Learning

Evidence for missing indicators

Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.

• 🇸🇬Singaporelinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2015still operating

  SkillsFuture Credit

  Singapore gave every citizen aged 25 and over an individual training account in 2016 and keeps topping it up, and in 2024 260,000 Singaporeans spent credit on courses, up 35 percent on the year before.

  260,000 people, singaporeans who used skillsfuture credit in the year, 2024. Skills and Workforce Development Agency, formerly SkillsFuture Singapore, year-in-review 2024, retrieved 2026-08-27.

  How it worked: The state deposits money in a named account each citizen owns, publishes a course registry with subsidies, and lets individual demand rather than employers decide what gets learned, with top-ups aimed at mid-career workers.

  Limits: Usage is the programme reporting on itself, and a usage count says nothing about whether the training raised skills or wages. About 260,000 users in a year is under a tenth of the adult citizen population, and separate reporting notes most citizens had not touched their top-up. The record evidences a durable mechanism for adult learning, not a transformation of participation.

• 🇫🇮Finlandlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1928still operating

  The public library system

  Finland runs the world's most used public library system under a statutory duty dating to 1928, and in 2024 Finns borrowed 85.4 million items, 15.3 per inhabitant, and visited libraries 50.7 million times.

  15.3 loans per person, library loans per inhabitant, 2024. 50,700,000 visits, library visits in the year, 2024. Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, public library statistics via Libraries.fi, retrieved 2026-08-27.

  How it worked: The state made libraries a statutory municipal duty with national subsidy, kept them free by law including reservations and inter-library loans, and municipalities compete on quality, with the flagship in Helsinki placed opposite parliament as a statement.

  Limits: Borrowing is reading, not structured adult learning, so the record sits one step from the indicator's construct, which asks about participation in education and training; it is filed because the library statute explicitly assigns libraries a lifelong-learning duty and no better-measured Finnish delivery covers the gap. Loans per head are also falling slowly here as everywhere, and the world-leading claim depends on which countries publish comparable statistics.

• 🇧🇷Brazillinked to Research citation impactstarted 1951still operating

  CAPES, federal postgraduate funding

  Founded in 1951, CAPES built a national postgraduate funding and evaluation system, and by 1995 Brazil's system had more than 60,000 students across over 1,000 master's and 600 doctoral courses.

  60,000 students, postgraduate students in the national system, 1995. CAPES, História e missão, retrieved 2026-08-29.

  How it worked: A federal agency combines funding with peer evaluation and a national standard, so postgraduate programmes coordinate around a common definition of quality instead of growing as isolated local institutions.

  Limits: Student and course counts show the scale of the postgraduate system, not the quality or international impact of its research. CAPES reports the institutional history and its own programmes, while citation impact requires a separate bibliometric source.

• 🇧🇷Brazillinked to Research citation impactstarted 1937still operating

  INEP, the standing education statistics institution

  Created in 1937, INEP built a standing education statistics and census system that lets federal, state and municipal actors see schools, students and policy results across Brazil, while its historical archive now spans 218.68 linear metres.

  218.68 linear metres, historical archive, 2022. INEP, institutional history and historical archive, retrieved 2026-08-29.

  How it worked: A permanent statistical institution gives education policy a memory and a common set of objects, so schools, students and results can be compared across territories and governments.

  Limits: An archive and a census show that a state can record itself, not that the resulting policy improves learning or research quality. The data system also depends on reporting by schools and education secretariats, and its history includes institutional redesign.

• 🇮🇩Indonesialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2020still operating

  Kartu Prakerja, a national lifelong-learning delivery system

  Indonesia's Kartu Prakerja skills programme reached 18.9 million beneficiaries across the country in its first five years, with 347 accredited training providers offering 2,085 online and offline courses in 58 districts and cities in the 2024 report.

  18,900,000 people, kartu prakerja beneficiaries reached, 2024. 2,085 programmes, accredited training programmes offered, 2024. Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, Kartu Prakerja Program Management Report 2024, retrieved 2026-08-31.

  How it worked: Indonesia used an end-to-end digital application, training marketplace and payment rails to move a skills benefit from central government to workers, while accrediting private providers and changing the scheme after the pandemic.

  Limits: Beneficiary and course counts show the reach of a training marketplace, not whether skills were retained, led to better work or were relevant to each participant. The report is produced by the programme manager, and the 58-district course figure is not the same as equal course availability in every district or a national adult-learning rate.

• 🇫🇷Francelinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2015still operating

  Compte personnel de formation

  France's Compte personnel de formation generated 1,387,500 training starts in 2024, with 1,232,100 people entering a CPF-funded course through the national account and platform.

  1,387,500 training starts, cpf-funded training starts, 2024. 1,232,100 people, people entering cpf-funded training, 2024. French Ministry of Labour, DARES Results: Le compte personnel de formation en 2024, retrieved 2026-08-31.

  How it worked: France gave individuals a portable training entitlement, then put the account, catalogue, identity checks and payment flow into one national platform managed by the Caisse des Dépôts. The design lets workers choose a course while public employment services and employers can add targeted funding.

  Limits: Training starts and participant counts show use of a public financing and matching platform, not course completion, learning quality, job mobility, wage gains or equal access. DARES notes major catalogue and contribution-rule changes during 2024, including the motorcycle-licence expansion and a €100 co-payment, so year-on-year totals are not a pure measure of underlying learning demand.

• 🇵🇹Portugallinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2017still operating

  Programa Qualifica and Portugal's adult-learning network

  Portugal's ANQEP reported 1,025,569 cumulative Qualifica registrations by December 2023; 90 percent received a training or recognition, validation and certification referral, and 510,113 registrants obtained some certification.

  1,025,569 registrations, cumulative qualifica registrations, 2023-12. 510,113 people, registrants receiving a certification, 2023-12. ANQEP, Plano de Atividades 2024, retrieved 2026-08-31.

  How it worked: A national network of Centros Qualifica gives adults a common entry point for counselling, recognition and validation of prior learning (RVCC), formal training and a portable qualification record, linking fragmented providers to a visible pathway.

  Limits: These are cumulative programme reach and certification totals, not an annual participation rate, completion quality, learning gain or employment and wage effect. The count can include partial certifications and administrative registrations, and it does not identify how many participants would have qualified without Qualifica; ANQEP reports the programme's own administrative data.

• 🇵🇹Portugallinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2006dismantled

  Novas Oportunidades, and the qualification-policy interruption

  ANQEP's national review records 1,568,490 adult enrolments in Novas Oportunidades between 2006 and July 2011; after the initiative's peak and a period of disinvestment, Portugal launched Qualifica in 2017 and rebuilt a network of more than 300 Centros Qualifica.

  1,568,490 adult enrolments, adult enrolments in novas oportunidades, 2011-07. 300 centres (more than), centros qualifica in the replacement network, 2017. ANQEP, Plano Nacional de Literacia de Adultos, retrieved 2026-08-31.

  How it worked: Novas Oportunidades scaled adult qualification through recognition and validation of prior learning (RVCC), adult education and training (EFA) routes and a national delivery network; when political and fiscal support receded, the infrastructure contracted and a successor programme had to rebuild entry points.

  Limits: Enrolment is a reach measure, not completed learning, quality, labour-market effect or value for money. The review's 1.57 million figure covers a high-activity period, while the later 300-plus-centre figure describes the replacement network rather than retained Novas Oportunidades capacity; the record evidences interruption and rebuilding, not a causal estimate of the policy's return.

• 🇮🇳Indialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2017still operating

  SWAYAM national online-course platform

  India's SWAYAM platform offered more than 20,370 courses and recorded more than 65 million enrolments by 12 August 2026 as a national channel for flexible higher-education and skills learning.

  65,000,000 enrolments, swayam enrolments, 2026-08-12. 20,370 courses, swayam courses offered, 2026-08-12. Press Information Bureau, Government of India, Empowering Youth, Transforming India, retrieved 2026-09-02.

  How it worked: The Ministry of Education assembled university courses on one open platform, letting learners study remotely and connect course participation to formal credit and certification pathways.

  Limits: Cumulative enrolment is not a share of adults participating in learning: one person can enrol repeatedly, and the release does not provide active users, completions or the adult/student split. Course supply and enrolment show a national learning channel, not learning gains, labour-market outcomes or equal access to broadband and devices.

• 🇿🇦South Africalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2000still operating

  SETAs and workplace-based learning delivery

  South Africa's Sector Education and Training Authorities reported 45,146 learnership completions, 83,578 skills-programme completions and 99,778 workplace-based learning opportunities for the 2024 post-school education and training intake.

  45,146 completions, learnerships completed, 2024-01-22. 99,778 opportunities, workplace-based learning opportunities created, 2024-01-22. Department of Higher Education and Training, Government of South Africa, retrieved 2026-09-02.

  How it worked: Sector authorities levy and coordinate employer-linked training, then place learners into learnerships, skills programmes and workplace experience tied to occupational demand rather than leaving adult learning entirely to formal colleges.

  Limits: The ministerial statement aggregates 21 SETAs and counts opportunities and completions, not a harmonised share of adults participating in formal or non-formal learning. It does not report unique learners, demographic reach, completion quality, employment after training or the share of participants who were already in education; the figures are government-reported rather than independently audited here.

• 🇹🇷Turkeylinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2024still operating

  MEB public lifelong-learning network

  Türkiye's Ministry of National Education reported 7,909,495 participants in public adult-learning programmes in 2024, including 6,493,700 attending in person and 1,415,795 using the HEMBA online platform; 5,305,688 earned a course certificate.

  7,909,495 participants, adult-learning participants, 2024. 5,305,688 participants, participants completing courses and eligible for a certificate, 2024. Directorate General for Lifelong Learning, Ministry of National Education, Government of Türkiye, retrieved 2026-09-03.

  How it worked: A dense network of public education centres offered locally requested courses while HEMBA moved a subset of the same provision online, allowing adult learners to enter through either a physical centre or a national platform.

  Limits: The report counts course participations rather than unique adults, so repeat learners can appear more than once. Certificates indicate completion of a course, not labour-market value or durable skill acquisition, and the ministry's administrative data are not independently audited here.

• 🇰🇪Kenyalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1978operating below its peak

  Kenya's adult education centres, and their halving

  Kenya's state adult education programme, run since the 1978 presidential literacy decree through adult education centres in every county, enrolled 330,340 learners in 2014 and 165,552 in 2025, after a low of 125,402 in 2023, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

  165,552 learners, learners enrolled in adult education centres, 2025. 330,340 learners, learners enrolled in adult education centres at the 2014 peak of the published series, 2014. Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, Economic Survey 2026, Table 15.27 (source: State Department for Social Protection and Senior Citizens Affairs, Directorate of Adult Learning and Education), retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The presidency decreed a national literacy programme, and the education ministry, and later a social protection directorate, ran it through state-paid instructors in community adult education centres in every district. Enrolment fell by half over a decade as the function moved between ministries and county returns degraded.

  Limits: The metric is a head count of learners in adult education centres, mostly basic literacy, not the share of adults in formal or non-formal education and training that the indicator defines: 165,552 is well under one percent of Kenya's adult population, and the count leaves out TVET, university, employer training and private courses entirely. The peak is only the highest year in the series KNBS publishes from 2010 onwards (252,553 in 2010, 330,340 in 2014). The 1980s literacy campaign almost certainly enrolled more, so the true loss from the programme's peak is understated, not overstated. The series is administrative and badly maintained. KNBS revised 2015 from 246,215 (Economic Survey 2016) to 306,228 (Economic Survey 2018). The 2025 figure is provisional. Several counties report identical numbers in consecutive years (Garissa 3,256 in all four years 2022 to 2025, and Samburu and Laikipia repeated), which points to carried-forward returns. One county, Nairobi, accounts for most of the 2025 rebound, rising from 13,194 to 34,506 in one year. Falling enrolment can partly reflect success, since younger cohorts went through universal primary schooling and need less remedial literacy, so the decline is evidence of lost provision only alongside the fact that the programme was reorganised across ministries and is now run by a social protection directorate. The 1978 start year is the presidential decree reported by the state news agency, not a documented first enrolment. The 2014 peak was itself revised: Economic Survey 2015 published 300,462 (provisional) and Economic Survey 2017 restated it as 330,340; against the earlier figure the fall to 2025 is about 45 percent rather than half.

• 🇷🇼Rwandalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2003operating below its peak

  Rwanda's adult literacy centres, and their decline

  Rwanda's Ministry of Education reports 93,548 learners in adult literacy centres in 2024/25, down from 152,015 in 2017.

  93,548 learners, learners in adult literacy centres, 2024/25. 152,015 learners, learners in adult literacy centres at the 2017 high of the five-year table, 2017. Rwanda Ministry of Education, 2024/2025 Education Statistical Yearbook (school census), retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The Ministry of Education set national literacy targets and counted learners through its school census, but relied on churches, NGOs and donor projects to host and staff most centres. When those partners withdrew, enrolment fell, and no state budget line replaced them.

  Limits: The start year is weak. 2003 is the sector policy that committed the state to adult literacy training, not a documented first enrolment, and adult literacy classes ran before it. A reviewer could fairly set the year elsewhere. The programme never came near its own targets: the 2003 policy implied about 500,000 learners a year. The '2017 peak' is only the high of one published five-year table, and earlier years were not checked. Delivery is mixed: the yearbooks blame part of the decline on NGOs and projects closing and on religious buildings ceasing to host centres. Some of the loss is therefore civil society withdrawing rather than the state, even though the ministry counts and partly funds all centres. The 2024/25 yearbook states the latest fall as 5.8 percent in one place and 5.7 percent in another. A head count of literacy learners is far narrower than the share of adults in any education or training that the indicator defines.

• 🇪🇹Ethiopialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2010operating below its peak

  Integrated Functional Adult Education, and its erosion

  Ethiopia's Ministry of Education rolled out Integrated Functional Adult Education nationally from 2010/11 and enrolled 6,903,065 adults in 2015/16, but its successor Adult Basic Education Program enrolled 1,392,635 adults in 2024/25, about a fifth of the peak.

  1,392,635 adults, adults enrolled in the adult basic education program, 2024/25. 6,903,065 adults, adults enrolled in integrated functional adult education at the 2015/16 peak, 2015/16. Federal Ministry of Education of Ethiopia, EMIS and ICT Executive Office, Education Statistics Annual Abstract 2024/25 (2017 E.C.), retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The Ministry of Education built a national adult literacy programme run through regional education bureaus and community learning centres, then let enrolment fall by most of its peak as the programme was restructured and conflict removed whole regions from reporting.

  Limits: The 2024/25 count excludes Amhara and Tigray, which reported nothing because of conflict, and Amhara alone held 43 percent of IFAE enrolment in 2015/16; removing Amhara and Tigray, both absent in 2024/25, from the 2015/16 peak still leaves 3,450,597 against 1,392,635 (2,038,631 with Education Light), a figure we computed from Table 6.2 of the 2015/16 abstract and the ministry does not publish. The two numbers are not one series: the two-year IFAE became a one-year Adult Basic Education programme, and the 2024/25 abstract reports a separate Education Light/Torch track of 645,996 adults, so total adult enrolment that year was 2,038,631. All figures are administrative enrolment reported by regional bureaus to the ministry, with no attendance, completion quality or literacy outcome attached, and enrolment is not the construct's share of adults in education and training. The 2024/25 abstract has no stable PDF URL: it downloads from a button on the ministry's annual abstract page, so a checker must download it there and read PDF pages 63 to 64, printed pages 54 to 55 (sections 5.2 and 5.3, Table 5.1). The 2015/16 figure comes from a separate abstract PDF. The 2024/25 abstract also reports that 13,015,641 adults completed or graduated from IFAL/ABE between 2016/17 and 2024/25, so a shrinking pool of illiterate adults is a competing explanation for part of the fall.

• 🇬🇹Guatemalalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1972still operating

  Instituto Técnico de Capacitación y Productividad (INTECAP)

  Guatemala's employer-levy-funded training institute INTECAP reported 490,280 participants in 26,387 vocational training events in 2025, 99.72% of its operating-plan target, through centres in all 22 departments.

  490,280 participants (event enrolments), participants in vocational training events (total formación profesional), 2025. 26,387 events, vocational training events delivered, 2025. Instituto Técnico de Capacitación y Productividad (INTECAP), Resultados Finales de Estadísticas Operativas 2025 (G.E.DP-01), retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: Guatemala's Congress gave a joint state-employer institute a compulsory 1% payroll levy, collected by the social security institute, and the institute turned it into a national network of training centres and short courses for workers at every occupational level.

  Limits: This is INTECAP reporting on itself against its own operating plan. Nobody audits the count. Participants are enrolments in events, not unique people: one worker who takes three courses counts three times, so the figure cannot be divided by the adult population to give a participation rate, which is what the indicator asks for. Most of the volume is short: seminars (202,359) and the ACTA line (218,147) make up about 86% of participants, while the long technical careers (CTO, CTM, CTMS) total about 13,400. Some programmes, such as FORJA and the mid-level technical careers, enrol young people, so not every participant is an adult learner. The text layer garbles the event columns of several national rows, though the total row reads cleanly. The figure covers one year only. No series is given here, so this record cannot say whether participation is rising or falling, and it says nothing about completion, certification or labour-market outcomes.

• 🇩🇴Dominican Republiclinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1980still operating

  INFOTEP national technical and vocational training

  The Dominican Republic's tripartite training institute INFOTEP, created by Law 116-80 in 1980, registered 1,027,791 participants in training actions nationwide in 2025 and 3,613,098 participants between August 2020 and August 2025.

  1,027,791 participants, participants in infotep training actions nationwide, 2025. 3,613,098 participants, participants trained by infotep, august 2020 to august 2025, 2020-08 to 2025-08. Presidency of the Dominican Republic, reporting INFOTEP's Memoria Institucional 2025, retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The Dominican state, employers and unions run INFOTEP jointly under Law 116-80, financed by an employer payroll contribution, and since 2020 the institute expanded its own centres and virtual offer to push enrolment past one million a year.

  Limits: The figures are INFOTEP's own administrative counts, relayed by the presidency's news service from the institute's annual report; the report itself was not opened, because infotep.gob.do refused scripted requests (HTTP 403). A participant is an enrolment in a training action, not a person: someone taking several short courses counts several times, so the number cannot be read as a share of adults trained and is not comparable with survey participation rates. The two figures are hard to reconcile: 3.6 million over five years averages about 720,000 a year, against more than one million in 2025 alone, and nothing on the pages explains the jump, whether a definition changed, or how much of it is short or virtual courses. The counts include young people who may not be adults in the survey sense, and they say nothing about course length, completion, certification rates, or labour-market outcomes. The pages are promotional and were published by the government that runs the institute.

• 🇨🇺Cubalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1961delivered and closed

  Campaña Nacional de Alfabetización

  In 1961 Cuba's national literacy campaign mobilized volunteer teachers, student brigades and worker brigades to teach adults to read across the country. By 30 August 1961, 593,651 people were learning and 64,253 had already been made literate, and the government reported illiteracy reduced to 3.92 percent of the population when the campaign closed.

  593,651 people, people enrolled and learning in the literacy campaign, reported at the iv national literacy meeting, 1961-08-30. 3.92 % of population, illiteracy rate reported after the campaign, share of total population, 1961. Ministerio de Educación de la República de Cuba, '¿Cómo surgieron las Brigadas de Alfabetización Patria o Muerte?', retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The revolutionary government closed secondary schools for part of 1961 and sent students, teachers and worker brigades to live with illiterate households, after a door-to-door census of illiterates run through mass organizations. It then built follow-on worker-peasant education so the new readers kept studying.

  Limits: Both numbers come from commemorative articles on Cuban ministry websites, not from a statistical release. The MINED article says it was taken from the Communist Party's website, and both rest on the campaign's own 1961 records, which nobody independently audited. The 593,651 is a mid-campaign count from August 1961, not the final number taught, and the source gives no denominator of adults. A participation share therefore cannot be computed, and the literacy standard reached was basic, a letter written at the end of the course. The 3.92 percent is a government figure against the total population of the time, while the 23.5 percent baseline the MINED article cites is from the 1953 census, eight years earlier, so the two are not a like-for-like comparison. The campaign was a one-year mobilization, not a standing system, and the follow-on adult schooling it created (Superación Obrera y Campesina) is not measured here. The case is 65 years old and says nothing about adult learning participation in Cuba today.

• 🇦🇺Australialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2008dismantled

  VET FEE-HELP, and its abolition

  Australia's VET FEE-HELP loan scheme, introduced in 2008 to fund higher-level vocational courses, grew from fewer than 3,500 loans in 2009 to 196,108 in 2015, and was abolished and replaced from 1 January 2017 by VET Student Loans, which reached 53,892 students in 2019.

  196,108 loans, vet fee-help loans at the scheme's peak, 2015. 53,892 students, vet student loans recipients under the replacement scheme, 2019. Parliament of Australia, Parliamentary Library, The Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) and related loans: a chronology (Carol Ey, 23 March 2021), retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The Commonwealth extended income-contingent loans to vocational diplomas and opened them to private providers with light entry controls; providers and brokers enrolled students at scale, Parliament then legislated the scheme's closure and replaced it with capped loans for approved courses and providers.

  Limits: Loans are not learners: the count is loans issued, not adults who studied or completed, and the Library's own note says the 2017 onward figures count students while earlier years count loans or places, so the peak and the successor figure are not on the same unit and the fall cannot be read as a precise percentage. Much of the 2013 to 2015 growth was not learning at all: the Senate Education and Employment Committee's report on the replacement bills (https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/VETStudentLoans/Report/c02) records loan value rising from $26 million in 2009 to $2.9 billion in 2015 alongside 'unscrupulous behaviour by a small number of providers and poor student outcomes', so the peak overstates real adult participation and the reversal is partly a correction of fraud rather than a loss of capability. The loans cover only diploma-level and above vocational courses, a small slice of adult learning; the record says nothing about the national share of adults in training, which the ABS measures separately. The Auditor-General's audit of the scheme (ANAO report 31 of 2016-17) is the primary account of the failure, but the ANAO site did not open from here, so its figures are not used. The source is a secondary compilation by the Parliamentary Library from departmental annual reports, and 2016 figures are missing from it.

• 🇫🇮Finlandlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2001dismantled

  Adult education allowance (aikuiskoulutustuki), and its abolition

  Finland paid an earnings-related adult education allowance from 2001 so that working adults could take leave to study, reaching 30,124 recipients in 2022 and 32,518 in 2023, until Parliament abolished it in May 2024 with a transition under which the allowance could be granted until 31 December 2025.

  30,124 persons, adult education allowance recipients in 2022, the year before the abolition decision, 2022. 32,518 persons, adult education allowance recipients in 2023, the last full year before the abolition took effect, 2023. Finnish Ministry of Finance, Budget Department, memorandum on abolishing the adult education allowance (26 February 2024), retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: Finland's tripartite system funded study leave for experienced workers out of unemployment-insurance contributions, administered by the Employment Fund; the Orpo government then abolished it to cut contributions and public spending, and Parliament passed the repeal in May 2024.

  Limits: The allowance financed study leave; it did not measure participation. About 30,000 recipients a year is a small slice of Finland's working-age population, so its abolition moves the indicator's construct (the share of adults in education or training) by at most a little over one percentage point of the workforce, and no survey figure here shows that participation actually fell. The ministry's own memo, written to cost the abolition, notes that about half of recipients already held a higher-education degree and that the benefit reduced labour supply by an estimated 9,400 to 10,500 person-years, so the case for the allowance as a learning-equity tool is contested in the source itself. The 2022 figure is from a Ministry of Finance memorandum, the 2023 figure from the Employment Fund (Työllisyysrahasto), a statutory fund run by the labour-market parties under Financial Supervisory Authority oversight, reporting on its own benefit; the 2023 number was read from an infographic in a PDF. The source does not print the full 2001-2025 recipient series: only 2020-2024 values are printed, in which 2023 is the highest. Applications surged in early 2024 ahead of the cut-off, so the last years overstate steady-state demand. The abolition was a fiscal decision announced in the 2023 government programme, so the record documents a capability ended by choice, not by collapse.

• 🇺🇾Uruguaylinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2009still operating

  INEFOP, the tripartite national training institute

  Uruguay's Instituto Nacional de Empleo y Formación Profesional, created by Law 18.406 in 2008 and governed by government, employers and workers, grew from 9,696 training, guidance and technical-assistance places in 2009 to 114,364 in 2019, and its director reported that more than 50,000 people took its training in 2023.

  50,000 people, people who took inefop training (more than), 2023. 114,364 places, inefop training, guidance and technical-assistance places, national total, 2019. Presidency of Uruguay, Comunicación Presidencial, statement of INEFOP's director general, retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: Parliament placed the national labour-retraining fund in a non-state public body governed jointly by the government, employers and unions, which buys courses from training providers and steers them to the unemployed, to workers in firms and to people outside Montevideo.

  Limits: The 2023 figure is a rounded "more than 50,000" spoken by the institute's own director in an interview relayed by the presidency's press office, not a published statistical table. The 2019 figure counts places, not people: it includes guidance and technical assistance as well as courses, can count one person several times, and is read from data labels on a chart in a PDF. The two numbers are in different units and must not be read as a fall from 114,364 to 50,000, and the jump from 47,590 in 2016 to 112,183 in 2017 coincides with a change in the source behind the series, so the trend before and after 2017 is not continuous either. The same report also claims "more than 120,000" annual users, which does not match its own chart. Fifty thousand people is roughly 2 percent of Uruguay's adult population, so INEFOP is a national delivery channel but carries only a small part of adult participation in training, and neither number says whether anyone completed a course, learned anything or found work. Half of 2023 participants were unemployed and the reported age band is 20 to 35, so the reach is skewed young.

• 🇨🇱Chilelinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1976operating below its peak

  Franquicia Tributaria SENCE, and its erosion

  Chile's SENCE training tax credit, running since 1976, financed 999,732 training participations and 653,939 unique trainees in 2024, down from 1,355,430 participations and 740,152 unique trainees in 2016, while public spending on it nearly doubled in nominal pesos; in July 2026 a Senate committee agreed to cut its ceiling from 1% to 0.7% of payroll.

  999,732 participations (a person counted once per course), training participations financed by the franquicia tributaria, 2024. 1,355,430 participations (a person counted once per course), training participations financed by the franquicia tributaria in 2016, the highest year in the evaluation's 2016-2024 table, 2016. Dirección de Presupuestos (DIPRES), Ministerio de Hacienda, Evaluación de impacto Franquicia Tributaria, informe final, September 2025, retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The state let firms deduct accredited training costs from corporate income tax up to 1% of payroll, with SENCE accrediting courses and intermediaries (OTIC) pooling funds. The volume of training then followed firms' tax appetite rather than a public target, and Hacienda moved to shrink it once DIPRES found no wage effect.

  Limits: The table opens in 2016, so 2016 is the highest year it shows, not a proven all-time peak; earlier SENCE yearbooks were not opened and the true peak may be higher or earlier. Participations count a person once per course, so the 26% fall in participations overstates the fall in people trained; unique trainees fell 12% (740,152 to 653,939). 2020 and 2021 are depressed by COVID and the series had recovered partly by 2023. Figures are SENCE administrative data republished by DIPRES, not a survey of adult participation, and the programme reaches mainly large firms: DIPRES finds about 88% of trainees come from large companies, so the numbers say little about adults in small firms, the self-employed or the unemployed. The same evaluation found no impact on employment or wages, so a hostile reader could call the shrinkage a correction of a low-value subsidy, not a lost capability. The July 2026 cut from 1% to 0.7% of payroll is a Senate committee agreement on the reconstruction bill; whether it was enacted was not verified, and the Executive's original bill eliminated the credit, which its later indicaciones replaced with a modification (Senado, 9 July 2026). Unique trainees peaked at 741,910 in 2018, not 2016.

• 🇰🇷South Korealinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1999operating below its peak

  Employer and in-work training under Employment Insurance, and its erosion

  Korea's Employment Insurance-funded employer and in-work training reached 4,916 thousand training participations in 2018, then fell to 2,410 thousand in 2025 after the Ministry of Employment and Labor withdrew support for statutory common training in 2019, COVID closed classrooms in 2020 and a cap on outsourced remote training took effect in late 2023.

  2,410 thousand participations, employer and in-work training participations (사업주 및 재직자훈련), 2025. 4,916 thousand participations, employer and in-work training participations at the 2018 peak, 2018. Ministry of Employment and Labor, e-나라지표 indicator 1500 (직업능력개발훈련 실시현황), updated 2026-05-18, retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The Ministry of Employment and Labor refunded employers from the Employment Insurance fund for training their staff, which drove volume up to a 2018 peak, then cut support for statutory and oversupplied courses and capped remote training to contain cost and quality problems, and participations halved.

  Limits: The count is person-courses (연인원), and the page itself warns that in-work training double-counts heavily, so a halving of participations is not a halving of adults trained. The counting basis changed in 2020 from fund payment date to course start date, so 2018 and 2025 are not measured identically. The aggregate bundles several programmes (employer training subsidy, the in-work Naeil Baeum card, national HRD consortia, work-study), so it is a programme family, not one delivery. Much of the fall is deliberate: the ministry stopped subsidising statutory compulsory courses in 2019 and capped low-quality outsourced remote training in 2023, so a hostile reviewer would read the decline as pruning of low-value box-ticking courses, and the same page shows unemployed and vulnerable-group training growing from 355 thousand in 2020 to 467 thousand in 2024. The series is administrative, not a survey of adult participation, and says nothing about training firms fund without the subsidy.

• 🇵🇭Philippineslinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1994still operating

  TESDA technical-vocational training at national scale

  The Philippines' Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, created in 1994, recorded 1,633,393 enrollees and 1,428,724 graduates in technical-vocational education and training across all regions in 2023, with enrollment 29.61% above 2022.

  1,633,393 people, tvet enrollees, 2023. 29.61 %, increase in tvet enrollees compared with 2022, 2023. Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), Annual TVET Statistics 2023, retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The Philippines merged its manpower council, technical-education bureau and apprenticeship office into one authority that sets training regulations, registers public and private providers, funds scholarships and certifies competencies, so a national skills system runs through thousands of local providers under one standard.

  Limits: The gap asks for the share of adults in training in the last 12 months; this is a count of enrollments, not a population share, and the record does not compute one. Enrollments are not unique people: one person taking two courses counts twice, and the figure includes young people entering the labour market for the first time as well as adults returning to learning. The counts are TESDA's own administrative statistics, covering public and registered private providers; informal and employer training outside TESDA registration is missing, and course length ranges from short modules to multi-month programmes. A 29.61% rise in one year partly reflects recovery from the pandemic years and scholarship budget swings, so year-on-year growth is not a trend. The source is a PDF statistical report, not an API, and it shows output, not employment or wage effects.

• 🇵🇦Panamalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2006still operating

  INADEH national vocational training

  Panama's national vocational training institute, INADEH, restructured by Decree Law 8 of 2006, recorded 156,032 course graduates in 2021, against 90,107 in 2019 and 38,628 in the pandemic year 2020.

  156,032 graduates, inadeh course, workshop and programme graduates, 2021. 90,107 graduates, inadeh graduates before the pandemic, 2019. Instituto Nacional de Formación Profesional y Capacitación para el Desarrollo Humano (INADEH), Reporte estadístico 2023, historical table 2011 to 2021, retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: Panama's government, through a tripartite board chaired by the labour minister, runs one autonomous national training institute with fixed regional centres, mobile courses and, since 2020, a virtual campus, so short courses can be scaled up in a crisis without new institutions.

  Limits: The construct asks for the share of adults trained in the last 12 months; this is a count of graduations from one public provider, so it is neither a share nor a count of people: one person finishing three short courses counts three times, and private and employer training are missing. The 2021 jump is driven by the virtual campus (55,968 graduates at 'Virtual Sede' that year, none before 2020) and by short courses, so it may reflect lighter course formats rather than more training hours. The institute reports on itself and calls the figures preliminary, extracted from its SISGED database. The table carries visible typos (a 2013 female count printed as 32,64), and nothing after 2021 was found in this series. The started year is the 2006 decree law that restructured INAFORP, a predecessor created in 1983, into INADEH, so national vocational training predates it.

• 🇧🇴Bolivialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2006delivered and closed

  Yo, sí puedo national literacy campaign and post-literacy programme

  Bolivia's Ministry of Education reports that its national literacy programmes, run as 'Yo, sí puedo' from 2006 to 2008 and continued as a post-literacy programme from 2009, taught more than one million people over 15 to read and write between 2006 and 2017, 74% of them women.

  1,000,000 people, people made literate by the national literacy and post-literacy programmes (more than), 2006-2017. Bolivia Ministry of Education, Vice-Ministry of Alternative and Special Education, Dirección General de Post-alfabetización, retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: Bolivia's Ministry of Education ran a time-bound national literacy campaign with a standardised audiovisual method and local volunteer facilitators in community centres, then converted its graduates into the enrolment base of a standing post-literacy directorate.

  Limits: The ministry that ran the programmes reports its own cumulative total, as a rounded 'more than one million', with no annual series and no independent verification; the same page gives a second, malformed figure ('1.oo1,372') for 2006 to 2008 alone, which, if accurate, leaves almost no growth in the cumulative total after 2008, so the two figures are either loosely rounded or show the post-literacy phase adding few new literates, and the page is dated 11 May 2016 while citing 2017 data, so it was edited after publication. A count of people made literate over twelve years is not the construct's share of adults in education or training in the last 12 months, and basic literacy is the narrowest form of adult learning; nothing here shows retention of literacy, completion of post-literacy, or participation by adults who were already literate. The page's illiteracy rate of 2.5% in 2017 is not used as a metric: it is not sourced to INE on the page, and higher government-cited rates for 2023 and 2024 appear in state press, so the rate series is contested. The 'Yo, sí puedo' method and early delivery relied on Cuban and Venezuelan support, which a reviewer may weigh against test three, though the programme was mandated and run by Bolivia's ministry.

• 🇻🇳Vietnamlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2010delivered and closed

  Project 1956 vocational training for rural workers

  Vietnam's General Department of Vocational Education reported that, by the end of 2019, about 9.6 million rural workers had received vocational training at various levels under the Prime Minister's Project 1956, 87.2% of its 11 million target, including 5.59 million whose elementary and under-three-month courses the project subsidised, 85.5% of a 6.54 million target for 2010 to 2020.

  9,600,000 people, rural workers who received vocational training at various levels, end 2019. 5,590,000 people, rural workers supported for elementary or under-three-month training under project 1956 policy, end 2019. Vietnam General Department of Vocational Education (Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs), figures reported by the Government News portal (baochinhphu.vn), retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: Vietnam's Prime Minister set a national ten-year quota for rural vocational training, and the labour ministry's vocational directorate financed short courses per head through provinces and districts, which commissioned public and private training providers against annual targets.

  Limits: The figures come from the directorate that administered the project, reported in the Government's own news outlet in January 2020, so 'by the end of 2019' was at best a preliminary tally and no final 2020 closing figure was opened. The count is cumulative over ten years and does not give the construct's share of adults trained in the last 12 months; it is likely to count enrolments rather than distinct people, and most of the subsidised training was courses under three months. The 9.6 million total includes training at all levels that the project did not fund, so the 5.59 million is the number attributable to the project's own policy. The project missed both targets. The article's employment outcome (more than 80.4% with new or better-paid work after training) is self-reported and includes people who kept the same occupation; no independent impact evaluation was opened. Provincial reports in the same years record uneven quality and courses that did not match local labour demand.

• 🇩🇪Germanylinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2008dismantled

  Bildungsprämie training voucher, and its end

  The federal education ministry paid half the cost of job-related further training for lower-income workers through a voucher from December 2008, issued more than 400,000 vouchers, and stopped issuing them on 31 December 2021.

  400,000 vouchers (lower bound, 'über 400.000'), training vouchers (prämiengutscheine) issued over the life of the programme, 2008-12/2021-12. Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Bildungsprämie programme site, retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The federal education ministry, with ESF money, handed eligible low-income workers a voucher covering half of a course fee up to 500 euros after a counselling session, putting the purchasing decision in the worker's hands rather than the employer's.

  Limits: The figure is the programme's self-report on the BMBF's own programme site, a cumulative total and is a lower bound ('over 400,000'), with no year-by-year series on the page, so the peak and the shape of the decline cannot be read from it. Vouchers issued are not vouchers redeemed, and not people trained. At about 30,000 a year on average, computed from the cumulative total over 13 years, against a workforce of over 40 million, the programme never moved the national participation share the indicator asks for. It was co-financed by the European Social Fund and ended with an ESF funding period, so the end reads as a funding decision rather than a judged failure, and federal support for adult training continued through other instruments; the record documents the loss of this one delivery, not a collapse of adult-learning support. The half-cost and 500 euro terms used in the claim and pattern come from BIBB (https://www.bibb.de/de/742.php), not from the source page.

• 🇩🇪Germanylinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1996still operating

  Aufstiegs-BAföG, upgrading training support

  Federal and state governments paid grants and loans to 186,100 people taking vocational upgrading courses such as master craftsman or certified educator in 2025, 3.8 times the 49,300 supported in 1997, with 1.1 billion euros approved.

  186,100 people, people receiving aufstiegs-bafög support, 2025. 49,300 people, people receiving aufstiegs-bafög support in the first complete survey year, 1997. Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), press release 224 of 29 June 2026, statistics of upgrading training support (GENESIS 21421), retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: Federal law entitles anyone taking a recognised upgrading qualification to support for course fees and living costs, part grant and part loan, so a skilled worker can leave or reduce work to train for a master or technician certificate without employer sponsorship.

  Limits: A count of funded people is not the share of adults who took part in education or training, which is what the indicator asks for, and it says nothing about people who trained without this support. The 1996 start year is derived from 'thirty years ago' in a 2026 release. 28 percent (52,000) of recipients in 2025 were trainee educators (Erzieher), so the total moves with one occupation's staffing policy. The count has slipped from its 2022 peak of 192,400, a small decline that is noted here but not large enough to call the delivery eroded.

• 🇪🇸Spainlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2004operating below its peak

  Formación programada por las empresas (FUNDAE training credit)

  Spain finances employer-organised training through rebates on firms' social security vocational-training contributions, managed by the state foundation FUNDAE. In 2024, 347,442 firms trained 3,378,343 workers, 22.7 percent of private-sector employees, across 5,824,016 participations.

  22.7 % of private-sector employees, population coverage: workers trained in employer-programmed courses as a share of private-sector employees (epa annual average), 2024. 29.7 % of contributing firms, firms training their workers as a share of firms paying the vocational-training contribution (peak), 2014. Fundación Estatal para la Formación en el Empleo (FUNDAE), Balance de situación 2024 (data at 31 March 2025), retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The state ring-fenced a payroll levy for vocational training and let every contributing firm reclaim it as a social security rebate for training it organises itself. A tripartite foundation, now FUNDAE, governed by government, employers and unions, verifies the training and publishes coverage.

  Limits: The figures are FUNDAE's own administrative counts of training that firms report in order to claim rebates, so training that is not reported or not rebated is missing. The coverage rate divides people trained by the EPA private-sector employee count, which leaves out the self-employed, the public sector and the unemployed, so it is not the adult population share the gap asks for. The 22.7 percent and the 39.2 percent are different rates: 39.2 percent counts participations, and one person can count several times. The 22.7 and 3,378,343 values are read off an infographic page of the PDF, while the 5.8 million and 347,442 are in prose. Training is short, at 13.3 hours per participant in 2024 against 24 in 2014, and nothing shows skills gained. Reach across firms has eroded: 20.5 percent of eligible firms trained in 2024, against 29.7 percent (471,590 firms) in 2014, both on p.3 of the same Balance 2024 PDF. Micro firms cover 15.3 percent while large firms cover 91.8 percent, and firms used only 53 percent of their assigned credit. Worker participation rose while the firm base and training hours eroded, so the record is filed as eroded, with the 2014 firm-coverage peak as its second metric.

• 🇿🇦South Africalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2015operating below its peak

  Community Education and Training colleges, and their erosion

  South Africa's Department of Higher Education and Training merged the public adult learning centres into nine Community Education and Training colleges on 1 April 2015; the colleges enrolled 273,431 people in 2016 and 120,081 in 2023, against a National Development Plan target of one million by 2030.

  120,081 students, students enrolled in public cet colleges, 2023. 273,431 students, students enrolled in public cet colleges in the first year after the merger reported by dhet, 2016. Department of Higher Education and Training, Statistics on Post-School Education and Training in South Africa 2023, retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: DHET took provincial adult learning centres into nine national CET colleges to professionalise public adult education. Enrolments kept dwindling, and some centres had lecturers but no students.

  Limits: The two figures come from two DHET publications, and the peak is not established: 2016 is the earliest CET-college figure found, and the same Monitor puts the predecessor adult basic education system at 297,491 in 2010, so the decline began before the merger. Enrolment is a headcount, not the share of adults in learning that the indicator asks for, and the 2023 count rests on an 83.5 percent response rate, so it is understated by an unknown amount. DHET says enrolments have been dwindling since data moved to audited unit-level records, so part of the fall may be the removal of unaudited or phantom enrolments rather than learners lost. Most enrolments are Grade 12 and GETC, which is second-chance schooling rather than adult training; the largest group is aged 20 to 24; and DHET suggests part of the 2023 Grade 12 drop moved to the Department of Basic Education's second-chance programme. The sector's own report notes centres with lecturers and no students. Both numbers are in PDFs.

• 🇨🇴Colombialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1957still operating

  SENA complementary training (formación complementaria)

  Colombia's Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje, created by decree in 1957, recorded 5,469,951 learners in short complementary training courses in 2023 (7,035,749 course places), and certified 3,661,218 completions in that strand the same year.

  5,469,951 learners, learners (aprendices) in sena complementary training, 2023-12. 3,661,218 certifications, complementary training certifications, 2023-12. Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (SENA), Dirección de Planeación, Informe Estadístico Diciembre 2023, retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The state funds a national training agency from a payroll levy on employers and lets it run short, free, open-enrolment courses, in person and online, alongside its longer technical programmes, so any working adult can take a module without a qualification track.

  Limits: The indicator asks for the share of adults trained in the last 12 months; SENA reports learner counts from its own enrolment system (Sofia Plus), not a population share, and they cannot be turned into one: the count includes young people below adult age, enrolments through coverage-extension agreements with third parties, and short virtual and bilingualism courses, and a person enrolled in several courses during the year may be counted more than once. Completion is weak: the same table reports 47.29% dropout in complementary training. The started year is the creating decree, not the first course. The www.sena.edu.co copy of the report now serves an empty web app; the figure was read from SENA's own historico mirror, and the December 2024 edition was not found at the same path.

• 🇨🇳Chinalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2019operating below its peak

  Vocational skills upgrading action, 2019-2021

  Under a State Council plan funded with 100 billion yuan from the unemployment insurance fund surplus, China's human resources ministry organised 32.184 million person-times of subsidised vocational skills training in 2021 alone, the final year of a three-year action that targeted more than 50 million.

  32,184,000 person-times, subsidised vocational skills training delivered in the year, 2021. 92,000,000 person-times (more than), subsidised vocational skills training since the start of the 14th five-year plan, cumulative, 2025-09. Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, 2021 statistical bulletin on human resources and social security development, retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The State Council set a three-year national training target and released 100 billion yuan from the unemployment insurance fund surplus into ring-fenced provincial accounts, and the human resources ministry paid accredited providers and employers per trainee against a published target catalogue.

  Limits: Person-times are enrolments, not people: one worker trained twice counts twice, so the figure cannot be turned into the share of adults trained that the construct asks for. Even if every person-time were a different adult, 32 million is a small single-digit share of China's working-age population. The count is administrative and self-reported up through provincial human resources bureaux whose budgets depended on hitting the plan target; the bulletin publishes no completion, certification or employment outcome. The 2021 figure coincided with pandemic-era job retention schemes and sits beside 15 million 'training in place of work' subsidies, a wage support instrument. The second metric comes from a gov.cn news article, not a bulletin, and implies by subtraction that annual volume after 2021 fell to roughly half the 2021 level once the special fund ended: more than 92 million person-times from 2021 to September 2025, less 32.184 million in 2021, leaves about 60 million over about 3.7 years, against 32 million in 2021 alone. That drop is computed by subtraction, not published, and it is why the record is marked eroded. The 2023 and 2024 bulletins are on mohrss.gov.cn, which serves a script bot check, and were not read.

• 🇨🇷Costa Ricalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1965operating below its peak

  INA national vocational training, and its contraction

  Costa Rica's Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje (INA) recorded 204,773 training enrolments in 2024, down from 313,276 in 2015 at the high point of its 2010 to 2019 plateau, a fall of about 35 percent that the 2020 to 2024 recovery did not reverse.

  204,773 enrolments, ina total enrolments (gestión total matrículas), current, 2024. 313,276 enrolments, ina total enrolments at the high point of the 2010 to 2019 plateau, 2015. Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje (INA), Unidad de Planificación y Evaluación, INA en Cifras 2024, Cuadro 8.1, retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: Costa Rica built a single national training institute in 1965 and financed it largely from an employer payroll contribution, so INA could run free courses across every region without competing for annual budget allocations; after 2019 its enrolments fell back to roughly the level of the mid-2000s.

  Limits: Enrolments are a count of course registrations at one provider, not the share of adults in education or training that the gap asks for: a person can enrol more than once, and INA counted 97,870 distinct participants in 2024, roughly 2 to 3 percent of the adult population on our own rough arithmetic, with private, university, employer and online training invisible here. The table is INA reporting on itself and is not independently audited. The series is not clearly comparable across the break: the 2020 to 2024 tables state that enrolments cover programme modules, certifiable modules, technical assistance and competency certification, and the same yearbook reports enrolments in services run by accredited outside entities separately (87,258 in 2023, 65,300 in 2024), so part of the fall may be reclassification rather than lost reach; the yearbook does not reconcile the definitions. The single highest year is 2009 at 382,786, an isolated spike, so the peak named here is the 2015 plateau high and the fall would read as about 47 percent against 2009. The steepest drop (266,679 in 2019 to 172,664 in 2020) is the pandemic year, but the decline had begun in 2019 and enrolments stayed near 205,000 to 212,000 from 2022 to 2024. The number says nothing about training quality, completion or job outcomes, and the PDF has to be opened and read off a table.

• 🇸🇪Swedenlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1997delivered and closed

  Kunskapslyftet adult education initiative

  Sweden's government funded municipalities to expand upper secondary adult education from autumn 1997 until 2002, and in spring 1999 municipal adult education produced about 157,000 places, of which about 120,000 full-year places were counted within Kunskapslyftet.

  120,000 full-year places, full-year places in municipal upper secondary adult education counted within kunskapslyftet, spring 1999. Kunskapslyftskommittén, Kunskapsbygget 2000 del 1 (SOU 2000:28), published by Sveriges riksdag, retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The government paid municipalities earmarked grants for adult education places and paid unemployed adults a special education grant at the level of unemployment benefit, so a year of study cost the learner nothing compared with staying on benefits.

  Limits: The figure counts full-year places, a volume measure, not people, and not a share of adults: one place can be several part-time students, so it does not translate into the participation rate the gap asks for. It is one semester's figure reported by the committee that ran and evaluated the initiative, citing a Skolverket follow-up, so the programme is partly reporting on itself. The committee's own figure in another passage of the same report is just under 112,000 full-year places, so the count depends on what is included. The same report's Skolverket table gives 228,000 participants (Deltagare) in spring 1999 in municipal upper secondary adult education, which is a count of people but still not a share of adults. The initiative was time-limited to 2002 by design. Effects on earnings and employment are contested in the evaluation literature and are not shown by this number.

• 🇮🇪Irelandlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2011still operating

  Springboard+ upskilling programme

  Ireland's Higher Education Authority has run Springboard+ since 2011, funding free or heavily subsidised higher education places for unemployed people, returners and employed adults, with over €400 million spent and over 110,000 people benefiting by 2025, when 7,719 places were offered on 249 courses at 37 institutions.

  110,000 people (lower bound, 'over'), people who have benefited from springboard+ since 2011, cumulative, 2025. 7,719 places, springboard+ places offered in the 2025 call (offered, not taken up), 2025. Higher Education Authority (Ireland), Springboard+ 2025 launch, retrieved 2026-10-01.

  How it worked: The Higher Education Authority runs an annual call in which colleges bid to offer short, accredited courses in skills-shortage areas, and the state pays full fees for unemployed applicants and 90 percent for employed ones.

  Limits: The figure is a rounded, cumulative lower bound from a ministerial launch press release by the agency that runs the programme; 'benefited' is not defined and may count enrolments rather than completions or distinct people. The source is the agency's own launch press release for the 2025 call, and only the cumulative 110,000 figure describes delivery. Over 14 years, 110,000 is a small slice of an adult population of several million, so the programme says little about the national participation rate the gap asks for. Employment outcomes the HEA reports come from its own follow-up surveys and are not used here.

• 🇺🇸United Stateslinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1966operating below its peak

  State-administered adult education under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, and its erosion

  Federally funded, state-administered adult basic, adult secondary and English language programmes served 2,629,643 participants in fiscal year 2000, and by fiscal year 2021 served 770,179, after a fall through every year the table shows up to fiscal year 2020 (627,728) and a partial rebound in 2021.

  770,179 participants, participants in state-administered adult basic, adult secondary and english language acquisition programmes, FY2021. 2,629,643 participants, participants in the same programmes in fiscal year 2000, the highest year the table shows, FY2000. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics 2022, table 507.20 (from the OCTAE National Reporting System), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The federal government funds states by formula to run adult basic education, high school equivalency preparation and English classes through local providers, and requires every state to report participants and outcomes into one national reporting system.

  Limits: The table starts in fiscal year 2000, so the second metric is the highest year it shows, not a proven all-time peak. FY2021 is a pandemic year and a partial rebound from FY2020's 627,728; FY2019, before the pandemic, already stood at 948,934, so most of the fall predates it. The fall is computed from two published table cells (about 71 percent), and part of it may reflect tighter participant definitions and federal performance reporting rather than lost provision; the table carries no note on definitional changes. The count covers only programmes reporting to the federal National Reporting System, not community college, employer or private adult learning, so it is not a national adult participation rate. Funding is shared between federal and state governments and the record does not attribute the decline to a single decision.

• 🇳🇱Netherlandslinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2022dismantled

  STAP-budget training grant, abolished in 2024

  The Dutch employee insurance agency UWV paid individual training grants of up to 1,000 euros from 2022, approved more than 214,000 applications in five rounds that year, and stopped the scheme on 1 January 2024.

  214,000 approved applications (more than, 'ruim'), stap-budget applications approved in 2022, 2022. UWV (Uitvoeringsinstituut Werknemersverzekeringen), press release on the first 2023 STAP round, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The state replaced a tax deduction for training costs with a first-come grant that any worker or jobseeker could claim once a year from UWV, paid directly to a registered training provider, in fixed application windows with a capped budget.

  Limits: The figure is the executing agency reporting on its own scheme, counts approved applications rather than courses completed, and is a lower bound ('ruim 214.000'); the same release puts people with a grant at more than 200,000. Approval is not participation: the release does not say how many approved grants were used, and the record does not show whether the courses improved anyone's position in the labour market. The end date comes from a second UWV page (https://www.uwv.nl/nl/stap-budget), not from the source page. Against a Dutch labour force of roughly ten million, one year of grants is around two percent of workers, so the scheme never moved the national participation share by itself. UWV's page gives no reason for the end, and the 2023 release reports that the cabinet had to tighten the scheme against misuse; the record documents the loss of this channel, not a collapse of Dutch adult learning, which other instruments still fund.

• 🇲🇽Mexicolinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1981still operating

  INEA adult basic education

  Mexico's Instituto Nacional para la Educación de los Adultos certified 651,473 young people and adults as having completed a level of literacy, primary or secondary education in 2024, with 352,600 learners in its services at the close of the year.

  651,473 people, people who completed a level (literacy, primary or secondary) with inea, 2024. 352,600 learners ('352.6 mil'), learners in inea services at the close of the year, 2024-12. Instituto Nacional para la Educación de los Adultos, Programa Institucional 2025-2030, published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: A federal institute and state adult education institutes run a semi-open model in which volunteers with a small stipend tutor adults in community spaces, and learners sit module examinations when ready, so a credential can be earned without a classroom timetable.

  Limits: The figures are INEA reporting on itself from its own tracking system (SASA). A completed level is a credential, often obtained by examination after self-study, and says nothing about how much was learned; one person can complete more than one level in a year. Against 27.5 million people aged 15 and over who, by the same document, have not finished basic education, a year's completions are about two percent of the backlog. The same document's indicator series shows completions fell sharply in 2019 and 2020 and rebounded from 2021, and it notes a fall in people served in 2024; chaining those published rates back from the 538,741 completions the document gives for 2023 puts 2019 at about 680,000 and 2018 at about 853,000, so 2024 is below both, by about 4 and 24 percent (our computation, from rounded rates).

• 🇯🇵Japanlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1958still operating

  Hello Training, public vocational training

  Japan's national and prefectural governments trained 225,176 people through public vocational training in fiscal year 2023, 95,752 of them jobseekers and 114,552 people in work, and a further 44,699 through job-seeker support training.

  225,176 trainees, trainees in public vocational training (national and prefectural), FY2023. 44,699 trainees, trainees in job-seeker support training, FY2023. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, policy evaluation sheet for policy goal VI-1-1 (public vocational training), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The national government, through polytechnic centres run by its employment support agency, and the prefectures run free vocational courses for jobseekers and fee-based upskilling for employees, contract much of the jobseeker training to accredited private providers, and route trainees through Hello Work offices.

  Limits: The figures sit in a table on page 10 of a PDF. The 225,176 total includes 14,872 school-leaver trainees who are mostly young people entering work, not adults returning to learning. Against a labour force of roughly 69 million, public training reaches well under one percent of workers a year; most adult learning in Japan is employer-provided and is not counted here. Trainee counts say nothing about the quality of training beyond the employment rates the same table reports for jobseeker courses.

