Employers’ support for adult higher education students in liberal post-socialist contexts

Abstract

In most European countries, the proportion of adult students among both full-time and part-time workers has increased significantly over recent decades. Undertaking paid work is also increasingly common among traditional students. The opportunities to work while studying depend largely on the role of employers in promoting learning. However, both theoretical frameworks and empirical studies typically focus on the behaviour of firms in providing training. The support of employers for formal adult education has remained a marginal topic. The aim of this article is to analyse the contributions of employers to the acquisition of higher education from the perspective of the adult learners; we investigated how employers support their staff in higher education studies. We also tried to identify which kinds of learners have a better chance of receiving various benefits. We used two different data-sets: quantitative data from a study of adult students in higher education and qualitative data from interviews with managers of small- and medium-sized enterprises and at least one employed participant in formal adult education, collected in the framework of the international research project Towards a Lifelong Learning Society in Europe: The Contribution of the Education System supported by the EU Sixth Framework Programme.

Keywords:

• employers’ support
• adult students
• higher education
• post-socialist context

Notes

1. The mentality prevalent in business circles is oriented only towards an individualist competition ideology. Research had shown that the idea of cooperation with competitors is strongly rejected (Terk, 1999, p. 62).

2. A recent reform, excluding employers’ spending on employees’ work-related studies from the fringe benefit tax, will likely to stimulate spending. Corporate tax-based schemes that deduct part of the cost of training from firms’ profits have proved to be quite effective at raising investment in training in several countries, but they are not well suited for Estonia because in Estonia only distributed dividends are taxed (OECD, 2012).

3. The research was part of the International FP6 project LLL2010, contract No. 513,321, project coordinator Ellu Saar, Tallinn University: http://LLL2010.tlu.ee

4. The quotes come from interviews with the management of small- and medium-sized enterprises and participants in formal adult education.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ellu Saar

Ellu Saar is a professor at the Institute of International and Social Studies, Tallinn University, Estonia. She coordinated the EU 6th framework project ‘Towards a Lifelong Learning Society in Europe: The Contribution of the Education System' (LLL 2010). Her research areas are social stratification and mobility, educational inequalities, lifelong learning and life course studies. She is an editor of Studies of Transition States and Societies, a member of the Editorial Board of European Sociological Review and a member of the Steering Committee of the European Consortium of Sociological Research. She has published papers in European Societies, Higher Education, European Sociological Review, International Sociology, Journal of Work and Education, etc. Correspondence: Institute of International and Social Studies, Tallinn University, Uus-Sadama 5, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia. Email: [email protected]

Rein Vöörmann

Rein Vöörmann is a senior researcher at the Institute for the International and Social Studies at the Tallinn University, Estonia. He has also served has an expert on sociology at the European Commission report ‘Reducing the Gender Gap’, European Science Foundation, etc. He has published over 60 articles and chapters in monographical research. His latest book (Learning in Transition) was published in 2011 (co-authors Vladimir Kozlovski and Triin Roosalu).

Ailen Lang

Ailen Lang is a masters student at the Institute of International and Social Studies, Tallinn University. Her research topic is adult education.