The central lesson of the Swiss experience is clear: adult education requires specific professional competences. Good presentation skills are not enough. Subject-matter expertise is not enough. Professional experience alone is not enough either. Adult educators need to be able to design learning processes, facilitate groups, support individual learning pathways, provide feedback, assess learning outcomes and reflect on their own role as educators.

The history of the SVEB certificates shows that these competences can be developed, assessed and recognised through a quality-assured system.

A successful system in numbers

The significance of the SVEB certificates is clearly demonstrated by the figures. Since 1996, a total of 73,040 SVEB certificates have been issued in Switzerland. In 2025 alone, 3,294 certificates were awarded, the highest figure in eight years. This shows that, after three decades, the system has not lost its relevance or attractiveness. It remains a living, recognised and practice-oriented professional standard.

Today, around 100 institutions in Switzerland are authorised to offer SVEB certificates or AdA modules: 77 in German-speaking Switzerland, 13 in French-speaking Switzerland and 7 in Italian-speaking Switzerland. This broad institutional and regional coverage demonstrates that the SVEB certificate is not an isolated training product, but a national instrument of professionalisation.

Two entry routes: group learning and individual learning support

One important feature of the Swiss system is that, already at the entry level, it distinguishes between facilitating group learning events and accompanying individual learning processes.

The certificate “Ausbilderin/Ausbilder – Durchführung von Lernveranstaltungen” / AdA ZA-DL focuses on the planning, delivery and evaluation of courses, seminars, workshops and other group-based learning events. In earlier terminology, this role was often associated with the “Kursleiter/in”, or course leader.

The certificate “Ausbilderin/Ausbilder – Einzelbegleitungen” / AdA ZA-BE, by contrast, focuses on supporting, accompanying and developing individual learners. It is relevant for professionals who support adults in individual learning processes, for example in mentoring, guidance, developmental or learning-support contexts.

Both certificates are often referred to as SVEB 1, because they form the first module on the pathway towards the Swiss federal professional certificate “eidg. Fachausweis Ausbilderin/Ausbilder”. Both confirm that trainers are able to plan, deliver and evaluate learning events or individual learning support processes with adults in their own field of expertise, within the framework of given concepts, curricula and learning materials.

This distinction is highly relevant for the Hungarian development process as well. The adult educator profession today is no longer limited to group teaching. Individual learning support, mentoring, formative feedback, the identification of learning barriers and the support of personalised learning pathways are becoming increasingly important.

A minimum standard that provides orientation

One of the most important innovations of the SVEB certificates was the creation of a nationally recognised minimum standard. The system did not claim that every adult educator should follow the same pathway, nor did it try to standardise the diversity of professional backgrounds. Instead, it established a clear principle: anyone working with adults in learning situations needs a set of basic didactic, andragogical, planning, delivery, evaluation and reflective competences.

This minimum standard provides orientation for trainers, a quality reference point for training providers, and guidance for employers. The certificate is therefore not only an individual professional recognition tool, but also a system-level quality development instrument.

In Switzerland, the SVEB certificate has become an expected qualification or professional standard in many fields: healthcare, workplace training, IT and security, and other contexts in which adults are systematically trained, accompanied or further developed.

This idea is particularly important for Hungary. The Hungarian adult education system contains significant professional expertise and institutional diversity, but the common, widely recognised and quality-assured recognition of adult educator core competences still requires development. This is precisely the space in which the PROFADUL project aims to contribute to a Hungarian solution.

Turning professional excellence into transferable learning

One important message of the SVEB certificates is that high-level subject-matter expertise alone is not sufficient for effective adult education. In many fields — from IT, healthcare and industry to services, language education and corporate training — professionals act as trainers because they represent excellence in their own area of practice. Their knowledge, experience and practical insight are highly valuable learning resources for others.