• 🇧🇷Brazillinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1996operating below its peak

  Educação de Jovens e Adultos (EJA), and its erosion

  Brazil's Educação de Jovens e Adultos, the second-chance basic education modality delivered mostly by public school networks, enrolled 2,962,322 students in 2021 and 2,252,069 in 2025, a fall of about 24 percent in four years, according to INEP's School Census.

  2,252,069 enrolments, enrolments in educação de jovens e adultos (eja), total of public and private networks, 2025. 2,962,322 enrolments, enrolments in eja in 2021, the highest year of the 2021 to 2025 series in this release, 2021. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (INEP), Censo Escolar da Educação Básica 2025, results presentation (Gráfico 24), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The federal education law makes basic education for youths and adults a modality of the public school system, and state and municipal networks deliver it in evening classes, funded through the per-pupil FUNDEB transfers with a lower weight than regular schooling. Enrolment has fallen every year since at least 2020 as networks close evening classes and fewer young adults enter.

  Limits: Both numbers are read off a bar chart in a PDF slide deck (Gráfico 24, PDF page 25), not a table, and the chart labels the totals as public plus private. The deck's window only starts in 2021, so the 'peak' is the first year shown and not EJA's historical peak: INEP's 2024 presentation (PDF page 35) shows 3,002,749 enrolments in 2020, and the decline is older than either window. The real loss from the modality's peak is therefore understated, not overstated. Enrolment counts registrations in the census reference week, not adults who attend or complete. A falling count is not by itself a capability loss: part of the fall reflects more young people finishing regular school on time, so fewer need a second chance, and INEP's own 2024 deck notes that EJA also absorbs teenagers who left regular school after repeated failure, so EJA is not purely adult learning. The source gives no count of the adults who lack completed basic education, so the 2,252,069 enrolments cannot be turned into the share of adults the indicator asks for. The 1996 start is the Lei de Diretrizes e Bases (Lei 9.394) that set EJA as a modality; it is not stated at the source URL, and adult schooling in Brazil predates it.

• 🇬🇧United Kingdomlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1992operating below its peak

  Government-funded adult further education in England, and its erosion

  Participation of adults aged 19 and over in government-funded further education and skills in England fell from a recent peak of nearly 3.3 million learners in 2012/13 to 1.6 million in 2020/21, and stood at 1,798,970 in 2024/25, according to the Department for Education.

  1,798,970 learners, adult (19+) further education and skills participation, education and training plus adult apprenticeships, england, 2024/25 academic year. 3,300,000 learners, adult (19+) further education and skills participation at the most recent peak, as published (rounded, 'nearly 3.3 million'), 2012/13 academic year. Department for Education, Further education and skills, academic year 2024/25 (accredited official statistics), section 'Total adult (19+) activity in further education and skills (including apprenticeships)', retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The Department for Education funds colleges, local authorities and training providers through a national adult skills budget and later loans and apprenticeship levy funding, and counts every funded learner through a single administrative return. Real-terms cuts to the adult budget and the move of level 3 and above provision onto learner loans roughly halved adult participation within a decade.

  Limits: The peak is published only as rounded prose ('nearly 3.3 million learners in 2012/13'), so the second metric is a rounded figure and the fall to 1,798,970 (about 45 percent) is approximate. The department calls 2012/13 the 'most recent peak', which implies earlier years may have been higher; the record does not claim the series' all-time high. The release also warns that the 2024/25 introduction of the Adult Skills Fund and tailored learning breaks the long-running Education and Training time series, although it says total further education and skills volumes are unaffected. Participation counts learners on government-funded or loan-funded provision recorded on the Individualised Learner Record, so adults in employer-paid, private or university learning are outside it, and it is England only, not the United Kingdom. The total includes adult apprenticeships, whose own funding reforms moved volumes independently of the adult skills budget. A headcount cannot show course length or level, so some of the fall may reflect a change in the mix of courses rather than fewer adults learning. The rise to 1.8 million in 2022/23 and 2023/24 came mostly from Multiply and Skills Bootcamps, according to the release, and Multiply funding stopped in March 2025. The 1992 start date is the Further and Higher Education Act that created the funded further education sector; it is not stated at the source URL.

• 🇵🇪Perulinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2003operating below its peak

  Educación Básica Alternativa (EBA), and its erosion

  Peru's Educación Básica Alternativa, the second-chance basic education modality for youths and adults, enrolled 226,500 students in 2016, the highest year of the 2014 to 2023 table, and 190,700 in 2023, according to INEI's Compendio Estadístico 2024 citing the Ministry of Education's school census.

  190.7 thousand students, enrolment in educación básica alternativa, 2023. 226.5 thousand students, enrolment in educación básica alternativa at the 2016 peak of the 2014 to 2023 series, 2016. Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática (INEI), Perú: Compendio Estadístico 2024, Tomo 1, Table 5.6 (source: Ministerio de Educación, Censo Escolar, Unidad de Estadística Educativa), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The 2003 General Education Law converted Peru's old adult schools into a separate modality of basic education, delivered by public and private CEBA centres with flexible schedules and counted in the national school census. Enrolment peaked in 2016 and has drifted down since.

  Limits: The numbers are in a PDF table (Table 5.6, PDF page 323 of 1,046), published in thousands with one decimal, and INEI republishes the Ministry of Education's census rather than collecting it; the Ministry's own ESCALE portal sits behind a bot-verification wall and could not be read. The peak is only the highest year of the ten-year window the table shows (2014 to 2023), and it was a one-year jump: enrolment was 204,500 in 2014 and 203,900 in 2015, so against 2014 the 2023 count is only about 7 percent lower, and the fall of about 16 percent is measured from that jump. The series reached its low of 188,600 in 2022 and rose slightly in 2023. The modality serves adolescents from 14 as well as adults, so not every learner is an adult, and the table does not split public from private centres. Enrolment is a census-day count, not attendance or completion, and a smaller EBA can partly reflect more young people completing regular schooling. A table footnote says the conversion of former adult education centres into the modality has been under way since 2006, so early years mix old and new structures. The 2003 start is the Ley General de Educación 28044 that created the modality, which is not stated at the source URL.

• 🇪🇪Estonialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1990still operating

  Upper secondary education for adults in non-stationary study

  Estonia's secondary schools for adults and the non-stationary departments of other schools enrolled 7,866 learners in upper secondary education in 2025, the highest number in the Statistics Estonia series that starts in 1990, while the number of dedicated adult secondary schools fell from 16 in 2016 to nine.

  7,866 enrolments, enrolments in upper secondary education in non-stationary general education, 2025. 9 schools, secondary schools for adults, 2025. Statistics Estonia, table HT234: Enrolments, graduates and schools in non-stationary general education, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The state and municipalities keep a network of adult gymnasiums and let ordinary schools run evening, distance and part-time departments that teach the national upper secondary curriculum free of charge to adults. When the network shrank, enrolment moved into consolidated schools and departments rather than disappearing.

  Limits: The scale is small: 7,866 enrolments in a country of about 1.4 million people, and non-stationary general education is only one part of adult learning, leaving out vocational schools, universities, employer training and the unemployment fund's courses. Enrolment rose from 5,653 in 2022 to 7,866 in 2025, and the source does not say why; part of the rise may come from refugees from Ukraine and from young people who left day school, so the count is not purely adults returning to study. Basic education enrolments in the same table fell from a 2005 high of 1,722 to 588 in 2025, so the record is not a story of growth across the board. Fewer dedicated adult schools (16 in 2016, nine in 2025) means provision was consolidated, and more schools now teach adults through non-stationary departments (27 in 2025). The 1990 start is the first year of the published series, not the start of adult schooling in Estonia, and the table's reference year should be read as the school year beginning that autumn.

• 🇹🇭Thailandlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1993still operating

  Department of Skill Development skill-upgrading training

  Thailand's Department of Skill Development, through 86 national institutes and provincial offices, trained 91,911 workers in skill-upgrading courses in fiscal year 2023, of whom 88,656 completed, according to its open-data release.

  88,656 people, workers completing skill-upgrading training (sum of male and female completers across all units), fiscal year 2566 (October 2022 to September 2023). 88,602 people, workers completing skill-upgrading training in fiscal year 2564, fiscal year 2564 (October 2020 to September 2021). Department of Skill Development, Ministry of Labour, open data portal, dataset dsd_12_01_01 'Number of workers completing skill-upgrading training' (CSV per fiscal year), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The Ministry of Labour runs a national network of skill development institutes and provincial offices that deliver short, free upgrading courses to employed workers by occupation group, and publishes per-unit results as open data.

  Limits: Both numbers are computed: the department publishes one row per unit and occupation group (494 rows in fiscal 2566), and the totals here are the sums of its male and female completer columns, which the department does not print as a headline. The CSV is encoded in Thai Windows code page 874, and some cells carry a thousands separator, so a sum that parses them as text undercounts. The open data stops at fiscal 2566 (2023) and covers three years only (88,602 completers in fiscal 2564, 63,785 in fiscal 2565, 88,656 in fiscal 2566), so no long trend or peak can be read from it. About 89,000 completers a year is roughly 0.2 percent of a labour force near 40 million, the courses are short, and the count is the agency reporting on itself with no outcome measure. The figures cover the department's own upgrading courses only, not pre-employment training, supplementary occupation courses, employer training claimed under the Skill Development Promotion Act, or the education ministry's non-formal education, whose portals refused connections from this research. The 1993 start date is the founding of the department as given in general references, not stated at the source URL.

• 🇳🇬Nigerialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1990still operating

  Adult literacy education under the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education

  Enrolment in adult literacy education in Nigeria, reported by the National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education, rose from 322,288 in 2020 to 2,152,146 in 2021 and 2,915,453 in 2022, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

  2,915,453 enrolments, total enrolment in adult literacy education, 2022. 322,288 enrolments, total enrolment in adult literacy education in 2020, 2020. National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Social Statistics Report 2023 (published March 2024), section 1.1.1 and Figure 1.1 (source: National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-Formal Education), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: A federal commission sets adult literacy and non-formal education policy and funds and coordinates state agencies for mass education that run community literacy centres with volunteer and paid facilitators, reporting enrolment upward to the national statistics office.

  Limits: The figure is an administrative count supplied by the commission to the statistics office, which republishes it without a definition: it does not say whether enrolment counts people or registrations, whether state-run and donor-funded centres are included, or how many learners completed. A ninefold rise in two years is not explained in the report; 2020 was depressed by pandemic closures, and the jump may also reflect better reporting coverage rather than more learning. The series covers three years only, so no peak or trend before 2020 can be read. The number is in a PDF (Figure 1.1 and its text, PDF page 10), and the newest year is 2022. Even 2.9 million enrolments is small against the large non-literate adult population the commission targets, and literacy classes are basic education, not the training-for-work participation most adult-learning surveys count. The 1990 start is the decree that established the commission, not stated at the source URL.

• 🇨🇦Canadalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1996operating below its peak

  Skills Development under the Labour Market Development Agreements, and its 2024-25 funding cut

  Canada's provinces and territories delivered 154,892 employment-benefit services under the federally funded Labour Market Development Agreements in 2024-25, 92 percent of them Skills Development training, in a year when Part II funding fell by $425 million as a temporary top-up in place since 2016-17 ended and Skills Development spending fell 19.7 percent to $798.9 million.

  154,892 services, employment benefits services delivered under the lmdas (92 percent skills development), 2024-25 (fiscal year April 2024 to March 2025). 798.9 million Canadian dollars, expenditure on skills development under the lmdas, down 19.7 percent from 2023-24, 2024-25. Employment and Social Development Canada for the Canada Employment Insurance Commission, Employment Insurance Monitoring and Assessment Report 2024-25, Chapter 3, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The federal government channels Employment Insurance Part II money to provinces and territories through bilateral agreements, and each province buys or delivers skills training and apprenticeship support for EI-eligible workers, reporting to a common monitoring framework.

  Limits: The counts are services (interventions), not people: one client can hold several, and the department reports 502,007 clients across all LMDA services, most of them in employment assistance rather than training. The erosion rests on money, not on a measured fall in training: the chapter's introduction says Part II received $425 million less in 2024-25 because the temporary additional funding in place since 2016-17 sunset, and Skills Development spending fell 19.7 percent. Employment Benefits services also fell, from 192,365 in 2023-24 (Table 3.1.2.3) to 154,892, but nearly all of that is Skills Development Regular falling 37.8 percent to 62,084, which the table note attributes to a coding correction that moved provincial workshops out of that category; the services fall is therefore not counted as the loss here, and apprenticeship services rose 3.2 percent to 80,376. 2023-24 is the previous year, not a demonstrated all-time peak. The programme reports on itself, and the 92 percent share is stated by the department (62,084 plus 80,376 of 154,892). The started year is the date the first bilateral agreements were signed (Alberta and New Brunswick, December 1996, per the LMDA page on canada.ca), not stated in this chapter. The training is for EI-eligible workers, a subset of all adults, and the record says nothing about outcomes.

• 🇭🇳Honduraslinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1972still operating

  Instituto Nacional de Formación Profesional (INFOP)

  Honduras's national vocational training institute INFOP trained or certified 326,161 people in 2024 across six programmes and about 12,552 courses, figures the Tribunal Superior de Cuentas checked against instructors' start and end reports.

  326,161 people, people trained or certified by infop across its six programmes (sum of six programme totals), 2024. 135,430 people, people certified in the largest programme, tourism, commerce and services, 2024. Tribunal Superior de Cuentas de Honduras, Informe RC-Nº32-2025-DVGP-INFOP, evaluation of INFOP's 2024 accountability report, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: A levy-funded autonomous training institute, financed by employer and worker contributions, runs its own centres and contracts courses through business chambers and unions, and the supreme audit institution checks its delivery figures each year.

  Limits: The total is computed by us: the audit report (pages 9 to 10 of the PDF) gives six programme results, 24,181 (agriculture), 15,834 (industrial), 135,430 (tourism, commerce and services), 65,035 (ICT), 84,665 (company agreements) and 1,016 (labour competency certification), and no single total; the press figure of 325,145 is the first five. The counts are participations per programme product, not unique adults, so a person who took two courses counts twice. Many courses are short, about 20 hours at the low end, and the list includes soft-skills topics such as customer service and motivation; the industrial programme serves ages 15 to 25, so part of the count is youth. The numbers originate in INFOP's own reports; the Tribunal verified them against signed instructor reports and a sample of 68 participants per product, not by a full audit. Over-execution of up to 165 percent against plan says the targets were low, not that demand was met. The 2021 evaluation records that INFOP cancelled its programme for vulnerable groups after the pandemic, so coverage of the poorest is not shown here. The started year is the 1972 decree law creating INFOP, stated in the report.

• 🇮🇱Israellinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2003still operating

  Ministry of Labour Vocational Training Division adult courses

  Israel's Vocational Training Division, in the labour ministry, trained about 61,000 people in 2022, against about 55,000 in 2019 and 59,000 in 2021, according to the Knesset Research and Information Center.

  61,000 people (rounded), people trained through the vocational training division, 2022. 55,000 people (rounded), people trained through the vocational training division, pre-pandemic year, 2019. Knesset Research and Information Center, Review of poverty data in Israel and government policy (26 September 2023), citing labour ministry data, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The labour ministry's training division licenses and supervises a large market of paid vocational courses, sets curricula and state certification exams for more than 350 occupations, and funds a smaller set of courses through referrals from the employment service.

  Limits: The figures are rounded and reach us through the Knesset's research centre, which republishes labour ministry data; the sentence is on PDF page 11 (printed page 9), in Hebrew. Most of the volume is not state-funded training: the Center's December 2021 paper on the training system says that in 2019, 49,192 of the participants, 88.5 percent, were in non-budgeted courses that learners pay for at private institutions the Division supervises and certifies, and 5,621 were in state-funded courses. The same paper records a fall to 36,522 participants in 2020, which the ministry attributed to the absence of a state budget and the pandemic; the 2022 figure shows recovery, so the record is not filed as a reversal. About 61,000 a year is a small share of Israel's adult population, and the count says nothing about completion or employment outcomes. The started year is not given in either source: 2003 is the year a 2006 European Training Foundation report gives for the Division's predecessor bureau moving to the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labour, and the bureau ran adult courses before that.

• 🇵🇾Paraguaylinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1998still operating

  Educación Permanente para personas jóvenes y adultas (MEC)

  Paraguay's Ministry of Education and Sciences enrolled 94,436 young people and adults in its four formal and non-formal Educación Permanente programmes in 2025, as reported in the Ministry of Economy and Finance's budget evaluation for that year.

  94,436 students, students enrolled in the four formal and non-formal educación permanente programmes for young people and adults, 2025. Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas del Paraguay, Informe Financiero 2025, Tomo II: Control Financiero y Evaluación Presupuestaria (MEC section), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The education ministry runs basic, secondary and vocational second-chance programmes for over-age learners through a national network of centres, many hosted in ordinary schools in the evening, and reports enrolment through the budget-by-results system.

  Limits: The number sits in one sentence on printed page 34 (PDF page 35) of a budget evaluation, sourced in its footnote to the education ministry's own reporting (SIME N° 5.130/2026); the ministry is reporting on itself through the finance ministry. The programmes serve people aged 15 and over, so part of the count is youth rather than adults, and enrolment is not completion. 94,436 is about 2 percent of Paraguay's adult population, so this evidences a standing national second-chance system, not broad adult participation. The four programmes are not broken out, and no earlier year is given on this page, so no trend can be read; the education ministry's open-data portal, which carries the enrolment series, did not respond from here. The started year is the 1998 General Education Law that set out permanent education for young people and adults; it is not stated in the source.

• 🇭🇹Haitilinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2010delivered and closed

  National literacy campaigns, 2010-2015

  Haiti's national literacy campaigns trained about 250,000 adults between 2010 and 2015, about 10 percent of the illiterate population, according to the education ministry's ten-year plan.

  250,000 adults (approximate), adults trained in literacy campaigns, 2010-2015. Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle (MENFP), Plan décennal d'éducation et de formation 2020-2030 (December 2020), republished by the MIT-Haiti Initiative, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The state ran adult literacy campaigns through the education ministry's literacy apparatus, reaching an estimated tenth of the illiterate adult population over five years.

