3.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LIFELONG LEARNING

It is imperative to say LLL has many importance to all nations, all ages, throughout all
civilization regardless of any demography. People will be motivated to lifelong learning
either for personal development or professional development. In this section, the
importance of LLL will be discussed according to three different target group, namely
individual, society and the nation.

3.1. The importance of LLL for an individual

3.1.1. LLL provide opportunity to satisfy human’s needs as described by Maslow’s Theory
of Motivation

LLL provides the opportunity to seek for knowledge in order to satisfy human’s need
to know and understand, to attain balance in life and finally realizing personal potentials or
often termed as self-actualization. According to Journal Psyche’s website, the father of
humanistic psychology, Abraham Maslow has developed a theory of human motivation that
influence human behaviour in several field including education. Based on Maslow’s study, it
is found that there are seven levels of basic need common to people and presented them in a
pyramid shape hierarchy and termed it as hierarchy of human needs. These seven levels of
needs can be categorized into two, the first four levels from bottom to top is categorized as
the Growth Needs. After fulfilling the deficiency needs, human naturally will be motivated to
satisfy the growth needs. LLL provides access to education and training either through formal
or non-formal, as well as informal learning.

Table 2 : Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

3.1.2. LLL is a key driver to enchance employability and career advancements and reduced
unemployment rate.

Employablity refers to the ability to find, keep or change a job position. This ability
correclates an individual needs and determinedby combination of individual’s attitude,
knowledge and skills. According to Babos, Lubyova & Studena (2015), there are evidences
that suggests strong links between participation in lifelong learning and employability. The
way an individual copes with changing economic and social environment is in major way
connected to his or her employments prospects.
Babos et. All (2015) stated that a study on the outcomesof non-formal learning activities (a
form of LLL) reveals that they are well recognized the participants as to have had positives
effects on their employability. The journal also provided a chart that summarized the
outcomes of the study as below;

Figure1: Outcomes of one non-formal learning activities per individual participant , including
all countries in Adult Education Survey, Sources: AES 2011, Eurostat.

The chart shows a positive outcomes for those participants who had attended non-formal
learning. Fifteen (15( percent of participants had managed to get new jobs and seven (7)
percent of them has managed to get promotion in their current job. Based on the above, it is
not wrong to also correlate lifelong learning is the key driver to reduce unemployment rate.

ACCA Global, the global body for professional accountants listed in their website eight
important skills that improve employability. The eight skills are;

1. Initiative
2. Commercial acumen
3. Professionalism
4. Innovation
5. Project management
6. Communication and presentation
7. Teamwork
8. Networking

All the above skills need to be learned and polished in order to apply it in practice by the
employees.