Éva Farkas
Chair
Associate Professor of Adult Learning and Education
University of Szeged Hungary
+36209514533
farkaseva9@gmail.com
Hall of Fame Class of 2019
A leading figure in the research and development of Hungarian Adult Education, Éva Farkas
has contributed to the field of adult learning and education/andragogy with an approach to higher education influencing quality, professionalization, RVA (recognition-validation and accreditation), and financing in adult learning and education.
Her studies and research have helped not only educational scientists, but also practitioners and policy-makers to recognize the importance of the skills and competence of adult learning professionals to bring the Hungarian system more in line with mainstream Europe.
Farkas challenged educational professionals and policy-makers to understand the golden triangle of financing, policy and law, and dependencies among formal, non-formal, and informal learning are connected to matters of the status, roles, and functions of adult educators. Her most influential work focuses on the recognition, validation, and accreditation of prior learning and the scenario of learning outcomes embedded into the structures of the Hungarian Qualifications Frame Work and its relation to the European Qualifications Framework.
She led the Hungarian universities consortium on the professional development of adult education through university studies and contributed to the development of the Hungarian Qualifications Framework, a structural setting to promote learning outcomes, in order to modernize the Hungarian higher education system, with a specific attention on the professional development of educators to ensure comparability with other EU member states. She joined several EU-funded Hungarian and European projects through the Erasmus and Grundtvig programs, focusing on adult learning and education with attention to the development of competencies of teaching staff in adult education, comparative studies on the financing of adult education, and the validation of prior learning in adult education.
Farkas has published more than 140 articles and 18 monographies on adult learning and continuing education as an academic discipline. She is a distinguished member of the European Society for the Research of the Education of Adults and its RENAdET Network, focusing on professionalization in adult education. She is a recognized expert in the field of Vocational Education and Training (VET), working with the European Centre for the Development of VET for many years to provide comparative studies in continuing VET and the development of second chance schooling for integrating vulnerable groups of adult learners into the quality development of initial and continuing VET for adult learners.
Farkas is an associate professor and head of the Department of Andragogy at the University of Szeged.