The key question in adult education is how this professional knowledge becomes truly transferable, understandable, applicable and developmental for adult learners. This requires didactic and andragogical competence: understanding how adults learn, how to design learning processes, how to build on participants’ prior experience, how to sustain motivation, choose appropriate methods, provide feedback and assess learning outcomes.

This approach is particularly important for PROFADUL communication. Professionalising adult educators is not about questioning existing professional experience. It is about strengthening it and transforming it into more effective learning processes. The aim is to enable excellent professionals from different fields to support the development of others even more effectively.

The certificate is therefore not just a document. It is an instrument of professional trust. It shows that a trainer not only has valuable professional knowledge and experience, but is also able to communicate it to adults in a structured, learnable and applicable way.

Didactics, methodology, feedback and role reflection

The training programmes leading to SVEB certificates are not abstract programmes detached from practice. Their focus is the practical craft of adult education: didactics, methodology, the planning of learning processes, the facilitation of training situations, moderation, presentation, feedback and evaluation.

At the same time, the system does not reduce adult educator competence to technical methodology. It also places strong emphasis on interpersonal and relational dimensions: supporting learners, accompanying individual learning processes, sustaining motivation and reflecting on one’s own role as an educator.

This integrated understanding is also essential for the Hungarian development process. In an age of digitalisation, artificial intelligence, basic skills challenges, labour market transitions and sustainability demands, adult educators do not simply transmit content. They create learning situations, adapt to learners’ needs, support self-directed learning and help ensure that acquired knowledge is actually applied.

Continuous quality development: SVEB, SK AdA and QSK

One of the less visible but strategically crucial elements of the Swiss model is the institutional background of quality development. The system does not function as a one-off development project, but as a continuously maintained professional ecosystem.

In this process, SVEB works together with the Schweizerische Kommission Ausbildung der Ausbildenden / SK AdA, the strategic body of the AdA system, and the Qualitätssicherungskommission / QSK, the quality assurance commission. These actors identify areas for development, update and define requirements and competence profiles, and ensure that the system can respond to new professional, social and labour market demands.

This is a particularly important parallel for PROFADUL. A Hungarian adult educator qualification system can only be credible and sustainable if it consists not only of training modules, but also of clear professional governance, a quality assurance logic and a regular review mechanism.

What does this mean for PROFADUL?

The PROFADUL project is not about mechanically transferring a Swiss system to Hungary. Its ambition is more complex and professionally more significant: to develop a Hungarian modular qualification system for adult educators that learns from the Swiss AdA system while becoming workable in the Hungarian adult education context.

The Swiss example confirms several important development directions:

The central question for PROFADUL is therefore not whether Hungary should replicate the Swiss model. The real question is whether Hungary can create its own qualification and quality assurance framework that offers adult educators genuine professional value, a credible development pathway and stronger recognition.

The real significance behind the certificate

The Swiss example does not show that a certificate alone can solve the quality challenges of adult education. It shows that if a certificate is backed by a clear competence profile, a modular learning pathway, institutional quality assurance, regular development and professional acceptance, it can become a real professional standard.

This is exactly what is at stake for PROFADUL in Hungary.

Adult education today faces major challenges: digitalisation, artificial intelligence, skills shortages, demographic change, labour market transitions and sustainability demands are reshaping the world of learning. These challenges cannot be addressed only through new curricula or new training offers.

The key question is who supports adult learning — and how.

Thirty years of SVEB certificates send a clear message: adult educator competence can be made visible, developed and recognised. The aim of PROFADUL is to turn this idea into a practical system in Hungary.

The Swiss example shows that this is possible.

The task now is to strengthen the professional foundations of adult learning in Hungary — because without professional adult educators, there can be no successful lifelong learning system.

Sources:

SVEB / alice.ch: 30 Jahre SVEB-Zertifikate – Jubiläum eines Erfolgsmodells, 26 May 2026
SVEB / alice.ch: Stufe I: SVEB-Zertifikat – der Einstieg ins Ausbilden von Erwachsene