25 Evolution of Lifelong Learning

Content Outline

1.    Learning Objectives

2.    Introduction

3.    LLL: The Intellectual (Conceptual) and Socio-economic Genesis

4.    Historical Evolution of LLL in Europe

5.    Institutionalization of Lifelong Learning

6.    Issues in LLL and Its Present Disciplinary Status

7.    Conclusion: Institutionalization of LLL and Its Present Status

1. Learning Objectives

At the end of this module, the learner will be able to

1.    Infer why Lifelong Learning (LLL) has emerged as the main (central) organizational principle of contemporary and all future education system.

2.    Explain how the market and contemporary globalization has influenced the growth of LLL in Europe and some other developed countries.

3.    Identify the processes, events and ideas that led to institutionalization of LLL as an academic discipline and organizational principle in education.

4.    Analyse various issues related to LLL in terms of its limitations and strengths.

2. Introduction

The present module discusses the evolution of Lifelong Learning (LLL) as a sub-discipline of Adult Education (AE) in contemporary times. It dwells upon intellectual (conceptual) and socio-economic genesis of LLLin our time, particularly with the ushering in of a high intensity, ‘globalized market’ which is characterized by ‘knowledge economy’ and ‘information society’. Secondly, it reflects on the European history of LLL and its evolution in the larger contexts ofEuropean economy. Thirdly,we analyze the ongoingissues inglobal LLL,and summarize it in terms of its current disciplinary status. In this module, our diachronic narrative focuses on the process of institutionalization of LLL as an academic sub-discipline of adult educationseen from two perspectives, which may be placed at two opposite ends of a continuum.These two perspectives are: (a) AE & LLL considered as human rights and seen as an educational means of transforming and empowering individuals, communities and societies. (b) AE & LLL seen purely or primarily as a means for skills training for satisfying the needs of the global market economy. Since the market economy perspective of AE & LLL is dominant today, it has been reduced to a one-dimensional ‘field’ of education and training instead of growing as a multi-dimensional and holistic discipline.

3. LLL: The Intellectual (Conceptual) and Socio-economic Genesis

Even in 2017,the term lifelong learning is struggling to make its place in the Indian higher education system. Traditional terms such as Adult and Continuing Education and Vocational Education are still commonly used disciplinary fields in the Indian academia. Lifelong Learning as a new discipline or sub-discipline of Adult Education in the West (mainly in Europe & the USA, including some other rich countries like Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand) has become a strong force in academic and public policy discourses.According to Rosanna Barros (2012) the present paradigm shift in focus from adult education to lifelong learning is essentially European in its origin, which are manifestly visible in the OECD and the EU policy documents (pp. 119-134). ‘Adult learning is vitally important to the European Social Model and to the standing of a strong Europe in a globally competitive world’ (EAEA 2006).

Lifelong education or lifelong learning as an academic discipline or enterprise is very recent in its origin, which is hardly 50 years old if the UNESCO publication of the Edgar Faure Report (1972, titled: Learning to Be – the World of Education Today and Tomorrow) can be taken as an official announcement of LLL intent. The Faure Report highlighted the institutional relevance of lifelong learning to centre-stage by coining two new terms, ‘lifelong education’ and ‘learning society’ as acquisition and use of knowledge and information became necessary for the growth of ‘knowledge economy’ and ‘information society’ in the contemporary globalized world. ‘Lifelong education’ (not lifelong learning, which emerged later in 1996 with UNESCO’s Delors Report) became the basis of focus for international education policy advocated by the UNESCO, where as the concept of ‘learning society’ became the mission strategy to involve society as a whole as a participant and actor in education (Faure, 1972).The Faure Report considered‘lifelong education’ as a transformative and emancipatory force, not only socially, but also educationally. Some observers have held the Faure Report (1972)  asa ‘Copernican revolution in education’.

