From Adult Education to Lifelong Learning

Abstract

There are two reasons why it seems to us timely to reconsider the concept of learning. The first reason, as we will outline in section one, is that there is a contemporary emphasis on learning (eg lifelong learning, the learning society, the establishment of an Institute for Teaching and Learning) with universities facing an unaccustomed emphasis on teaching/learning quality issues. Our second reason, as we will argue in sections two and three, is that we believe that the current policy emphasis on lifelong learning is influencing conceptions of adult education. In the chapter as a whole, we attempt to convey a contemporary transition from ``adult education'' to ``lifelong learning.'' We agree that the current global movement towards lifelong learning could be seen as a paradigm shift, now in train, which, in the context of adult education, we suggest, is blurring the old and clear distinction between `learning' and `education'.