Universidade Aberta
IN-24: Innovation A

The UAb promotes a decentralized organizational structure, which favors close contact with society in general and with its students and trainees. Local Learning Centers are centers dedicated to the promotion of activities guided by the principles of Lifelong Learning. They result from the creation of partnerships between the Open University and civil society, seeking to develop an intervention in cultural and educational terms, framed in the local dynamics and according to the specificities of their respective area of ​​influence. Intending to favor the access of broad sectors of the population to the Information and Knowledge Society, its action privileges the acquisition of skills in the use of Digital Technologies, as well as the development of other competences - academic, professional, cultural and civic - in different areas. In this sense, they stimulate educational activities of a formal, non-formal and informal scope, in order to offer learning opportunities to populations that, due to geographical circumstances, are particularly susceptible to exclusion. It is also the responsibility of the Local Learning Centers to provide logistical and instrumental support to students residing in their respective areas of intervention, as well as the responsibility for coordinating and organizing the face-to-face assessment process. The dissemination of the educational offer of the Open University and the specificity of its teaching-learning system is part of the functions assigned to the Local Learning Centers.