In Europe,in the context of lifelong education (LLE, and as emphasized inUNESCO-Faure Report, 1972) and lifelong learning (LLL, as emphasized inUNESCO-Delors Report 1996), we find at least two influential contesting ideological terrains, namely, (a) the classical liberalist and (b) the neo-liberalist. The former stood for the individually empowering and socially transformative power of learning along with pursuit of personal well-being, happiness and other goals. The latter emphasized the freedom of the independent, atomized individual to earn and grow in a completely unrestricted manner. Both these ideological terrains tried to pull LLL towards their own persuasion in order to shapethe individual learner into their definition. In this context of opposing pulls, poorer and less powerful organizations such as the UNESCO (and to some extent European Council) have worked towards the former; whereas the rich and powerful transnational agencies such as the World Bank, the OECD and the EU have worked in the interest of the latter.

One interesting outcome of these two ideological pulls is that the rich western countries including the USA, Japan, Australia, etc. have, in principle, recognized LLL as central to the organization of their higher education system. However, in poorer and developing countries of Africa,Latin America and Asia including India, LLL (both as a policy discourse and academic discipline) is largely missing, except for its token recognition in the field of skills development, which again is lingering outside their university system. On the whole, the global status of contemporary LLL has come to be identified with the functional interests of the global (western) market economy. This has led to a one-dimensional interpretation of LLL inhibiting its multidimensional growth and potential as an ‘organizing principle of all forms of education, based on inclusive, emancipatory, humanistic and democratic values’ (UIL 2009, The Belem Framework for Action, CONFINTEA VI, p. 1).

4. Historical Evolution of LLL in Europe

1.    LLL cuts across formal, non-formal and informal learning settings: LLL adopts an eclectic approach in choosing learning styles and methods found amongall the three settings of learning.

2.    LLL is based on self-motivated and self-directed learning: LLL offers choiceand need-based learning for professional development and self-growth, with individuals taking full responsibility for their own learning. Learners develop metacognition of their own learning styles and attitudes, which allows them to concentrate on the best possible ways for learning. Learners also develop an understanding of their limitations while participating in adult learning with a strong desire to overcome those (if any).

3.    LLL believes in self-financed education and learning: In order to cut the public expenditure on provisions for mass education, LLL expects that learners not only choose their own learning needs but also be willing to invest in time, money and effort on a continuous basis.

4.    LLL recognizes universal access and participation in continuous learning and professional development: Popular demand for education, which hasled to massification of education at all levels, has also led LLL to promote universal access to all forfurther education and trainingfor continuous development of skills and knowledge.

The principles of universal access and participation in LLL is also guided by the Jacques Delor’s Report (UNESCO: 1996) which propounded four pillars of a ‘learning society’, as a missionary and global goal of LLL, namely:

i.     Learning to do: requires LLL to train and equip people forall kinds of work required by a ‘knowledge society’ of the contemporary globalizedworld. LLL also needs to promote innovation and adaptation of learning to future work environments;

ii.     Learning to be: LLL should contribute to a person’s complete development e.g. mind, body, spirit, character, intelligence, sensitivity, aesthetic appreciation and humanism.

iii.     Learning to know: requires LLL to focus on mastering the learning tools rather than acquisition of structured knowledge; and

iv.     Learning to live together, and with others: requires LLL to focus on learning values and skills such as exercising mutual tolerance, understanding and mutual respect, resolving conflict peacefully, discovering and relating with other people and their cultures, fostering community capability, individual competence and capacity, economic resilience, and social inclusion.

Since the present world is full of social and economic contradictions produced by global capitalism assisted by fast changing technologies and services, our personal, social, professional and political life is also full ofmany uncertainties and insecurities created by economics and politics of increasing global inequality. For example, according to an Oxfam International Report titled,An economy for the 99 percent (published January 2017), only eight men own almost equal wealth as possessed by 3.6 billion people of the world who constitute 50% of the humanity. In India, richest 1% Indians own 58% of country’s wealth. In other way, 57 billionaires in India have the same amount of wealth as the bottom 70%. The Report also describesthe gap between rich and poor, which is far greater than imagined. The Report also highlights how corporate business and the super-rich are nourishingthe inequality crisis by evading taxes, cutting down wages and jobs and how they use their powers to influence not only international economics and trade but also national and globalpolitics.

