ASPBAE’s fundamental purpose is to advance and defend the right of all people to learn and have equitable access to relevant and quality education and learning opportunities throughout their lives, enabling them to cope, survive and transform their conditions and define their own destiny.
ASPBAE seeks to build a global order that empowers people, promotes equitable sustainable human development and a just peace.
To these ends:
- ASPBAE asserts that Education is a fundamental human. Governments therefore have the primary responsibility to provide free, compulsory basic education of good quality to all its citizens. To guarantee the right to learn throughout life, governments should take the lead in providing opportunities for adult learning, especially to address the learning needs of poor, marginal people and communities.
- ASPBAE further asserts that basic education and adult education are critical to each other’s advancement: Universal quality primary and secondary education cannot be achieved in the absence of safe, enabling learning environments for girls and boys in their homes and communities that literate, critically-aware parents can provide. Conversely, the potential for meaningful 'learning throughout life' for all citizens rests on a strong basic education foundation.
- ASPBAE is committed to the transformative function of adult and basic education, especially to promote the learning interests of the disadvantaged and vulnerable groups.
- ASPBAE believes that education and adult learning are essential means to combat poverty, fight all forms of discrimination, equip citizens to actively participate in development and governance; empowers women and men, children and adults, individuals and communities to cope, survive and transform their position and conditions; and build a just peace.