  Limits: The only figure is a rounded approximation on printed page 25 (PDF page 28) of the ministry's plan, which cites an unpublished 2017 MENFP review of the 2010-2015 operational plan; no annual series, completion or literacy test results are given. 'Trained' is not 'made literate'. The copy that opens is hosted by the MIT-Haiti Initiative, not by the ministry, whose own site does not carry the PDF. The plan places the adult literacy campaigns, itinerant courses of at most six months, under a Secretariat of State (the Secrétairerie d'État à l'Alphabétisation; printed page 21, PDF page 24), but it does not say who paid for them; Haiti's literacy work in this period drew on foreign cooperation, so the domestic share of the funding is unknown. The same page says non-formal education suffers from inadequate infrastructure, budgets and staff, and the record does not show the campaigns continuing after 2015. 2010 is the start of the reporting period, not the start of literacy campaigns in Haiti.

• 🇵🇱Polandlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1999still operating

  County and city general secondary schools for adults (licea ogólnokształcące dla dorosłych)

  Poland's county governments and cities with county rights ran general secondary schools for adults whose enrolment rose from 26,443 pupils in 2010 to 47,584 in 2013, fell to 16,470 in 2021 and recovered to 26,734 in 2024, according to Statistics Poland's Local Data Bank.

  26,734 pupils, pupils in general secondary schools for adults governed by country powiats and by cities with powiat rights (sum of bdl variables 473647 and 8836), 2024. 47,584 pupils, same sum at its 2013 high, the largest value since the country-powiat series begins in 2010, 2013. Statistics Poland (GUS), Local Data Bank (BDL), subject P2031 'General secondary schools for adults', variables 473647 (pupils, governed by powiat self-government, country powiats) and 8836 (pupils, governed by cities with powiat rights), Poland, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: Counties and cities with county rights, which own Poland's public secondary schools, keep evening and extramural general secondary classes open for adults who want the same matura a teenager earns, tuition-free and funded through the public education budget.

  Limits: The figures are computed: GUS publishes the two governing-body series separately (2024: 13,857 in country powiats and 12,877 in cities with powiat rights; 2013: 30,667 and 16,917; 2010: 11,917 and 14,526; 2021: 8,046 and 8,424) and this record adds them. The country-powiat series starts in 2010, so the sum cannot be taken further back, and the city series alone shows a break (40,439 in 2000, 5,259 in 2006, 18,038 in 2007) that tracks the restructuring of secondary schooling and a change in classification, not a real swing. These schools are a minority of adult general secondary schooling: in 2024 the same subject counts 102,881 pupils in total, of whom county and city governments hold about 26 percent, gminas, voivodships and central administration another 1,360, social organisations and associations 5,277, and the remaining roughly 69,500 sit in schools run by other bodies, which the variables read here do not break out. The 2013 high was a two-year surge from 23,737 in 2011 that the source does not explain, and the 2024 count is back at its 2010 level after three years of growth, so the record is filed as operating: the fall from 2013 to 2021 reads as a surge unwinding rather than a lost capability, and a reader who treats 2013 as the baseline would call it eroded. BDL labels the school year by its start year; the API response does not say so, so '2024' most likely means 2024/25. A pupil count is enrolment, not completion or a matura pass, and it covers general secondary schooling only: adult vocational schools, post-secondary schools, courses and employer training are outside it. The 1999 start is the year Poland's county tier was created and given secondary schools; it was not read at the cited source.

• 🇲🇾Malaysialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2001still operating

  Kolej Komuniti part-time and lifelong-learning (Pembelajaran Sepanjang Hayat) courses

  Malaysia's public community colleges, run by the Ministry of Higher Education, counted 259,788 part-time students, including participants in Pembelajaran Sepanjang Hayat lifelong-learning courses, in 2024, against 259,810 in 2023, according to the ministry's Statistik Pendidikan Tinggi 2024.

  259,788 students, part-time students in community colleges, total, part-time including psh programme (table 5.4), 2024. 259,810 students, same count for the previous year, same table, 2023. Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (Kementerian Pendidikan Tinggi), Statistik Pendidikan Tinggi 2024, chapter 5 (Kolej Komuniti), Table 5.4 'Number of Part Time Students based on State of Institution and Gender by Community Colleges 2023-2024', source TVET Coordination Division, Department of Polytechnic and Community College Education, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The higher education ministry uses its national network of community colleges, built for post-secondary vocational certificates, to also run short and part-time courses for local adults, and counts them in its annual statistics.

  Limits: The ministry reports on its own colleges. The number sits in a PDF: Table 5.4 runs over several pages and the national total is on page 42 of the 72-page chapter file (printed page 143), with the note 'Part Time Student includes PSH programme'. The table does not split PSH short-course participants from part-time certificate and diploma students, does not give ages, and counts enrolments rather than unique people, so one adult taking three short courses can count three times and many PSH courses last hours or days. Against roughly 23 million Malaysians of working age it is about one participation per hundred adults, which is a reach figure, not a participation rate comparable with Eurostat or PIAAC. Earlier editions of the same publication give 238,581 (2018), 222,675 (2019), 118,455 (2020), 140,501 (2021) and 245,909 (2022), so the count halved in the pandemic and has since passed its pre-pandemic level; those figures are in the 2019, 2021 and 2023 chapter files, not at the cited URL. The 2025 edition of chapter 5 no longer carries a part-time table, so 2024 is the latest year published and the status rests on that year. The 2001 start is the year the community college system began operating as commonly reported; it was not read at the cited source.

• 🇮🇹Italylinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2020still operating

  Fondo nuove competenze

  Italy's Fondo nuove competenze, set up in 2020 and run by the national labour policy agency ANPAL through two notices, was created to pay for working hours employers turned into training under union agreements, and by the end of 2021 it had covered almost 30 million hours of training for almost 270,000 workers, about 110 hours each.

  270,000 workers, workers trained under the first notice of the fondo nuove competenze, per anpal's thematic review of 30 december 2021, 2021-12. 30 million hours, working hours converted to training, 2021-12. ANPAL, Agenzia Nazionale Politiche Attive del Lavoro (archive maintained by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: ANPAL paid employers for working hours converted into training, but only where a collective agreement with the unions set out the cut in hours and the skills plan, which turned a COVID income measure into a negotiated training programme.

  Limits: The figures come from ANPAL's own thematic review of December 2021, an interim count for the first notice; the final total for that edition is not on this page, and larger figures circulating elsewhere were not verified. The page is an archive: ANPAL was abolished and the fund passed to the Ministry of Labour, and the page says further funding is planned under the Programma nazionale Giovani, donne e lavoro. About 270,000 workers is under one percent of Italian adults (our rough computation), so this is a national programme that barely moves the participation share the indicator asks for. It is a wage subsidy as much as a training programme: the fund reimburses hours employers took out of production, and in 2020 to 2021 that also kept people employed during COVID restrictions. Training content and hours are certified by employers and union agreements, and ANPAL notes that the regions assessing training plans relied widely on tacit approval (silenzio-assenso), so quality control was light.

• 🇧🇩Bangladeshlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1991operating below its peak

  National adult literacy projects of the Bureau of Non-Formal Education, and their erosion

  Bangladesh's Bureau of Non-Formal Education ran national adult literacy projects that reached 9.23 million learners aged 11 to 45 under the Total Literacy Movement project of 1997 to 2003, then 4.46 million aged 15 to 45 under the Basic Literacy Project (64 districts) of 2014 to 2022. Its only programme for learners above school age the bureau lists after June 2022 is a pre-vocational course that reached 4,198 people aged 14 to 24 in 2025-26.

  4,459,000 learners (published as 44.59 lakh), learners reached, basic literacy project (64 districts), feb 2014 to jun 2022, 2014-02/2022-06. 9,225,000 learners (published as 92.25 lakh), peak: learners reached, non-formal education project-4 (total literacy movement), apr 1997 to jun 2003, 1997-04/2003-06. Bureau of Non-Formal Education, Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, Government of Bangladesh: implemented projects table, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The Bureau of Non-Formal Education used development-budget projects to fund literacy courses, delivered by district administrations or contracted NGOs, in every district. When a project window closed, delivery stopped until the next project was approved, and after 2022 no adult-scale successor followed.

  Limits: These are the implementing bureau's own counts of learners it reports as reached. The page does not say how a learner was counted or whether literacy was tested. The numbers cover multi-year project windows and not the last 12 months, which is what the indicator asks. Spread over each window they are small against the adult population: roughly 0.5 million a year for 2014 to 2022 and 1.5 million a year for 1997 to 2003, both converted from lakh by us. The peak is itself a shortfall: the 1997 to 2003 project reached 92.25 lakh against a target of 228.89 lakh, about 40 percent. A hostile reviewer would say most of the fall reflects fewer illiterate adults to reach, since primary enrolment rose over the period, and not lost capacity. Nothing here measures that need, so the erosion is in delivery scale and not in a participation rate. The projects run as separate time-bound windows with gaps between them, so calling them one delivery is our reading. Both age bands include non-adults: the 1997 to 2003 project counted learners from age 11 and the 2014 to 2022 project from age 15, so part of each count is children and adolescents. The 2025-26 figure is a different course for ages 14 to 24 and is not a like-for-like successor. Basic Literacy Project teaching was contracted to NGOs. The page is a Bengali table on a government portal, and the values are read off its rows.

• 🇺🇬Ugandalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1992operating below its peak

  Functional Adult Literacy programme, and its decline

  Uganda's Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development enrolled 434,664 adult learners in its government-funded Functional Adult Literacy programme in 2004, and enrolment fell to 88,533 by 2007.

  88,533 learners, learners enrolled in government-funded functional adult literacy (fal), 2007. 434,664 learners, learners enrolled in government-funded fal in 2004, the high of the 1997-2007 table, 2004. Republic of Uganda, Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, national report on adult learning and education for CONFINTEA VI, hosted by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development ran adult literacy classes through district community development officers and volunteer instructors. Enrolment fell after 2004 while government releases fell only from Shs 3.61bn to 3.08bn a year, so the source does not explain the fall.

  Limits: The series stops in 2007. The report is a 2008 ministry submission to UNESCO, and no later official FAL enrolment series was found or checked. Whether it recovered later, under this or another name, is not shown, so the eroded status describes 2004 to 2007 and nothing after. 2004 is the high of one eleven-year table, and the jump from about 149,000 in 2001 to 358,000 in 2002 suggests a one-off funding push rather than a stable peak. The table's printed total (2,090,340) does not match the 2,091,340 in the text above it. The figures are the ministry's own administrative counts, taken from a PDF, with no independent check. A count of literacy learners is much narrower than the indicator's construct, the share of all adults in any education or training. The report's national figures show 43% of adults had some primary schooling, so not every enrolee was starting from zero. It also says FAL relied on UNICEF, UNESCO and DVV funding that stopped around 1999, so part of the swing may come from donor funding rather than from state delivery. The same report's release table shows government FAL releases of Shs 3.61bn a year in 2002/03-2004/05 and 3.08bn in 2005/06-2006/07, a cut of about 15% against a fall in enrolment of about 80%, so the cause of the decline is not shown. Elsewhere the report dates the government's re-launch budget to 1991. The start year is a re-launch: there was adult literacy work before 1992, and FAL began as a pilot in eight districts.

• 🇹🇿Tanzanialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1993operating below its peak

  Integrated Community-Based Adult Education (MEMKWA), and its decline

  Tanzania's Ministry of Education ran Integrated Community-Based Adult Education in all 25 mainland regions from 1993. Enrolment peaked at 1,900,255 learners in 2005 and fell to 786,602 by 2014.

  786,602 learners, learners enrolled in icbae learning centres, 2014. 1,900,255 learners, learners enrolled in icbae learning centres at the 2005 high of the 2000-2014 table, 2005. UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, LitBase effective practices database: Integrated Community-Based Adult Education (ICBAE), United Republic of Tanzania, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The Ministry of Education ran literacy circles of up to 30 learners in primary school buildings in the evenings, staffed by facilitators and coordinated through local government. Enrolment fell by more than half within a decade as funding and facilitator support thinned.

  Limits: The table exists only as an image on the UNESCO page, so the numbers were read off a picture and a machine cannot check them. UNESCO's page is a case-study write-up that presents the programme as good practice, and the figures are ministry figures republished without a stated source. The ministry's own 2008 CONFINTEA report prints 1,900,225 for 2004/05, but its male and female columns sum to UNESCO's 1,900,255, so the difference is a ministry arithmetic slip; the ministry's 1999/2000 and 2000/2001 rows reappear as UNESCO's 2000 and 2001, so UNESCO's year labels may be the second year of a school year. The ministry labels its table 'participation in literacy programmes', so UNESCO may have attached the ICBAE name to all adult literacy participation. The series has gaps (2002 to 2004 are missing) and ends in 2014, and later years were not checked, so the eroded status describes 2005 to 2014 only. 2014 ticked up from 734,950 in 2013, and the fall is not monotonic. A count of literacy learners is far narrower than the indicator's construct, the share of all adults in any education or training. The programme had no standardized tests, so the count says nothing about what learners gained.

• 🇬🇭Ghanalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1992operating below its peak

  National Functional Literacy Programme, and its erosion

  Ghana's Non-Formal Education Division enrolled 312,907 adults in a single National Functional Literacy Programme batch in 2003-2005, and after donor funding ended in 2006 the government-funded batches shrank to 14,029 learners in the 2014-2016 batch.

  14,029 learners enrolled per batch, learners enrolled in nflp local-language batch 19 (2014/16), 2014-2016. 312,907 learners enrolled per batch, learners enrolled in nflp batch 9 (feb 2003/2005), the largest single batch, 2003-2005. Ministry of Education, Ghana, Education Sector Performance Report 2018 (hosted by the National Development Planning Commission), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The Ministry of Education's Non-Formal Education Division ran 21-month local-language literacy classes in every region through volunteer facilitators, scaled them with an IDA credit to about 200,000 to 300,000 enrolments per batch, and then carried the programme on a government budget line that funded a fraction of that after 2006.

  Limits: The two numbers come from two different Ministry of Education reports, and both are administrative enrolment counts reported upward by district supervisors; the 2013 report says monitoring visits to verify figures had not been possible since 2010 for lack of funds, and the 2018 report restates Batch 18 at 44,730 where the 2013 report had 51,257, so the series is revised without explanation. A batch runs about 21 months and batches overlap (Batch 10 ran November 2003 to 2005 alongside Batch 9), so a per-batch count is not a 12-month participation rate, and the peak-year total across overlapping batches was higher than the single batch quoted. The programme teaches basic literacy, which is one narrow slice of the adult learning the indicator asks about, and even the peak batch was a few percent of Ghana's adults. The 2003-2005 peak was financed mostly by an IDA credit: US$33.86 million of US$44.94 million in project costs (World Bank ICR535, IDA-3246, P000974), so the erosion partly measures a donor exit rather than a domestic choice. The 2018 report also shows a separate Basic English Literacy track (17,647 learners in 2016/18) that partly offsets the fall. The record carries no figure after the 2014-2016 batch.

• 🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoirelinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1996operating below its peak

  Centres d'alphabétisation, and their erosion

  Côte d'Ivoire's education ministry ran a national network of literacy centres. It counted 75,275 learners in 2,828 centres in 2015-16 and 53,311 learners in 2,707 centres in 2024-25, a fall of about 29 percent in learners over the decade.

  53,311 learners, learners enrolled in literacy centres, all levels, 2024-2025 school year, 2024-2025. 75,275 learners, learners enrolled in literacy centres, all levels, 2015-2016 school year, the highest of the years checked, 2015-2016. Ministère de l'Education Nationale et de l'Alphabétisation, Direction des Stratégies, de la Planification et des Statistiques (DESPS), Statistiques scolaires de poche 2024-2025, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The education ministry ran adult literacy through a dedicated service and a network of centres staffed by volunteer or low-paid animateurs. That network contracted by about a quarter in the decade after 2015 while primary enrolment expanded.

  Limits: The numbers are enrolments in literacy centres, not a participation rate. At about 53,000 learners against an adult population in the millions, the network reaches well under 1 percent of adults. So it shows little about adult learning participation at national scale. The erosion is measured between two of the ministry's pocket yearbooks. The yearbooks give 2015-16 (75,275), 2016-17 (57,299), 2017-18 (59,111), 2022-23 (55,405), 2023-24 (52,554) and 2024-25 (53,311). 2015-16 is the highest of these years, not a confirmed all-time peak. Most of the fall happened in one year, 2015-16 to 2016-17, which could be a change in coverage or method rather than in delivery. The yearbooks do not explain it. The centres include those run by NGOs, religious bodies and communities as well as the state, and the yearbook does not split them by operator. The age chart in 2024-25 shows some learners under 15. The figures are administrative counts collected through the ministry's own IEPP and DRENA offices. The publisher's domain (mena-desps.org) is the DESPS statistics site, not a gouv.ci address. The start year is when the service that runs the network was created, not when the first literacy class was held.

• 🇧🇫Burkina Fasolinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2002operating below its peak

  Adult literacy centres financed through FONAENF, and their erosion

  Burkina Faso's adult literacy and non-formal education centres, financed through FONAENF and run by contracted operators under the faire-faire strategy, enrolled 178,021 adult learners in 2015. Enrolment fell to 113,721 in 2018 and 86,405 in 2021, when 1,885 adult centres opened against 3,094 in 2018.

  86,405 learners, young people and adults enrolled in non-formal education centres (apprenants jeunes et adultes), 2021. 178,021 learners, adults enrolled in non-formal education centres at the 2015 high point of the 2015 to 2019 series (enf des adultes), 2015. Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l'Alphabétisation et de la Promotion des Langues nationales (MENAPLN), Burkina Faso, Rapport de suivi annuel 2021 du Programme de développement stratégique de l'éducation de base (PDSEB), version provisoire, May 2022, from DGESS annuaires statistiques de l'ENF, hosted by the Global Partnership for Education, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The ministry created FONAENF in 2002 to pool state and donor money and pay NGOs and associations to run literacy centres under the faire-faire strategy, so the state finances and supervises while operators deliver. Because each year's allocation decides how many centres open, cuts in the budget line and the spread of insecurity reduced the number of centres and learners almost immediately.