LLLstrives to address the above mentioned problems of uncertainties and insecurities arising from global inequalitiesby adopting learning orientations towards the earlier discussed UNESCO’s four pillars of a ‘learning society’. LLL is in general supposed to foster creativity, initiative, responsiveness and skills of adaptability among keen learners to cope up with the challenges of the contemporary post-Fordist, post-industrial society. Citizens of the contemporary world need to learn and enhance their skills to manage uncertainties, negotiate conflicts, and communicate across and within cultures, sub-cultures, families and communities.

5. Institutionalizationof Lifelong Learning

Since the early 1970s, global changesstarted pushing ‘Adult Education’ (AE) towards new paradigms like ‘Lifelong Learning’ (LLL) and ‘Global Citizenship Education’ (GCE) or simply known as ‘Global Education’ (GE) to meet the needs of constantly changing skilled workforce and globally- oriented citizens respectively. The intellectual genesis behind LLL can be seen in a number of different purposes. Democratic aspirations among people have led to massification of higher education, where nation-states are unable to meet the financial investment it requires. Under democratic pressure to expand enrollment and access to education, globalization (particularly SAP)has put pressure to cut operative costs of education for bringing fiscal stability through financial austerity, policy reforms;and adoption of and introduction of new learning systems and strategies, pedagogies, online delivery systems based on web and internet technologies and creation of virtual universities through Massive Open and Online Courses (MOOCs) where private sectors are encouraged to play a major role.

In fact, virtual universities (web-based online courses), privatization of schooling and technical institutions with focus on lifelong learning (LLL) and global citizenship education (GCE) are considered to be central and key organizing principles for all forms and all levels of education and learning. ‘In general, adult education, higher education and lifelong learning policies are now receiving increased attention by transnational institutions and interstate organizations that are calling upon public and private sectors to become involved in, and implement, lifelong learning systems’ (Milana&Nesbit 2015, p. xv). As said earlier, the intellectual genesis of LLL has been linked to the needs of

‘knowledge economy’ and ‘information society’. These two specific factors have pushed infor new policy provisions for continuously upgraded training and knowledge transmission. In this context, LLL in Europe has received great polemical attention in policy terms, which seeks its institutionalization as a new sub-discipline of adult education called Lifelong Learning (LLL). Thus LLL has pushed for profound changes in the curriculum, content, pedagogy (including andragogy and heutagogy) and mode of learning based on individual needs, aspirations and styles. Learning is now no longer seen as fixed in terms of time and place; rather it is a continuing and expanding process of gaining knowledge both through instruction-based structured setting of schools and colleges as well as the workplace and the home with access to information and communication technologies (ICTs).

Yet as an independent discipline, both adult education and lifelong learning (LLL) remain at a very low position in terms of financial (budgetary) provisions across most western and Afro-Asian countries. As a holistic discipline of study, LLL remains anchored in the market-driven demands. Seen from the two perspectives of adult education, e.g. ‘adult education as a human right and as a means for transforming and empowering individuals, communities and societies; and adult education as a means for economic development’, LLL still remains firmly grounded and focusing on the latter (UNESCO-UIL 2009b). As an independent discipline, LLL needs to focus on and balance both the empowering and instrumental(functional) needs of society. At the moment, the landscape of adult education and lifelong learning has mixed and incoherent principles, policies and practices. Relocating either adult education within lifelong learning or the vice versa requires a shared, integrated and holistic philosophy of the purposes and benefits of adult learning (UNESCO-UIL 2009b).

