Adult consumer education across Europe – redressing the market or reaching the vulnerable consumer

Abstract

Consumer education is an important EU and United Nations priority. In most countries’ formal education systems, it is not a single discipline in its own right, but a cross‐curricular subject involving many areas of the school curriculum. Adult consumers are expected to be critical and informed consumers but may not know how to acquire the appropriate skills. The formal school system in many countries has failed to deliver these skills and values and adults need consumer education through both formal and informal means. With increasingly varied societies consumer education will help to produce active socially responsible citizens and citizenship is an essential element of the delivery of consumer education to adults. It is particularly important that consumer education should reach the vulnerable groups in society. Increasing globalisation and business power necessitate ethical and sustainable business practices; an informed, educated and empowered consumer will strengthen the market place to the benefit of both consumers and business. Unlike school education, adult education across Europe is fragmented with a mixture of formal education, including training for vocational qualifications, continuing and community education, and informal education, an essential contributor to life‐long learning delivered through media, women's groups, consumer groups and many other large and small organisations. The issues have been addressed by the EU Socrates supported CEA (Consumer Education for Adults) project which has 10 partners from 7 European countries drawn from non‐government organisations, teacher training and adult education institutions, universities and research institutes. The project has produced a training manual for adult consumer education, a training module, piloted in Vienna, which includes a handbook of teaching materials and a video, and has initiated a dialogue between consumers, consumer educators, business and producers.

Consumer education: creating consumer awareness among adolescents in Botswana

“…As stated by Schuh and Kitson 7 ‘in most countries’ formal education systems, consumer education is not a single discipline in its own right, but a cross‐curricular subject involving many areas of the school curriculum’. Consumer education, identified as the resource management and consumer education module, complements other subjects as food and nutrition and fashion and fabrics in the home economics curriculum in Botswana 5 .…”

Lack of Consumer Awareness: A Major Challenge for Electricity Consumer Protection in Nigeria

“…Globally, consumer education has been recognized by scholars, international organizations and institutions as a tool for the protection of the consumers from the deception widespread in the marketplace. Consumer education is considered a veritable tool for improving the lives and safety of the consumers and has been an important priority to both EU and the United Nations system (Steffens, 2010;Boush et al, 2009;Schuh & Kitson, 2003;. It is in recognition of the value of consumer education that the United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection, 1985, declared consumer education as one of the eight consumer rights (Widdows et al, 1995;UN, 1985).…”

“…While consumer education is a priority to the UN, the EU and even in some African countries such as Botswana, it is not the case in the Nigerian context. Consumers need consumer education through both formal and informal means (Schuh & Kitson, 2003). But consumer education is yet to be incorporated in the Nigeria's educational curriculum.…”

“…From the literature reviewed the problem is not peculiar to developing countries but also the developed jurisdictions (Jones & Boyer, 1971;Best & Andreasen, 1977;Schmitz, 2013). Studies reveal that consumers even in developed jurisdictions such as the UK don't know their consumer rights, consumer responsibilities as well as the existing consumer protection laws (Schuh & Kitson, 2003;Best & Andreasen, 1977;Kitson et al, 2003;Schmitz, 2013). If this is the case of UK what happens in developing countries such as Nigeria?…”

Consumer learning for university students: a case for a curriculum

“…These problems are frequently compounded by consumer-related problems such as exploitative sales ploys that could lead to debt, buying faulty goods and receiving poor service. The need for consumer learning at university level as a generic competence is apparent (Atherton & Wells, 1998;Rousseau, 1999;Schuh & Kitson, 2003) and not confined to South Africa (Hill 1995;Schröder & McKinnon 2003).…”