  Limits: The figures are counts of people enrolled in literacy and non-formal education centres, not the share of adults that the gap asks for. The ministry publishes no participation rate, and on any plausible adult population the 2021 count is around one percent of adults or less, so even the 2015 level was a small programme against the construct. The 2021 figure comes from a ministry monitoring report marked 'version provisoire' (provisional), and the copy used is hosted by the Global Partnership for Education, a funder of the plan. The 2015 figure comes from a different ministry document, the SNDENF 2021-2025, and the copy used is on a third-party site (mojaafrica.net), not a government domain. The two documents do not fully agree: the SNDENF prints 2016 adult enrolment as 86,001 in one table and 88,770 in the next. 2015 is the high point of the published 2015 to 2019 series and may not be the programme's true peak, and the series is volatile: it dropped by half in 2016 and partly recovered in 2018, which shows enrolment following each year's funding, not a steady decline. The 2021 figure is up from a 2020 low of 81,350, and the ministry credits the rise to a slight increase in budget programme 060. The 2021 level matches 2016 (86,001), so the decline is from the 2015 and 2018 highs, not a steady fall. The centre counts in Tableau V-4 are for 'jeunes et adultes' centres. 'Jeunes et adultes' covers learners aged 15 and over, and the adolescent centres are counted separately and excluded here. The counts are compiled from forms filled in by the operators the fund pays, so the people delivering the programme are reporting their own enrolment. The ministry attributes the fall to reduced budget allocations, and its own reports say the security crisis since 2016 closed many education facilities, but the series cannot separate the two causes. The record has no figure after 2021, so it cannot say whether the decline continued after the 2022 coups.

• 🇲🇼Malawilinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1986still operating

  National Adult Literacy Programme

  Malawi's Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare has run the National Adult Literacy Programme since 1986 through volunteer-taught community classes. Enrolment in Adult Literacy and Education reached 171,434 learners in the 2024/25 financial year, against about 82,000 participants in 2006.

  171,434 learners, learners enrolled in adult literacy and education, 2024/25 financial year. 82,312 learners, adult literacy participants, public and ngo classes combined, 2006. Malawi Government, Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, Annual Economic Report 2025 (Budget Document No. 2), section 15.2.2.1, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The ministry responsible for community development runs adult literacy as a standing national programme. It organises classes of about 25 learners through district community development officers and volunteer instructors that communities choose, and NGOs and churches run parallel classes under the same policy.

  Limits: The gap asks for a share of adults, and this is a count of learners in one literacy programme. Against Malawi's adult population, roughly 10 million people aged 15 and over, it is under 2 percent. That ratio is our rough computation and is not published. The figure is the ministry's administrative report, carried without method in a budget document. It does not say whether NGO and faith-based classes are included. The series is inconsistent: the Annual Economic Report 2024 gives the same 158,048 as learners who 'graduated' in 2023/24, and the 2025 report uses it as the previous year's enrolment. The 2006 comparison comes from a different ministry, the department's earlier home, and counts public and NGO participants together, so the two numbers may not measure the same thing. Literacy classes are one narrow kind of non-formal adult education. They say nothing about vocational, workplace or tertiary adult learning. The 2008 report records that the programme aimed to reach 2 million of 4.6 million illiterate adults by 2000 but had reached about 860,000 by 2006. It also records 'magnitude of failure', volunteer instructors whose minimum qualification is primary school grade 8, and inadequate funding. The 2025 report names the National Strategy on Adult Literacy and Lifelong Learning, not NALP, so treating the 2024/25 enrolment as the same programme begun in 1986 is our reading. Enrolment says nothing about completion or literacy gained.

• 🇲🇺Mauritiuslinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2009still operating

  Mauritius Institute of Training and Development part-time training

  The Mauritius Institute of Training and Development, the state technical and vocational training body, enrolled 3,352 trainees on part-time courses across its training centres between July 2022 and June 2023, out of 8,668 people it trained that year in full-time, part-time and apprenticeship modes.

  3,352 trainees, part-time enrolment, all mitd training centres, July 2022 to June 2023. 8,668 people, people trained by mitd in full-time, part-time or apprenticeship mode, July 2022 to June 2023. Mauritius Institute of Training and Development, Annual Report 2022/2023, table 'Part time enrolment by training centres and gender for the period July 2022 to June 2023', retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: A statutory training institute under the education ministry runs a national network of training centres that sell evening and part-time courses to workers alongside its full-time and apprenticeship programmes, and publishes centre-by-centre enrolment each year.

  Limits: MITD reports on itself. The part-time table is on page 54 of the PDF (printed page 52) and the 8,668 total is in the opening statement on page 6. The counts are enrolments, not unique adults, and the report gives no ages: part-time courses are the mode most likely to serve working adults, but the full-time courses (2,993 trainees on page 50) mainly take school leavers and are not adult learning in the sense of the indicator, which is why the part-time figure is the metric. Professional drivers training (526) and hotel school short courses (787) make up close to two fifths of the part-time count. MITD is one provider: the Human Resource Development Council's training schemes, private providers and the universities are not in it, so it is not a national participation rate. 2022/23 is the latest annual report on the MITD site. The start year is the 2009 Act that created MITD from the former Industrial and Vocational Training Board, as commonly reported; it was not read at the cited source.

• 🇳🇦Namibialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1998still operating

  NAMCOL secondary education programme for out-of-school learners

  The Namibian College of Open Learning, a state-owned distance education college, registered 27,242 learners in its Grade 11 and 12 secondary programme in 2025, against a peak of 30,999 in 2017 and a low of 23,258 in 2022.

  27,242 learners, learners enrolled in namcol secondary education programmes (nssco and nsscas), 2025. 30,999 learners, same count at its peak year, 2017. Namibian College of Open Learning (NAMCOL), Statistical Digest 2024/25, section 2 Learner enrolment, Figures 1 to 3, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The state set up a distance-learning college that lets anyone who left school without the senior secondary certificate register for individual subjects, study from printed and online materials and attend weekend tutorials at centres across the regions, then sit the national examinations.

  Limits: NAMCOL reports on itself. The numbers are read off charts in a PDF laid out as two-page spreads: the 2025 total and the 2010 to 2025 trend (Figure 3) are on PDF page 15 (printed pages 28 to 29). The digest publishes no age profile, so the record cannot show how many learners are adults rather than young people repeating Grade 11 or 12 after leaving school; NAMCOL's secondary programme is a second-chance route and many of its learners are in their late teens and early twenties, so this is the weak point of the record for an adult learning indicator. Learners take an average of about two subjects, part-time, so a registration is not full-time study. The digest attributes the 2018 to 2022 fall, sharpest in 2022 at 17.7 percent, to curriculum changes, and enrolment has risen each year since; 2025 is still 12 percent below the 2017 peak, which is why the peak is carried but the status is operating, not eroded. TVET enrolment at NAMCOL is small (327 in 2025) and is not included. The 1998 start is the year the digest's foreword dates the publication series from; NAMCOL was created by an Act of 1997.

• 🇲🇿Mozambiquelinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1975operating below its peak

  Alfabetização e Educação de Adultos (public adult literacy and adult primary education), and its decline

  Mozambique's education ministry counted 243,655 learners in its public adult literacy and adult primary education classes in the April 2025 school survey (169,341 in literacy and 74,314 in primary education for young people and adults), against 302,207 in 2024 and 529,314 in the March 2014 survey.

  243,655 learners, learners in public literacy and adult education (alfabetizacao e educacao de adultos), annual school survey 30 april, 2025. 529,314 learners, learners in adult education (educacao de adultos), annual school survey 15 march, 2014. Ministério da Educação e Cultura, Direcção de Planificação, Estatística e Cooperação, Levantamento Estatístico do Sector 2025 (Statistical Survey of the Sector 2025), summary enrolment table, as archived by the Internet Archive on 7 November 2025, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The education ministry runs literacy and adult primary classes in community centres staffed by paid or volunteer literacy teachers, counts the learners in its annual school census alongside children, and publishes the totals by province.

  Limits: The cited URL is an Internet Archive copy: mined.gov.mz timed out on 2026-10-02. Both numbers sit in PDFs: the 2025 total is in the summary table on page 14 of 73 and broken down by province on later pages; the 2014 figure is in the same summary table of the 2014 edition (levantamento_estatistico_do_sector_2014.pdf, page 13, archived copy of 19 August 2026). The comparison is computed by the record (a fall of about 54 percent) and crosses a change in the survey: 2014 was taken on 15 March and labelled 'Educacao de Adultos', 2025 on 30 April and split into literacy and primary education for young people and adults after the 2018 education system law, so part of the gap may be definitional. The intermediate editions read on the same day (290,478 in 2016, 251,887 in 2018, 262,641 in 2019, 229,329 in 2020, 302,207 in 2024) show most of the fall happened between 2014 and 2016 and that the level has moved between about 230,000 and 300,000 since, so 'eroded' rests mainly on one early drop; the 2014 and 2016 editions report the same 2,647 centres, which suggests some figures were carried forward. 2014 is the earliest edition read, not a demonstrated all-time peak. Counts are learners attending at survey date, not completers, and about two thirds are women; nothing here shows literacy gained. Private centres (a few hundred learners) are excluded. The 1975 start is the national literacy campaigns after independence, as commonly dated; it was not read at the cited source.

• 🇦🇴Angolalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2023still operating

  Sistema Nacional de Formação Profissional under INEFOP

  Angola's national vocational training system, the INEFOP-supervised centres together with the accelerated 'plano intercalar' courses, FUNEA and licensed private centres, enrolled 204,026 trainees in 2024, against 112,478 in 2023, with 152,625 passing, across 1,914 training centres.

  204,026 trainees enrolled, matriculados no sistema nacional de formação profissional (tabela 3), 2024. 112,478 trainees enrolled, same count for the previous year (tabela 3), 2023. Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE) Angola with the Ministério da Administração Pública, Trabalho e Segurança Social, Anuário de Estatística do Trabalho Estruturado e Segurança Social 2024, section 4.2 Formação profissional, Tabela 3, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The labour ministry's training institute runs its own centres and mobile units, licenses private providers into one national system, and adds an accelerated short-course programme, then counts enrolment, passes and dropouts across all of them in an annual yearbook.

  Limits: The numbers sit in a 43-page PDF: the breakdown by channel is on printed page 12 and Tabela 3 on printed page 19. The figures are the labour ministry's administrative returns from its own training institute and from centres it licenses, republished by INE. The text calls the trainees 'jovens' throughout, gives no age split, and the system includes initial vocational training for school leavers, so this is a count of vocational trainees rather than of adults returning to learning. The 81 percent jump from 2023 rests largely on the 'plano intercalar', an acceleration programme that enrolled 56,329, and on 57,127 enrolments reported by private centres, whose returns the ministry does not audit in this document. Counts are enrolments, not unique people. Only two years are compared, so the series cannot show whether 2024 is a lasting scale or a one-year push. The started year is the first year in the cited table, not the start of INEFOP, which is older.

• 🇨🇩Democratic Republic of the Congolinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1964still operating

  Institut National de Préparation Professionnelle (INPP)

  The Democratic Republic of the Congo's Institut National de Préparation Professionnelle recorded 34,376 learners in initial and continuing vocational training in the first half of 2026, against a semester forecast of 42,850, according to the mid-term review of its 2026 performance contract.

  34,376 learners, apprenants en formation initiale et continue, premier semestre, first half of 2026. 42,850 learners, semester forecast of people to train under the 2026 performance contract, first half of 2026. Institut National de Préparation Professionnelle (INPP), news release 'Contrats de performance 2026 : l'INPP évalué à mi-parcours', 21 September 2026, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: A tripartite public training institute financed by an employer payroll levy runs training centres in the provinces for employees and job seekers, and the employment ministry holds it to an annual performance contract with a numeric training target reviewed mid-year.

  Limits: The source is the institute's own news release reporting a mid-term review by a joint commission under the employment ministry; it is self-reporting, not a statistical series, and no annual INPP report with a time series was found at an openable official page. The figure covers one semester and mixes initial training for job seekers with continuing training for employees, without a split. 34,376 learners in six months in a country of over 100 million people is a small reach, and the release gives no completion or placement figures. The execution rate of about 80 percent is the release's own arithmetic. The started year is the creation of INPP by Ordonnance-loi n°206 of 29 June 1964, as stated on the institute's history page, not on the cited release.

• 🇦🇹Austrialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1994still operating

  AMS training measures (Schulungen) for jobseekers

  Austria's Public Employment Service (AMS) had on average 76,496 people a day enrolled in its training measures in 2025, up 1.3 percent on 2024, against an annual average of 65,126 in 2015.

  76,496 people in training (annual average), schulungsteilnehmer_innen gesamt, annual average stock, 2025. 65,126 people in training (annual average), same annual average ten years earlier (übersicht jahr 2015), 2015. Arbeitsmarktservice Österreich (AMS), 'Übersicht über den Arbeitsmarkt, Jahr 2025' (Spezialthema Jahreswerte), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The public employment service buys and runs courses for registered jobseekers, from basic skills to vocational qualifications, and pays an allowance while they attend.

  Limits: The agency reports on its own measures, in a five-page PDF (the training table is on page 3). The figure is an annual average stock, the number enrolled on an average day, not the number of different people trained in the year, which is several times larger and is not in this file. It counts only registered jobseekers placed in AMS-funded courses, so employed adults, apprentices and adults in schools or universities are outside it, and it moves with unemployment and with the AMS budget: in 2021 it reached 70,337 after a 23.2 percent rise during the pandemic job programme. The 2015 comparison is from the 2015 edition of the same report (https://www.ams.at/content/dam/dokumente/berichte/001_uebersicht_jahr2015.pdf). The trainees are excluded from the registered unemployment count, which gives the agency an incentive to place people on courses. The 1994 start is the year the AMS was established as a separate agency, not stated in this file.

• 🇨🇾Cypruslinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1979still operating

  Human Resource Development Authority (HRDA) subsidised training programmes

  Cyprus's Human Resource Development Authority subsidised more than 106,000 participations in 11,064 single-company and multi-company training programmes in 2024, at a cost of 35.9 million euros, including 68,064 participations of employed persons in standard single-company programmes against 32,987 in 2023.

  106,000 participations, participations in single-company and multi-company training programmes ('more than 106.000'), 2024. 68,064 participations, participations of employed persons subsidised in standard single-company training programmes, 2024. Αρχή Ανάπτυξης Ανθρώπινου Δυναμικού (Human Resource Development Authority of Cyprus), Ετήσια Έκθεση 2024 (Annual Report 2024), bilingual Greek and English, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: A levy-funded public authority reimburses employers part of the cost of training their staff, in their own firm or through accredited training centres, against a list of priority themes agreed with the social partners.

  Limits: The authority reports on its own schemes, in a 185-page PDF: the 106,000 headline is a rounded floor ('more than') in the summary of results on PDF page 16, and the scheme figures are on PDF page 22. The counts are participations, not people: one employee attending three subsidised courses counts three times, many courses last a day or less, and the report gives no count of distinct individuals. The bulk is employer training of people already in work, subsidised from a levy employers pay; the unemployed and adults outside employment are a small part. The doubling of single-company participations from 2023 to 2024 coincides with what the report calls a substantial increase in subsidy amounts and simplified approval, so part of the rise may be employers claiming for training they would have run anyway. The 1979 start is stated in the report's introduction as the year the authority began operating. The URL carries a cache identifier from the authority's portal and may change.

• 🇩🇰Denmarklinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1960operating below its peak

  Arbejdsmarkedsuddannelser (AMU), adult vocational training courses, and their decline

  Statistics Denmark counted 386,879 participations in Denmark's state-funded adult vocational training courses (AMU) in 2024, about 7,056 full-time equivalents, down from 1,050,944 participations and 15,307 full-time equivalents in 2010.

  386,879 participants (course participations), participants in labour market educations (amu), all denmark, calendar year, 2024. 1,050,944 participants (course participations), same series at its peak year, 2010. Danmarks Statistik (Statistics Denmark), StatBank table VEU20 'Participation in supplementary courses', field H39 'Labour market educations, AMU', retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The state funds short, employer-relevant vocational courses for skilled and unskilled adults, designed by the social partners and delivered by vocational schools and AMU centres, with an allowance paid during the course.

  Limits: A participant in this table is a course participation, not a person: AMU courses are typically one to a few days, so one worker taking several courses counts several times, and the full-time equivalent series (7,056 in 2024 against 15,307 in 2010 and 11,278 in 2005) is the better measure of volume. The 2009 and 2010 peak was inflated by the financial crisis, when laid-off and work-sharing workers were sent on courses; against the pre-crisis level of 621,037 participations in 2005 the 2024 count is still about 38 percent lower, so the erosion does not rest on the crisis peak alone, but it is smaller. The 2025 figure in the same table is 218,057, a fall we have not seen explained and which may reflect incomplete registration, so the record stops at 2024. The decline reflects several things the table cannot separate: user fees introduced and raised in the 2010s, cuts to adult education allowances, and changes in course supply. The 1960 start is the founding of the AMU system as commonly reported, not stated in the table.

• 🇭🇷Croatialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2022still operating

  Vaučeri za obrazovanje, training vouchers of the Croatian Employment Service

  The Croatian Employment Service enrolled 23,627 people in training paid for by its education vouchers in 2025, 9,786 of them in digital-skills programmes and 2,558 in green-skills programmes, and 53,106 people in total from the scheme's start on 1 April 2022 to the end of 2025.

  23,627 persons, persons included in the measure 'obrazovanje za stjecanje kompetencija potrebnih za rad putem vaučera' during the year, 2025. 53,106 persons, users included since the voucher system began (1 april 2022 to end of 2025), 2025-12-31. Hrvatski zavod za zapošljavanje (Croatian Employment Service), Godišnjak 2025 (Yearbook 2025), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The public employment service gives unemployed and employed adults a voucher that pays for an accredited short programme chosen from a national catalogue of skills, booked through an online application.