6. Issues in LLL and Its Present Disciplinary Status

Though the vision and institutionalization of LLL is laudable and to a certainextent practical and useful too, it is characterized by polyvalent rhetoric promising a utopian learning society, where an individual learner, in principle, could learn everything and anything s/he desires. In fact, as a policy discourse, LLL is currently the bestselling educational dream. However, there are many unresolved and conflicting issues in LLL, which are given below:

a)    Among the ‘developed’ and to some extent in ‘developing’ countries like India, development of LLL is driven more ‘by the urgency and uncertainty of changes taking place in global society, especially technological and economic changes’ (Dough Bourn, 2001: 327, emphasis added), which does not bode well for LLL as a sub-discipline of adult education.

b)    Many scholars still prefer the term ‘lifelong education’ as it implies more social commitment and explicit intentional learning, which are missing in the concept of

‘lifelong learning’.

c)    In practice, LLL has given more prominence to the instrumentalist, one-dimensional assumptions underlying the theory of ‘human capital’ development. In practice, it appears to have abandoned the multi-dimensional,‘broad humanistic and democratic idealism of the Faure Report’. In such a context, it has weakened its own commitment to civic participation, personal enrichment and development of the social capital.

d)    LLL carries philosophical tensions when it borrows and uses old language, vocabulary and concepts of adult education, which manifest themselves as misleading dichotomies such as ‘decontextualized knowledge’ versus ‘embedded (experiential) knowledge’, ‘liberal’ versus ‘vocational’, ‘individual’ versus ‘collective’, ‘economic growth’ versus ‘social equity’, ‘self-directed learning’ versus ‘instruction-based guided learning’, etc.

e)    Skills, values, attitudes, choice in learning are assumed to be self evident to learners whereas in practice, they may be problematicconcerntomajority of poor learners from disadvantaged class who feel deprived of benefitsof the mainstream educational systems.

f)    Given the complexities of the wider policy environment, learners may not be easily able to understand their learning needs in the context of changing LLL concepts and processes.Present and dominant practice of LLL, which caters to a hegemonic and monolithic ‘market’ economymay be highly subversive and baneful for the ordinary learners from disadvantaged communities.

g)    LLL is supposed to contribute to the creation of learning organizations and learning societies based on the UNESCO’s vision of‘Learning to Be’ (Faure, 1972). However, in practice, all LLL systems and learning organizations serve mainly the utilitarian and functional demands of constantly changing market and technology albeit on a limited scale with little priority in terms of financial (budgetary) allocation not only in Europe but the entire world.

To summarize, adult education and lifelong learning are ‘recognized and protected only minimally’, and policy concerns for them in terms of legislation varies from country to country. ‘So far EU efforts for lifelong learning have done little to alter its formal standing and the public resources allocated for it’ (EAEA 2006).

7.   Conclusion

‘The history of adult learning and education is a hit-and-miss story – starting off with strong rhetoric, promises and expectations and concluding in limited successes, and even neglect and disappointment in too many cases’ (Ahmed, 2009, p. 1) ‘Many national government’s education and social policies have not prioritized adult learning and education as has been expected and hoped for … [or] allocated the necessary financial resources’ (UNESCO-UIL, 2009, pp. 24-25).

The two quotes cited above manifest the sad and utterly neglected state of adult education and lifelong learning in most part of the world barring the few rich western countries. Until now, however there has been no separate adult education and LLL policy within higher education system of most countries. Adult education and LLL constitute a small and the least prioritized fragment of the general education policies of various national governments. ‘Adult education policies are incoherent and fragmented – more like a patchwork of measures responding to specific issues than a framework of linked principles and programmes’ (UNESCO-UIL 2009b). Only a few countries(in Europe, the US, Japan, etc.) have a coherent, less ideological, more pragmatic and independent AE & LLL policies. In poorer and developing countries, AE & LLL have been only slowly and partially incorporated into their general educational policy framework. More significantly, both AE & LLL have not been matched by necessary political and financial commitment in poorer and developing countries. Having observed the brief overview of intellectual origin, history and institutionalization of LLL, we will now go to the next Unitto understand policies and practices of lifelong learning in India.

References

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