Making lifelong learning a reality has been a recurring theme within European policy making. Increasing participation of adults can help overcome various Europe-wide challenges, amongst others, skills redundancy, the high number of low-skilled workers in Europe, the high level of early school leaving, and literacy and numeracy difficulties. In…

The commodification of education in all forms has created a lucrative trade, particularly within the realm of continuing professional education. Mandated across a wide spectrum of industries, and particularly salient in healthcare due to rapid advances in medicine and technology, professional education is said to be the vehicle that keeps…

Firstly, the views of the European Union (E.U.) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (O.E.C.D.) are examined in relation to the issue of lifelong learning, as well as the challenges that render the reconstruction of the national educational systems essential. Following, it is pointed out that access to lifelong learning…

The present article is first of all a contribution to theory in the broad field of adult education in lifelong perspective, that, starting from literature and theories in this field, develops a reflection based on empirical work, related in particular to the use of qualitative methodologies in the learning process for mature students enrolled in…

Current developments arising from the Bologna Process and impacting throughout European higher education trace their origins to the lifelong learning and widening participation agendas. They aim to facilitate new patterns and pathways of study and provide transparency and guidance for students. However, practical implementation of the changes in…

This paper examines the relationship between literacy, equality and creativity and the relevance for adult literacy practices. It looks in particular at how literacy tutors can use creative non-text methods to promote an understanding of equality in learners' lives. Through an examination of the findings from the Literacy and Equality in Irish…

Lifelong education achieves its goals when it improves people's quality of life and when it brings social cohesion and development. University continuing education (UCE) has contributed to the expansion of higher education opportunities in terms of its quantity. However, we have to look further than sheer volume of activity. Original ideals of…

Extramural liberal adult education (LAE), as conceived in the particular UK tradition, was doomed by its high-minded origins and its privileged status, and contributed little to the new concepts of "éducation permanente," lifelong learning, the knowledge society, the learning society and region, or to the new understandings of university…

In Mexico there is no policy of lifelong learning; however, the idea of focusing on students and learning--especially on appropriate knowledge-acquisition skills at various points in one's life--is spreading through post-secondary education. Since about ten years ago, institutions of higher learning, mostly universities, have initiated…

This article explores Scharmer's account of generative dialogue, which followed from Bohmian dialogue in the 1980s and Isaacs' research with the MIT Dialogue Project in the early 1990s. It presents the author's view that generative dialogue offers a useful theoretical framework and effective means for facilitating transformative learning processes…

The principle of lifelong training seems overtly prescriptive and risks damaging the concept of ongoing education and its humanist, cultural and social development objectives. In this paper, the authors firstly clarify and situate the principal concepts in question--lifelong education, ongoing education, initial professional education (all…

The year 1989 was a turning point in the history of Hungary. Many fundamental changes have since taken place in the country's teaching and learning at a regional level. This paper summarises the current problems of traditional university education in Hungary and then relates them to the roles of lifelong learning centres. After showing why these…

This article turns to the history of the modern practice of adult education to speak to the versatility of lifelong learning as a fluid and indeterminate concept that some have viewed as a learner's way out and others have viewed as a learner's burden. It identifies change forces that have shaped particular purposes and functions of lifelong…

It is estimated that in 30 years time nearly half the population of Britain will be over 50. In his introduction to "The Learning Age," David Blunkett proclaimed that "we must all develop and sustain a regard for learning at 'whatever age'" (Blunkett, 1998, my italics). Yet such activity does not extend to higher education,…