Lifelong Learning: international injunctions and university practices (original) (raw)
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Researching Lifelong Learning: trends and prospects in the English-speaking world
2003
Policy makers in many countries have embraced the language and concept of lifelong learning. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development called on its members to promote Lifelong Learning for All at its 1996 meeting of the Education Ministers (OECD 1996). In the same year, Jacques Delors chaired a committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) which reported under the somewhat romantic title of Learning: the treasure within (Delors 1996).
Recent contributions to the literature have postulated the very different significations of the policy narratives of 'lifelong education' in the Faure Report for UNESCO in 1972 and OECD's 1973 report on 'recurrent education'. It has also been argued that the Faure Report incorporated the policy narrative of the 'deschooling' of society. Furthermore, it is sometimes claimed that 'recurrent education' in the 1970s laid the foundations for the core elements of the 'lifelong learning' narrative that has emerged worldwide since the mid-1990s. This paper critically examines the empirical foundations of such arguments. Based upon a rereading of primary texts and secondary sources, the analysis demonstrates that these widely accepted arguments constitute a problematic interpretation of the historical relationships between the key policy narratives in the 1970s. The conclusions identify a number of significant areas for further empirical research into the relationships between first generation policy narratives. Revisiting first and second generation policy narratives Revisiting the world of 'lifelong education' in the early 1970s is a wellestablished habitus among those interested in policy formation processes from the 1970s into the current age of 'lifelong learning' (see for example:
The many faces of lifelong learning: recent education policy trends in Europe
Journal of Education Policy, 2002
This article examines the rise of the discourse on lifelong learning across Europe and the variety of national policy trends which its rhetoric occludes. The ubiquitous presence of this meta-discourse in education and training policy-in-theory is seen as a singular event which can be ascribed to the impact of the variety of global forces on the education arena. It serves specific political functions in addition to signalling real changes in education and training systems. The duality of convergent rhetoric and divergent policy-in-practise is seen as a challenge to education policy analysis which requires multi-layered interpretation. Education and training policy can increasingly be seen as a global commodity. Armies of international think tank experts and consultants analyse, develop, adapt and package policies to order for governments, corporations and other interested parties; international organizations-notably the OECD, the World Bank and This article seeks to draw out some of the dominant trends in current education policy in Europe and the developed world, highlighting where these are convergent and, alternatively, divergent, and commenting on some of the implications of different policy models. In brief compass, this will not attempt to do more than sketch out some of the major overarching trends, although it draws on and updates a more detailed analysis of policy developments reported elsewhere (Green, Wolf and Leney, 1999). However, it does seek to analyse both policy-as-discourse and policy-as-practise where possible, albeit here with illustration rather than reporting of systematic analysis, to avoid the pitfalls noted above. Following one of Marx's better methodological precepts about 'rising' from the abstract to the concrete (and hence, although not here, dialectically back to complex higher order theory), the analysis begins with the contexts and themes which drive and overarch international policy discourse before exploring in some more detail the complexities of policy in practise in some different states. The rhetorics and realities of lifelong learning and the knowledge society The dominant and organizing discourse in education and training policy at the turn of the millennium was lifelong learning (in the context the learning/knowledge society). This idea, whose origins lie way back and buried in the writings of forgotten educationalists some 70 years ago (eg Basil Yeaxlee, 1929), gained currency through the late 1980s and 1990s, not least through the advocacy of the OECD (1996) and the European Commission (1995), to become by the turn of the century almost ubiquitous in the developed world. Although similar in some ways to earlier 1970s discourses around 'recurrent education', 'continuing education' and 'lifelong education'-the latter notably in the influential Learning To Be report by Edgar Faurė (UNESCO, 1972)-the 1990s idea of lifelong learning in a learning society decisively shifted the policy ground by stressing 'learning' rather than 'education', and 'society' rather than 'school'. The publication of Van der Zee's The Learning Society in 1991 and the European Commission's report Teaching and Learning: towards a Learning Society in 1996 provide two markers in continental Europe of the new society-wide emphasis. In the UK similar landmarks are visible with the publication of Stewart Ranson's book Towards the Learning Society in 1994 and the initiation in 1996 of the ESRC's Learning Society Research Programme. Now almost every OECD country-from South Korea to Canada-makes reference to lifelong learning and the knowledge society in its education policies and the idea now constitutes something of a meta-discourse in policy terms. The notion is, of course, hopelessly vague, masking many different policy approaches, but it captures something real and significant in modern policy trends, and thus provides a convenient way into analysis. As a meta-discourse, which is a relatively rare phenomena in the annals of education policy, lifelong learning has no doubt served various complex ideological purposes connoting, as it does, vision, change and, above all,
Role of Higher Education in Promoting Lifelong Learning
International scientific journal "Internauka". Series: "Economic Sciences"
The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) is a non-profit international institute of UNESCO. The Institute undertakes research, capacity-building, networking and publication on lifelong learning with a focus on adult and continuing education, literacy and non-formal basic education. Its publications are a valuable resource for educational researchers, planners, policymakers and practitioners. While the programmes of the UIL are established along the lines laid down by the General Conference of UNESCO, the publications of the Institute are issued under its sole responsibility. UNESCO is not responsible for their contents. The points of view, selection of facts and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily coincide with official positions of UNESCO or UIL. The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO or UIL concerning the legal status of any country or territory, or its authorities, or concerning the delimitations of the frontiers of any country or territory.
Adult and lifelong education: the European Union, its member states and the world
International Journal of Lifelong Education, 2014
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