LIFELONG LEARNING NOTES:

From LIFELONG LEARNING AND HIGHER EDUCATION Christopher K Knapper, Arthur J Cropley

PAGE
CHAPTER 1 LLL: AN EMERGING APPROACH TO EDUCATION

EDUCATIONAL CRISIS

Critical educational challenges:

1. Changed learning needs( more people want to learn different things)
2. Problems of financing (reduced funding, demands for more effective use of
resources)
13-14
3. Increased concern about democratisation and fairness (elimination of socio-
economic, gender and geographic inequities)
4. Perceived need for closer ties to day-to-day life (harmonising education & culture,
relating education to work, linking education to peace and survival)
5. A call for changed teaching and learning strategies (flexible and democratic
educational planning, provision of learning networks, more self-direction in
learning)

LIFELONG EDUCATION- AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH

15
-should be adopted as the guiding principle for reforming education at all levels and in all
countries

When viewed as a unifying principle linking existing trends and tendencies, LLE is a useful
device for bringing together under a common heading a number of ideas and practices
which would otherwise have continues to be treated as distinct from each other.

Can also be thought of as encompassing a philosophy or model of education.

17 1. set of goals
2. set of procedures for realizing these goals
3. set of valueswhich goals should be given precedence
--- which procedures are desirable
--- whose needs education should serve
--- et cetera

LIFELONG EDUCATION AS A PARADIGM

Entails a system of fundamental principles which serve as a basis for raising and tackling
17-18 problems.
Provides a way of looking at what already exists in order to perceive shortcomings or see
ways in which improvements can be made.

According to the report of a recent UNESCO Meeting of Experts, LLE is defined as

19 education for liberation, self-realization, and self-fulfilment. --- inevitable results of
forms of education that seek to develop whole beings, who possess an inquiring and
critical mind and are particularly capable of creativity.
 LLL Characteristics
1. intentional- learners are aware that they are learning
2. has a definite specific goal, not aimed at vague generalizations such as
developing the mind
3. this goal is the reason why the learning is underataken (i.e., not motivated by
boredom)
20 4. learner intends to retain what has been learned for a considerable period of time

DELIBERATE VS. SPONTANEOUS

Systematic Unplanned
Purposeful Unconscious
Organized Normal and natural

THE NEED FOR LLL

1. CHANGE --- rapid
--- global
SOCIAL ECONOMIC CULTURAL

2. CHANGE IN WORK
Factors such as:
a. Technological progress
b. Development of manufacturing techniques
c. Emergence of new products
d. Increases in knowledge

3. SOCIAL CHANGE
Increasing availability of information through the media
Social dislocation resulting from rapid urbanisation , the greatly increased leisure
21-24
seen in some societies, unemployment or changes in the role of work and
relationship between workers and supervisors.

Change brings psychological dangers and difficulties in situations where people

are unable to cope with it.

LLL is seen as a constructive response that can help avert dangers; it is a device for
helping people find patterns of life that satisfy their social, emotional and
aesthetic needs, even in a rapidly changing society

4. SPECIAL GROUPS
LLE is a promising concept for meeting the newly recognized educational needs of
special groups in society who are placed at an educational disadvantage by
traditional education (low socio-economic status, migrant, transient workers,
handicapped, rural people, women
CHAPTER 2: LLE AS A AYSTEM

Learning is a normal and natural process that occurs at all ages and in all kinds of settings.
26-32
It does not depend upon contact with teachers or even other people, although such
individuals often play important role in fostering learning.
It can occur I the absence of organizational conditions planned to promote it, and does
not require awareness on part of the learners that they are learning.

Nonetheless, such factors may help (organized learning system and awareness)

EDUCATION AS SCHOOLING

learning took place by watching adults performing then slowly acquired appropriate
knowledge and techniques, as well as associated attitudes, values and self-image.

School is seen as a way of collecting ready-made answers, rather than of developing

general tactics for acquiring information, coping with new situations, or planning and
evaluating learning activities.

Until recently, relatively little attention has been paid to learning processes and learning
needs in adults, despite the fact that they are the people who have to cope in their day-
today lives with the change phenomena.

The result of the organisational structure of education is that learners become passive
students come to expect that learning experiences will be planned and supervised by
other people, and decisions about results of learning will be made by outsiders.

A SYSTEM OF LIFELONG EDUCATION

LLE maybe regarded as a reaction against traditional model that has just been outlined, or
as an approach to organising education that could avoid some of these problems.

One major characteristic: its rejection of the view that organised, systematic support of
learning should be confined to childhood.

Second characteristic: rejection of the idea that worthwhile, purposeful learning occurs
only in special settings set aside specifically for such purposes.

CONCEPT CHARACTERISTICS:
1. Lasts the whole life of each individual;
2. Lead to the systematic acquisition, renewal and upgrading of knowledge, skills
and attitudes, as became necessary in response to the constantly changing
conditions of modern life, with the ultimate goal of promoting self-fulfillment of
each individual;
3. Be dependent on peoples increasing ability and motivation to engage in self-
directed learning activities;
4. Acknowledge the contribution of all available educational influences including
formal, non-formal and informal.
DIFFERENCES OF ADULT EDUCAITON

LLE =/ Adult education

VERTICAL & HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION