Keynote speakers

This keynote explores how meritocratic ideals shape contemporary adult education, with a particular focus on the Finnish context. It invites the audience to reflect on what meritocracy means in education today and how it guides both policy and individual aspirations. The lecture introduces two influential policy narratives in Finnish adult education: the tradition of educational democracy and sivistys (In other Nordic countries, the concept is known as bildning), and the more recent policy emphasis on global comparison and competitiveness. These narratives are illustrated through the case of Finnish open university education, a long‑standing form of adult education that has aimed to widen access to higher education.

By examining changes in policy discourse and adult learning opportunities, the keynote traces ongoing transformations in how ‘merit’ is understood and valued. When education is valued as an end in itself, becoming an educated, ethical, and reflective person is seen as a merit in its own right. However, when education is primarily valued for its economic returns, educational merit becomes something that must be continuously demonstrated within stratified and increasingly competitive systems. Especially for adults, learning increasingly comes to resemble a process of constant proving, updating, and repositioning oneself in relation to shifting labour‑market demands. Some pathways remain open, while others narrow, leading to dead ends or never‑ending loops. In this way, meritocracy can become cruel rather than fair.

Rather than offering definitive answers, the lecture sets the stage for a broader discussion on merit, equality, and the purposes of adult education under changing social and economic conditions.

Tertiary and higher education systems across the globe have experienced unprecedented challenges and beset by an ongoing poly-crisis. Within current policy framing of tertiary education’s broader remit, a series of ‘wicked problems’ have emerged including its financial sustainability and relationship to the labour market. Much of the framing is premised on a narrow account derived from labour economics about the role of institutions in delivering public and economic value. This talk argues for a more substantive value orientation towards higher education that presents the transition-to-work challenge in ‘thicker’ terms, namely the alignment of values to working life, development of professional identity and, most crucially, the pursuit and realisation of meaningful work.  Drawing upon research on recent graduates’ and early career professionals’ perspectives of working life, it outlines how this thicker and more developmental approach can be framed. It considers the implications this may have for policy development in this area.