, and institutional practice.Emphasize continuity and coordination so representative roles do not disappear with short-term projects. Hungary: Frame learner decision-making not only as an institutional right but also as a participatory capacity that needs nurturing.Make the step accessible for contexts where learner voice is still emerging.Include examples of incremental influence, not only fully formalized governance structures. Sweden: Distinguish between voice within the institution and voice in wider society. Include support for learner participation beyond school-level pedagogy, especially in local democratic life. Recognize that decision-making roles need resourcing if they are to extend beyond classroom practice.

For civil society and learners

• Support learner-led leadership development and peer representation.
• Create spaces where learners can move from testimony to agenda-setting.
• Build solidarity across learner groups so influence is collective and sustainable.
• Monitor whether institutions move beyond symbolic participation.

Solidarity and Recognition

Community-building is not only about creating connections—it is about redistributing voice, recognition, and influence within educational processes. Sustainable participation emerges when communities are built on trust, solidarity, and continuous dialogue across learners, educators, and institutions.ACTION POINTS

• Recognize and support existing informal communities, even when they are not institutionally visible.
• Foster solidarity across learners, educators, policymakers, and community actors as a shared responsibility.

• Embed continuous dialogue practices that are revisited, repeated, and sustained over time.
• Strengthen trust-building across institutions, including municipalities, libraries, and VET providers.
• Ensure communities go beyond course participation and contribute to broader social and democratic confidence.
• Treat community-building as a space where power relations can be questioned and reshaped.

Material Support

Participation depends on material conditions. Without addressing practical barriers such as time, cost, and access, engagement remains unequal and limited. ACTION POINTS:

• Ensure engagement strategies are grounded in material accessibility conditions.

• Provide childcare, multilingual information, flexible scheduling, and free or affordable participation options.
• Support coordinated learner representative structures with dedicated roles and resources.
• Enable participation through outreach, communication testing, and co-governance practices.
• Recognize material support as a structural requirement, not an additional benefit.

For civil society and learners

• Amplify learner narratives in local and national advocacy work.
• Use community media, participatory arts, and grassroots communication tools to challenge invisibility.
• Build alliances with journalists, local councils, and cultural organisations to widen public understanding of adult education.
• Treat visibility as a route to representation, not only awareness.

For providers and practitioners

• Help learners identify advocacy channels and prepare contributions.
• Support transition from classroom feedback to community action.
• Partner with local authorities, libraries, councils, unions, and civil society organisations.
• Document learner-led proposals and help move them into public arenas.

For providers and practitioners

• Create learning environments where trust, mutual respect, and non-judgment are treated as core pedagogical conditions.
• Begin with learners’ experiences, priorities, and aspirations rather than assuming a fixed curriculum or standardized pathway.
• Use group-based, reflective, creative, and dialogue-oriented methods to help learners build relationships and confidence.
• Embed safe spaces principles into facilitation, including sensitivity to trauma, migration, discrimination, disability, and unequal power dynamics.
• Treat peer support and community exchange as central to adult learning, not as secondary or informal additions.

For civil society and learners

• Use evidence from learners to challenge passive listening cultures.
• Monitor whether consultations lead to change.
• Support learners in converting testimony into policy demands.
• Demand that listening spaces are inclusive, transparent, and linked to implementation.

For civil society and learners

• Develop peer-led engagement models and mentorship structures.
• Support practitioner reflection on bias, power, and facilitation.
• Help institutions design participatory structures that are culturally responsive and sustainable.
• Connect local engagement practices to broader advocacy and policy processes.

To achieve this, institutions must move towards co-produced knowledge systems, where learners are not only sources of data but active contributors in shaping how information is gathered, interpreted, and communicated. This includes involving learners in reviewing communication materials, testing accessibility, and co-defining what meaningful feedback looks like. Ultimately, quality information and data create the conditions for trust. When learners understand the system and see the impact of their voice, participation becomes credible, sustained, and transformative.