  Limits: The service reports on its own measure, in an 82-page PDF (printed page 43, PDF page 45). 'Included' means enrolled in a programme, not completed. The yearbook says 54, 13 and 33 percent of users 'completed' digital, green and other programmes; the three shares sum to 100, so they describe the mix of programmes and no completion or employment rate can be read from them. It also splits users into 70 percent 'tražitelji zaposlenja' (jobseekers) and 30 percent unemployed without defining the first group, which presumably holds employed people seeking training or a new job; the share of employed adults is therefore not stated. The vouchers are financed from Croatia's EU Recovery and Resilience Plan (reform C4.1 R3), so the scale depends on money that runs out in 2026, and the yearbook gives no budget beyond that. The 2025 intake is not compared with earlier years in this file.

• 🇱🇻Latvialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2017delivered and closed

  Mācības pieaugušajiem, the ESF training programme for employed adults 2017 to 2023

  Latvia's State Education Development Agency (VIAA) trained almost 77,000 employed adults aged 25 and over through its ESF-funded 'Mācības pieaugušajiem' project between 2017 and 2023, in ten rounds and 2,309 programmes offered by 124 education institutions, with 90 to 100 percent of fees covered.

  77,000 persons, employed persons aged 25 and over who improved their competence in the project ('teju 77 000', almost 77,000), 2017 to 2023. 2,309 programmes, education programmes offered in the project, 2017 to 2023. Valsts izglītības attīstības aģentūra (State Education Development Agency of Latvia), project page 'ESF projekts Nodarbināto personu profesionālās kompetences pilnveide', published 4 December 2024, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The national education agency bought places on formal and non-formal programmes from colleges, universities and vocational schools and offered them to employed adults in competitive rounds, with EU money paying almost the whole fee.

  Limits: The agency reports on its own project, and the headline is a rounded 'almost 77,000' credited to 'project data' with no table behind it; whether it counts people or enrolments is not stated, and an adult who took part in two rounds may be counted twice. The figure covers seven years, roughly 11,000 a year against fewer than a million employed people, and only employed adults aged 25 and over, so the unemployed and young adults are outside it. 'Improved their competence' is the agency's wording; the page does not say how many completed a programme or gained a qualification, beyond 1,909 people compensated for a qualification exam. The project was financed by the European Social Fund and ended in 2023; the agency has since moved to individual learning accounts funded by the EU recovery plan, which this record does not cover.

• 🇳🇴Norwaylinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2002still operating

  Grunnskoleopplæring for voksne, municipal primary and lower secondary education for adults

  Norway's municipalities, delivering the statutory right of adults to primary and lower secondary education, taught 10,223 adult participants in 2025, 7,588 in ordinary basic education, 2,435 in special education and 200 in both, against a high of 13,946 in 2019.

  10,223 participants, number of participants in adult training (primary and lower secondary education and special education for adults), the whole country, 2025. 13,946 participants, same count in the highest year of the series, 2019. Statistisk sentralbyrå (Statistics Norway), StatBank table 12237 'Participants in adult training, by region, contents and year' (KOSTRA municipal reporting), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: National law gives every adult who lacks it a right to primary and lower secondary education, and the municipality must provide it free, reporting participants to the national municipal statistics system.

  Limits: The URL is the table's API endpoint; the national row ('EAK The whole country') is returned by a POST query on it, or can be read in the StatBank interface for table 12237. The counts come from municipalities' own KOSTRA reports. They cover only compulsory-level schooling for adults (and special education), a small part of adult learning: upper secondary education for adults, vocational training, study associations and employer training are outside it, and it reaches about 10,000 people in a population of 5.6 million. Most ordinary participants are recent immigrants and refugees completing basic schooling, so the series follows arrivals: the rise to 2019 tracks the 2015 to 2016 refugee intake and the fall since then reflects fewer such learners as much as any change in provision, which is why the record is not classed as an erosion. The 2002 start is the year the adult right to primary and lower secondary education took effect, not stated in the table, and the series itself starts in 2015.

• 🇸🇰Slovakialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2024still operating

  Zručnosti pre trh práce, retraining and training contributions of the labour offices

  Slovakia's Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family enrolled 17,008 clients in its national project 'Zručnosti pre trh práce' in 2025 and paid training contributions for 16,853 of them, 14.56 million euros in all, with 9,714 registered jobseekers starting retraining courses against 5,904 in 2024.

  17,008 clients, clients enrolled in the national project zručnosti pre trh práce, 2025. 9,714 jobseekers, registered jobseekers who started retraining under the project, 2025. Ústredie práce, sociálnych vecí a rodiny (Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family), Vyhodnotenie aktívnych opatrení na trhu práce za rok 2025, section 6.4, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: Labour offices let registered jobseekers pick an accredited course and provider themselves, approve a contract, and reimburse the fee and travel costs once the course is completed.

  Limits: The office evaluates its own project, in a 76-page PDF (printed pages 36 to 37, PDF page 37). The 17,008 mixes three activities, retraining of registered jobseekers, skills for young people not in employment or training, and training of registered job applicants (záujemcovia o zamestnanie), who may be in work, and the client counts are enrolments and payments, not completions; the retraining contributions are paid after a course ends, so some 2025 payments relate to agreements from 2024. The client chooses the course and provider from the open market and the office only reimburses it, so course quality is not controlled by the office. The six-month placement rate the office reports (53.83 percent for retrained jobseekers) is not a measured effect, since there is no comparison group. The project began in April 2024, so the 2024 comparison covers only part of a year; earlier demand-led retraining schemes of the labour offices (known as REPAS+ and KOMPAS+) are not covered in this report and their scale was not checked.

• 🇸🇮Slovenialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1991still operating

  Upper secondary education for adults (srednješolsko izobraževanje odraslih)

  Slovenia's publicly accredited upper secondary programmes for adults, run by schools and adult education centres, enrolled 17,858 adults in the 2024/25 school year, up from a low of 13,851 in 2020/21 but below the 20,580 enrolled in 2015/16.

  17,858 adult students, adults in upper secondary education, all types of education, both sexes, all ages, 2024/25 school year. 20,580 adult students, same count, first year of the current series, 2015/16 school year. Statistični urad Republike Slovenije (SURS), SiStat table 0953322S 'Adults in upper secondary education by type of education, age and sex, Slovenia, annually', retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The state accredits upper secondary programmes adapted for adults, delivered part-time by secondary schools and folk high schools (ljudske univerze), so adults can earn the same vocational or general qualification as young people.

  Limits: The URL is the table's API endpoint; the national total is returned by a POST query selecting the totals for sex, age and type of education, or can be read in SiStat. The count is enrolment in formal upper secondary programmes leading to a state-recognised qualification, from short vocational to the matura course, so it leaves out the non-formal adult education that makes up most adult learning in Slovenia, and it reaches about 1.5 percent of the working-age population. Enrolment is not completion: SURS publishes adult graduates in a separate table that was not used here. The series restarts in 2015/16 under a new methodology; the old series (table 0953356S) gives 13,327 in 2014/15 and 15,963 in 2011/12, which cannot be joined to the new one without a break. The 2020/21 low coincides with the pandemic. Adult upper secondary education predates 1991; the start year is that of the independent state's school system and is not in the table.

• 🇦🇱Albanialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2014still operating

  Public vocational training centres of the National Agency for Employment and Skills

  Albania's National Agency for Employment and Skills (AKPA) registered 11,250 trainees in 2021 in vocational courses at its ten regional public vocational training directorates, 7,052 of them on free places for registered jobseekers and other priority groups by the bulletin's text, after 15,143 in 2019 and 7,427 in the pandemic year 2020.

  11,250 trainees, trainees registered in public vocational training centres (drofpp) during the year, 2021. 7,052 trainees, of whom on free places (registered unemployed jobseekers and priority groups), 2021. Agjencia Kombetare e Punesimit dhe Aftesive (AKPA), Buletini Statistikor 2021, section III.4 (participants in vocational training programmes), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The national employment and skills agency runs regional public training centres that offer short national and provider-level vocational courses, free for registered jobseekers and paid for others.

  Limits: The agency reports on itself, on page 60 of an 83-page PDF in Albanian. The bulletin contradicts itself on the free places: the text on page 60 says 7,052 (about 63 percent), while Table 27 on page 61 and Table 29 on page 65 give 7,811 trainees on free places, 6,631 of them registered unemployed, so the free-place figure is uncertain by about 750 and the record carries the text figure. 2021 is the latest annual bulletin found at an open URL: the agency's publications page renders by script and no 2022 to 2025 bulletin was found, so the record cannot show the current scale, and 'operating' rests on the agency's site still listing course offers and centre notices on 2026-10-02, not on a count. The 2019 (15,143) and 2020 (7,427) figures are in the agency's 2019 and 2020 bulletins on the same host, not at the cited URL; the 2021 bulletin itself says 2021 was 50 percent above 2020, which fits the 2020 figure, and the 2019 figure was not re-checked. 2021 sits below 2019, but with pandemic disruption in both 2020 and 2021 the record does not call that an erosion. Counts are course registrations, not completions or unique people: Table 29 gives 6,180 certified of the 11,250. Most courses are short provider-level courses, but national-level courses can run up to two years. The started year is the earliest labour market bulletin the agency still hosts (2014); the public vocational training centres are older, and their founding year was not read at any source, so delivery began no later than 2014.

• 🇧🇬Bulgarialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2002still operating

  Employment Agency adult training, including the DI-GI digital skills vouchers

  Bulgaria's Employment Agency (Agentsia po zaetostta) included more than 155,450 unemployed and employed adults in training in 2025, against just over 87,540 in 2024, with 97,911 people certified through digital skills vouchers financed under the national Recovery and Resilience Plan.

  155,450 people, unemployed and employed people included in adult training by the employment agency ('over 155 450'), 2025. 87,540 people, same count for the previous year ('just over 87 540'), 2024. Agentsia po zaetostta (Employment Agency), Otchet na Plana za deystvie na Agentsiyata po zaetostta za 2025 g. (report on the 2025 action plan), text volume, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The national employment agency issues training vouchers to unemployed, inactive and employed adults, who choose a licensed provider, and pays the provider on completion, with EU recovery and social funds paying for most of the volume.

  Limits: The agency reports on itself, and the cited URL is a zip archive from the agency's 'Otchet za deynostta na AZ' page holding two PDFs; the headline counts are on page 81 of the 84-page text volume (Otchet_Plan za deistvie_2025_text.pdf), and both are stated as 'over' and 'just over', so they are rounded. The 2025 jump is mostly vouchers: 97,911 people certified in basic and advanced digital skills under component 2 of investment C1.I3 of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (page 34), and 22,140 employed people trained under the ESF+ project for employed workers; much of the money is EU, though the agency delivers it. Digital skills courses can be short and online, the counts mix enrolment and certification, and one person may appear in more than one scheme. Training for the registered unemployed is far smaller: 6,705 unemployed people were included in training under the programmes and measures of the national employment action plan (page 17). The RRF component ends with the facility in 2026, so 2025 is unlikely to be a stable level. The 2002 start is the year of the Employment Promotion Act under which the agency trains adults, not read at the source.

• 🇲🇩Moldovalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2025still operating

  ANOFM voucher-based vocational training for the unemployed

  Moldova's National Employment Agency (ANOFM) enrolled 1,751 registered unemployed people, 1,223 of them women, in voucher-based vocational training courses between January and August 2026, and 952 unemployed people graduated from voucher courses in the same months, some of them enrolled in 2025.

  1,751 people, unemployed people enrolled in voucher-based vocational training courses since the start of the year (row 16, art. 32), January to August 2026. 952 people, unemployed people who graduated from voucher-based courses since the start of the year, including those enrolled in 2025 (row 17), January to August 2026. Agentia Nationala pentru Ocuparea Fortei de Munca (ANOFM), Raport statistic august 2026 (monthly statistical report), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The employment agency gives registered unemployed people a training voucher redeemable with an approved provider through an online platform, and reports enrolments and graduates monthly.

  Limits: The agency reports on itself, in a monthly statistical PDF (rows 15 to 18); the figures are year-to-date for eight months, not a full year, and no December 2025 report was found at an open URL, so no full-year or prior-year comparison is made. The agency's 2025 activity report is a one-page scan with no text. Separately, 95 unemployed people enrolled in workplace training (art. 33) over the same months, not added. The scale is small: about 1,750 enrolments in eight months in a country of about 2.4 million, limited to the registered unemployed (6,010 at the start of August), so it says nothing about adults in work. The 2025 start is the date of the agency's launch event for its voucher platform for training the unemployed (17 April 2025, on the agency site); training of the unemployed under the employment law existed before vouchers, and that earlier delivery is not counted.

• 🇷🇴Romanialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2002operating below its peak

  ANOFM national vocational training plan, and its fall after 2023

  Romania's National Employment Agency (ANOFM) enrolled 15,634 people in vocational training courses, skills assessment and apprenticeships under its national training plan in 2025, down from 27,843 in 2023, with unemployed trainees falling from 25,420 to 11,082 while the registered unemployment rate rose.

  15,634 people, people included in vocational training, skills assessment or apprenticeship programmes organised by anofm, 2025. 27,843 people, same count two years earlier (anofm activity report for 2023), 2023. Agentia Nationala pentru Ocuparea Fortei de Munca (ANOFM), Raport de activitate al ANOFM pentru anul 2025, section III.1 Formarea profesionala, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The national employment agency sets an annual national training plan and delivers it mainly through its own regional adult training centres, free for the registered unemployed and paid for others.

  Limits: The agency reports on itself; the figure is on page 17 of a 59-page PDF, and the plan target (24,440) is on the same page. The 2023 peak is from the agency's 2023 activity report (https://www.anofm.ro/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Raport_activitate_ANOFM_2023.pdf, 27,843 people, 25,420 unemployed), and the 2024 report gives 18,859, so the fall is over two years; earlier years were not read because the 2021 and 2022 report files are not text-searchable, so 2023 is the highest year checked, not a demonstrated all-time peak. The count mixes short courses, competence assessments and workplace apprenticeships (2,257 apprentices in 2025 against 591 in 2024, so the classroom fall is steeper than the total), and counts enrolments, not completions. The registered unemployment rate is from the same reports (2.89 percent average in 2023, 3.24 percent in 2025), so the fall is not explained by fewer unemployed. Against roughly 12 million Romanians aged 25 to 64 the programme reaches about one adult in 800, so it is a delivery record, not a participation rate. The 2002 start is the year the agency's training remit was set in law (Law 76/2002), not read at the source.

• 🇷🇸Serbialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2009operating below its peak

  National Employment Service labour market training, and its 2025 non-delivery

  Serbia's National Employment Service put 1,613 unemployed people into labour market training (obuke za trziste rada) in 2024, but in 2025 it delivered none of the 1,100 places planned for that year for lack of accredited providers, and only 626 people trained under contracts carried over from the 2023 and 2024 plans.

  626 people, unemployed people included in labour market training in the year (table 6, 5.4), all from earlier years' plans, 2025. 1,613 people, unemployed people included in labour market training, previous year (table 6, 5.4, report for 2024), 2024. Nacionalna sluzba za zaposljavanje (National Employment Service), Izvestaj o radu Nacionalne sluzbe za 2025. godinu, Table 6 and section 5.4, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The public employment service buys short vocational courses for registered unemployed people from a catalogue it procures each year, and since the adult education law only from providers accredited as publicly recognised adult education organisers.

  Limits: The agency reports on itself, in a 127-page PDF in Serbian Cyrillic: Table 6 is on page 23 and the statement that the measure was not realised in 2025 ('dovelo do nerealizacije ove mere u 2025. godini') is on pages 28 to 29, where the agency attributes it to too few training programmes with publicly recognised adult education provider (JPOA) status at the locations needed. The 2024 figure is in the 2024 report (Izvestaj o radu NSZ za 2024. godinu, Table 6, on the same agency page), not at the cited URL. 2024 is the previous year, not a demonstrated peak: the 2019 report gives 1,257. The scale is very small for a country of about 6.6 million: other NSZ measures in the same table (internships, functional basic adult education with 1,157 participants in 2025, employer-requested training with 601) are separate counts and were not added in. The counts are people included, not completions or job outcomes, and cover only the registered unemployed. A one-year procurement and accreditation failure may reverse; the record documents a dated loss, not a permanent end. The started year is approximate: the measure appears in the agency's reports from at least 2010 and the 2009 start is the year the current employment law took effect, not read at the source.

• 🇹🇳Tunisialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2000still operating

  Programme national d'enseignement des adultes (national adult education programme)

  Tunisia's Ministry of Social Affairs, through its national adult education centre and regional coordinations, taught 16,560 adult learners in the 2021-2022 school year, 10,320 in the basic cycle and 6,240 in the completion and intensive cycles, 9,799 of them women, against a forecast of 22,710.

  16,560 learners, adult learners in the national adult education programme, all governorates and cycles (annex 5), 2021-2022 school year. 22,710 learners, forecast number of learners for 2022 in the same report, 2022 (forecast). Ministere des Affaires sociales, Rapport annuel de performance 2022 (mission Affaires sociales), programme Promotion sociale, indicator 1.3.3 and Annex 5 'Distribution of learners by governorate and cycle, school year 2021/2022', retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The social affairs ministry runs a national adult education centre that hires contract teachers to give literacy and post-literacy classes in every governorate, and reports learners by governorate and cycle in its performance budget.

  Limits: The ministry reports on its own programme in its annual performance report, in Arabic. The numbers sit in a PDF: the narrative on page 43 and the governorate table on page 78; the text layer of this PDF maps digits wrongly (it extracts 16.362 and 22.912), so the figures were read from the rendered pages. The count is learners enrolled in literacy (basic) and post-literacy (completion and intensive) classes, not completions, and literacy classes are only part of adult learning. Against roughly eight million Tunisian adults it is a small reach, about two learners per thousand adults, in a country whose own report puts adult illiteracy at 16.8 percent in 2022. The report attributes the shortfall against forecast to the loss of contract teachers (954 at end 2021 to 943 at end 2022) and to difficulty attracting learners, and the 2024 report still speaks of 'targeting 22 thousand beneficiaries' with 885 contract and 113 tenured teachers, so the programme has not regained its forecast scale; no earlier enrolment peak was verified, so the record is not filed as an erosion. The 2000 start is the commonly reported launch year of the national programme and was not read at the cited source.

• 🇲🇦Moroccolinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2015still operating

  Agence Nationale de Lutte contre l'Analphabetisme literacy and post-literacy programmes

  Morocco's national literacy agency (ANLCA) and its partners registered 763,744 adults in literacy programmes in 2023-2024, 570,507 at level 1 literacy and 193,237 in post-literacy, with about 81 percent of level 1 registrants women and 62 percent rural.

  763,744 registrants, registrants in literacy programmes (level 1 literacy plus level 2 post-literacy), 2023-2024 programme year. 570,507 registrants, registrants in level 1 literacy programme (alpha) only, 2023-2024 programme year. Agence Nationale de Lutte contre l'Analphabetisme (ANLCA), Alphabetisation, Indicateurs page, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: A national agency funds and certifies literacy classes that associations, the religious affairs ministry and other departments run in villages, mosques and neighbourhoods, and counts registrants each programme year.

  Limits: The agency reports on its own programmes and the page carries no publication date. The counts are registrations, not completions or people who became literate: the Cour des comptes (annual report 2023-2024, principal axes, pages 49 to 52) found an average attendance index of about 40 percent and an assiduity index of 43 percent in 14,263 inspected classes over 2019 to 2022, so attendance is far below registration. Delivery runs mostly through civil-society associations under agency contracts (385,442 of the 570,710 level 1 registrants in the page's partner table) and through the Ministry of Habous mosque programme (165,290), so the agency finances and certifies rather than teaches; the partner table total (570,710) differs by 203 from the headline level 1 figure (570,507), and the page does not explain the gap. Literacy courses are basic education, which is only part of the adult learning construct. Press reports, citing the agency and the Cour des comptes, put registrations at over one million in 2023; that figure was not found at an official URL this protocol could open, so no peak is claimed, but if it holds for 2022-2023 the 2023-2024 count is about a quarter lower. The 2015 start is the year the Cour des comptes gives for the launch of the agency's programmes, not a date on the cited page.

• 🇷🇺Russialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2019delivered and closed

  Federal project Sodeystvie zanyatosti (Employment Promotion) vocational training of adults

  Under the federal project Sodeystvie zanyatosti of the national project Demography, which paid for vocational training and further professional education of selected groups of adults, more than 80,000 citizens had started training and 21,125 had completed it by the end of the third quarter of 2024.

  21,125 people, citizens who completed training under the federal project, January to September 2024. 80,000 people (stated as 'over 80 thousand'), citizens who had started training under the federal project, January to September 2024. Government of the Russian Federation, news release 'Tatyana Golikova discussed with all regions the implementation of the national project Demography', 12 November 2024, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The labour ministry paid regional employment centres and accredited providers to train target groups of adults in short courses tied to regional demand, under a national project with quarterly reporting to the deputy prime minister.

  Limits: The source is a government press release reporting a meeting, not a statistical table, and the counts cover only nine months of 2024, the project's final year, so they are a partial year and understate annual scale. An earlier release (government.ru/news/50674, 22 January 2024) says more than 190,000 people had completed short courses under the Demography retraining programme, without stating a period, so the two figures cannot be compared as an erosion. The training is for eligible groups (jobseekers, people aged 50 and over, women on parental leave and others defined by government resolution), not all adults. The national project Demography ended in 2024 and the release says its lines move into new national projects from 2025, so the status is concluded; the successor was not verified. The 2019 start is the first year of the national project Demography; the federal project took its current training form in 2021.

• 🇺🇿Uzbekistanlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2018still operating

  Short-term vocational training of the unemployed in monocentres and district vocational training centres

  Uzbekistan's Ministry of Poverty Reduction and Employment expanded short-term vocational skill training of unemployed people from 20,000 in 2018 to 110,000 in 2022, counting graduates of the regional monocentres and district vocational training centres, according to ministry data reported by the World Bank.

  110,000 people, unemployed people covered by short-term vocational skill training (graduates of regional monocentres and district vocational training centres), 2022. 20,000 people, same coverage in the base year, 2018. World Bank, Uzbekistan: Innovative Social Protection System for Inclusion of Vulnerable People Project, Project Appraisal Document, Annex 2 paragraph 1 and footnote 51 (data from the Ministry of Poverty Reduction and Employment), May 2024, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The employment ministry built a network of regional training monocentres and district vocational centres that give registered unemployed people short, free skill courses, and counts graduates centrally.

  Limits: The numbers are the ministry's, passed on in a World Bank appraisal document as background, rounded to thousands and without a table; the ministry's own release was not found at an open URL. The footnote says the numbers include graduates of both the regional monocentres and district centres, so the figures are graduates rather than enrolments, and the text calls them 'coverage'. Only two years are given, so the path between 2018 and 2022 and anything after 2022 are unknown; 'operating' rests on the appraisal describing the system as current in 2024 and planning further support to it. The training is for registered unemployed people, not all adults, and courses are short (weeks to a few months). The 2018 start is the base year of the series, not a programme launch date read at the source.

• 🇦🇿Azerbaijanlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2021still operating

  Self-Employment Program business training

  Azerbaijan's State Employment Agency trained 24,399 successful applicants to the national Self-Employment Program in business skills and business planning between May 2021 and November 2024, 2,155 of them in the third quarter of 2024, as a condition of receiving start-up assets.

  24,399 people, successful sep applicants who completed business training (cumulative), May 2021 to 30 November 2024. 2,155 people, applicants who completed training and prepared business plans in one quarter, Q3 2024. World Bank, Azerbaijan Employment Support Project (P171250), Implementation Status and Results Report, sequence 9, archived 23 January 2025, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The employment agency selects vulnerable jobseekers into a self-employment programme, trains them to write a business plan, and transfers start-up assets to those whose plans pass, with mentoring visits afterwards.

  Limits: The count is from the World Bank's monitoring of a loan it finances, reported by the implementing agency, and covers only programme participants financed under the project from May 2021, not the Self-Employment Program's earlier cohorts, which the state budget financed from 2017. The training is short business training that gates an asset transfer, not vocational or general education, so it is a narrow slice of adult learning. The same report gives 27,452 SEP beneficiaries 'in training or have completed trainings' and 'over 27,000' participating in business training, so the denominator varies by indicator; the completed count is used. About 3,000 people a year passed through the ministry's two vocational training centres, by the 2020 appraisal document's account, and the vocational certification and on-the-job training windows of the restructured project had not started by December 2024.

• 🇯🇲Jamaicalinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1982still operating

  HEART/NSTA Trust training enrolment

  Jamaica's HEART/NSTA Trust, the national training agency financed by a 3 percent payroll levy, enrolled 116,918 people in its own technical and vocational, work-based and second-chance programmes in the 2022-23 financial year, including 13,918 in the High School Diploma Equivalency programme, and 129,957 when Ministry of Education and private providers are counted.

  116,918 enrolments, heart total enrolment, own programmes and interventions (excludes moey cap schools and private providers), 2022-23 (financial year April 2022 to March 2023). 13,918 persons, enrolled in the high school diploma equivalency (hsde) programme at end of financial year, March 2023. HEART/NSTA Trust, Annual Report 2022-2023, performance summary, table 'HEART/NSTA enrolment by programmes/interventions' (page 39), retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: A statutory trust collects a payroll levy from employers and spends it on free institutional, community and workplace training and on a second-chance secondary diploma, setting enrolment targets every year.

  Limits: The agency reports on itself in a 132-page PDF; the table is on page 39 and the HSDE figure on a later programme page. Counts are enrolments in programmes and interventions, not unique adults, and one person can enrol twice in a year. The total includes the HOPE National Service Corps and the School Leavers' Training Opportunities Programme, which serve school leavers and young people, and the agency gives no age breakdown, so the share of adults beyond initial education is unknown. The headline 129,957 also counts 11,104 enrolments in Ministry of Education CAP and other schools, a secondary-school programme, which is why the record uses the 116,918 HEART total instead. Enrolment is not completion: the same report gives 51,541 NVQ-J certificates for the year. The figure is one year against planned targets, not a series, so the record says nothing about trend. The 1982 start is the year the original HEART Act created the Trust as commonly reported; the report itself cites the HEART Act 2021 under which the merged HEART/NSTA Trust now operates.

• 🇳🇵Nepallinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2018delivered and closed

  Enhanced Vocational Education and Training (EVENT II) short-term training

  Nepal's Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, through the EVENT II project secretariat, put 111,062 people aged 16 to 40 through market-relevant short-term vocational training between 2018 and 2023, delivered by 142 private and public training providers in 68 of the 77 districts and paid partly on trainees' employment six months after completion.

  111,062 trainees, youth (16 to 40) who enrolled in and completed project-supported short-term training, 2018-02/2023-07 (project period). 23,735 trainees, of which trained with vouchers redeemed at a provider of their choice, 2018-02/2023-07. World Bank, Implementation Completion and Results Report, Nepal Second Enhanced Vocational Education and Training Project (EVENT II), 26 February 2024, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The education ministry bought short courses from accredited private and public providers and paid them per trainee, with part of the payment withheld until the trainee was verified as employed six months later, and paid more for women, disadvantaged youth and the poorest districts.

  Limits: The figure is in a PDF completion report written by the World Bank about its own project, from data supplied by the ministry's project secretariat and checked by a joint monitoring team of local education officers, CTEVT, the ministry and SDC-Helvetas, which is not fully independent of the delivery; the Bank rated its own outcome. It counts trainees over a five-year project, not participation in the last 12 months, and amounts to roughly 22,000 a year against a labour force in the millions. The project defined youth as 16 to 40, so the count mixes recent school leavers with older adults and gives no age split. The total was 96.5 percent of a 115,000 target and training stopped for about 18 months during the pandemic. The training was financed by IDA credit, not the national budget, and the report does not say whether the government continued the results-based short-term training after the July 2023 closing, so 'concluded' describes the project window, not a measured end of the model. Employment rates of 70 to 83 percent six months after training are from the project's own tracer verification.

• 🇳🇿New Zealandlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2012operating below its peak

  Adult and community education at tertiary providers, and its halving

  New Zealand's adult and community education (ACE) delivered by universities, polytechnics, wānanga and private training establishments enrolled 23,610 domestic students in 2021, down from 49,365 in 2012, according to the Ministry of Education's Education Counts tables.

  23,610 students, domestic students in adult and community education, all tertiary sub-sectors (table ace.3), 2021. 49,365 students, same count, first year of the published series, 2012. Ministry of Education (Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga), Education Counts, tertiary participation, Adult-and-Community-Education.xlsx, Table ACE.3, as archived by the Internet Archive on 25 March 2023, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The Tertiary Education Commission funds short, often non-credit community courses for adults through tertiary providers, and the education ministry counts enrolments each year from provider returns.

  Limits: The cited file is an Internet Archive copy: educationcounts.govt.nz answered 403 behind a bot check on 2026-10-02, and the archived September 2026 page that links a newer edition of the same spreadsheet returned 410 for the file, so the series stops at 2021 here although the ministry has published later years. The table counts only ACE delivered by tertiary providers; it leaves out ACE run by schools and community organisations, and 2012 is the first year of the table, not a demonstrated peak. Any funding change before 2012, including the reduction of ACE funding in schools commonly dated to 2009, is outside the series and was not read at a source for this record. Most of the fall is two steps: universities from 13,180 to 3,040 between 2012 and 2013, and polytechnics (now Te Pūkenga) from 35,235 in 2016 to 27,975 in 2017 and 20,890 in 2020; the 2020 and 2021 counts are also depressed by COVID-19 lockdowns. Equivalent full-time student units held near 3,200 to 4,100 throughout, so fewer people took longer courses, and the fall in headcount is not a fall in hours of learning. Counts are students enrolled at any time in the year, rounded to the nearest 5, and students in two sub-sectors count in each. The started year is the first year of the published table, not the start of ACE funding, which is decades older.

• 🇵🇰Pakistanlinked to Adult learning participationstarted 2002operating below its peak

  NCHD Adult Literacy Programme, and its collapse after 2013

  Pakistan's National Commission for Human Development opened 19,399 adult literacy centres enrolling 482,295 learners in 2009-10, but its literacy programme 'came to a halt since 2013 due to scarcity of funds', and in 2021 it ran a phase of 1,490 centres, financed by the Pakistan Human Development Fund, that enrolled 36,529 learners, mostly women aged 15 to 45.

  36,529 learners, learners enrolled in the 1,490 adult literacy centres of the project 'promoting literacy in rural communities of pakistan', 2021. 482,295 learners, peak: learners enrolled in 19,399 adult literacy centres, nchd annual report 2012, year-wise table, 2009-10. National Commission for Human Development (NCHD), Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, Annual Report 2021, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: A federal commission recruited local teachers to run six-month literacy centres in villages, mostly for women, funded from the federal development budget; when that budget line lapsed, delivery fell to small donor-funded rounds.

  Limits: The commission reports on itself. The 2021 figure is in the foreword of the 2021 annual report (PDF page 10, printed page 8, 'Around 36,529 learners, mostly women benefitted') and in its programme chapter (PDF page 38), which says 1,490 centres were established in 116 districts 'wherein, 36529 learners were enrolled' and 33,377 graduated; 1,500 centres were allocated and ten in North Waziristan could not be opened. The peak comes from a different document at the same host, NCHD Annual Report 2012 (https://www.nchd.org.pk/SiteImage/Misc/files/NCHD_Annual_Report_2012.pdf, PDF page 16), whose table gives 19,399 centres and 482,295 learners for 2009-10, 8,317 and 197,907 for 2010-11 and 8,270 and 202,349 for 2011-12; 2009-10 is the highest year in that table, not a demonstrated all-time peak, and the commission's cumulative claim of about 4.07 million people made literate since 2002 implies that earlier years were also large. The statement that the programme halted in 2013 for lack of funds is in NCHD Annual Report 2016 (https://www.nchd.org.pk/SiteImage/Misc/files/Annual%20Report-2016.pdf, PDF page 8), which also says the 2017 project approval cut the planned centres from 12,000 to 6,000. Enrolment is not completion or tested literacy. The 2021 centres were financed by the Pakistan Human Development Fund, a support fund set up under the commission's ordinance, rather than the commission's core development budget. Part of the fall may reflect the devolution of education to the provinces after the 2010 constitutional amendment, which moved literacy work to provincial departments that this record does not count. No annual figure after 2021 was found at the commission's site.

• 🇹🇹Trinidad and Tobagolinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1988operating below its peak

  Youth Training and Employment Partnership Programme (YTEPP), and its shrinking enrolment

  Trinidad and Tobago's YTEPP Limited, the state company that trains people aged 15 to 35 who are out of work or school, enrolled 1,601 persons in October 2024 to June 2025, 61 percent of its target, against 2,301 trainees in the Youth Training Programme over the same October to June window of 2019-20, according to the Ministry of Finance's Social Sector Investment Programme reviews.

  1,601 persons, persons enrolled in ytepp youth training and employment programmes, October 2024 to June 2025. 2,301 trainees, trainees enrolled in the ytepp youth training programme, same months five years earlier (ssip 2021), October 2019 to June 2020. Ministry of Finance, Trinidad and Tobago, Social Sector Investment Programme 2026, chapter 3B Review of Social Programmes, Ministry of Tertiary Education and Skills Training, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The state funds a training company that runs short vocational and life-skills courses in centres across both islands for young people outside work and school, and reports enrolment against a yearly target in the budget's social sector review.

  Limits: Both counts are the ministry's own programme reporting, collected in budget documents. The earlier figure is in a different edition, Social Sector Investment Programme 2021 (https://www.finance.gov.tt/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Social-Sector-Investment-Programme-2021-1.pdf), and the two may not count the same thing: 2021 counts trainees in the Youth Training Programme, 2026 counts persons in 'youth training and employment programmes', and 2026 separately reports 1,323 youths in CVQ/TVET, NEC or YTEPP-certified programmes. 2019-20 is not a demonstrated peak; it is the earliest comparable count found, and its window already includes the first COVID-19 closures from March 2020, so the true fall is probably larger. The money moved the same way: the SSIP 2017 table gives an estimate of TT$111 million for YTEPP in 2016, SSIP 2019 gives TT$64.4 million actual spending in 2017, and SSIP 2026 lists TT$41.4 million, but transfers between ministries make those columns hard to align, so they are context, not the metric. The programme serves ages 15 to 35, so part of it is young people just out of school rather than adults returning to learning. Enrolment is not completion. The 1988 start is YTEPP's founding year as commonly reported; it was not read at the cited source.

• 🇦🇹Austrialinked to Adult learning participationstarted 1998dismantled

  Bildungskarenz with Weiterbildungsgeld, and its abolition

  Austria's Public Employment Service (AMS) paid Weiterbildungsgeld from 1998 to employees taking up to a year of educational leave, an average of about 14,000 recipients in 2021 at a cost that rose from 236 million euros in 2019 to 646 million in 2024, until the Nationalrat ended the benefit on 31 March 2025 in a budget consolidation law.

  14,000 persons (annual average), average weiterbildungsgeld recipients on educational leave, 2021. 646 million EUR, total spending on bildungskarenz in its last full year before abolition, 2024. Rechnungshof Österreich (Austrian Court of Audit), report Bildungskarenz, Reihe Bund 2023/11, retrieved 2026-10-02.

  How it worked: The federal government let employees suspend their contract for training and had the AMS pay an unemployment-benefit-level allowance out of the unemployment insurance fund; parliament then cut the allowance outright when costs tripled and evaluations found weak employment effects.

  Limits: The recipient count is an annual average of people on leave at once, not a share of adults who trained in a year, so it cannot be set against the indicator's unit. The Court of Audit found the training requirements so weak that the leave could fund low-value courses or plain time out of work, and that uptake skewed toward people already highly educated, so the programme's peak is partly a peak in subsidised leave rather than in learning. The 2024 spending figure is the parliament's summary of the government's justification, it includes social insurance contributions, and it is a cost, not a participation number. Abolition is not the end of state support for training leave: a successor Weiterbildungszeit with a Weiterbildungsbeihilfe capped at 150 million euros a year took effect in January 2026 with stricter eligibility (PK0907, 16 October 2025), so a reviewer could call this erosion rather than dismantling. The record documents that the benefit ended by decision; it does not show that adult learning participation in Austria fell as a result.