A recurring challenge is the perception that participation is “only for show.” This reflects a gap between data collection and data use. Quality data systems must therefore include mechanisms for:

• feeding learner input into decision-making processes,
• communicating outcomes back to learners,
• and ensuring that feedback leads to visible and measurable change.

“Sometimes it feels like participation happens only for show, rather than real influence.”

• Recognize and support existing informal communities, even when they are not institutionally visible. • Foster solidarity across learners, educators, policymakers, and community actors as a shared responsibility. • Embed continuous dialogue practices that are revisited, repeated, and sustained over time. • Strengthen trust-building across institutions, including municipalities, libraries, and VET providers. • Ensure communities go beyond course participation and contribute to broader social and democratic confidence. • Treat community-building as a space where power relations can be questioned and reshaped.

Solidarity and Recognition

Action Points

Community-building is not only about creating connections—it is about redistributing voice, recognition, and influence within educational processes. Sustainable participation emerges when communities are built on trust, solidarity, and continuous dialogue across learners, educators, and institutions.

Educators and Institutions Training

Listening and participation require institutional and pedagogical capacity. Without training, support, and structural change, participation remains limited and inconsistent. ACTION POINTS:

• Strengthen institutional commitment to active listening, responsiveness, and accountability.
• Integrate training on participation, inclusion, and learner voice into educator development.

• Move beyond post-course feedback to continuous and embedded listening practices.
• Connect listening processes to decision-making, implementation, and follow-up actions.
• Foster collaboration across policy areas and institutions to support coherent responses.
• Create spaces for dialogue between learners, educators, and policymakers.
• Adapt approaches to contexts where policy processes may feel distant or inaccessible.
• Link participation in learning environments to broader social and democratic engagement.

For policymakers

• Fund participation infrastructures, not only short-term engagement events.
• Make childcare, flexible scheduling, multilingual communication, accessible venues, and digital inclusion eligible costs in adult education budgets.
• Support coordination roles that maintain relationships with learners over time.
• Include engagement criteria in funding and quality frameworks.

For policymakers

• Recognize adult learners and learner representatives as legitimate contributors to education policy, local governance, and institutional communication.
• Require that publicly funded adult education and lifelong learning initiatives include visible mechanisms for learner input and public reporting on how that input is used.
• Support public communication strategies that make adult learning, literacy, migrant learning, and non-formal education more visible in mainstream discourse.
• Ensure that policy communication is written in accessible language and tested with learners before publication.

For civil society and learners

• Document patterns of exclusion across services and institutions.
• Use learner testimony to show how barriers operate in practice.
• Support learners in naming structural barriers without reducing them to private difficulties.
• Push institutions to move from consultation to response.

For policymakers

• Establish regular and accessible listening processes with adult learners, educators, and community organisations.
• Involve learner representatives early, before policy drafts are finalized.
• Publish response mechanisms that show how input was considered and acted upon.
• Build interdepartmental listening structures across education, labour, migration, social inclusion, and local government.

For policymakers

• Introduce accountability measures requiring institutions to identify and address barriers to participation.
• Fund childcare, transport, translation, multilingual communication, and flexible participation routes as participation infrastructure.
• Review funding rules, curriculum rules, and policy procedures that unintentionally exclude learners.
• Ensure that consultation mechanisms include follow-up and visible response, so learner input does not disappear without consequence.

For civil society and learners

• Build community campaigns around access, literacy, inclusion, childcare, migration, and representation.
• Offer advocacy training and accompaniment.
• Connect local initiatives to regional, national, and European frameworks.
• Use storytelling and collective evidence to influence public discourse and policy.

Interpersonal and Institutional Barriers

Interpersonal barriers emerge through relationships, practices, and attitudes within institutions. These barriers often shape whether participation is meaningful or merely symbolic. ACTION POINTS:

• Recognize “too-late involvement” as a key barrier to meaningful participation.
• Address symbolic participation where input is collected but not acted upon.

• Strengthen understanding of learners’ lived realities, particularly for low-literate and marginalized groups.
• Promote early, continuous, and meaningful engagement in decision-making processes.
• Foster institutional cultures that value dialogue, trust, and responsiveness.