LLinE Lifelong Learning in Europe

Orientation - relationship of work and learning

The ever-interesting theme of the relationship of work and learning is taken up in the issue from many angles. The huge British Teaching and Learning Research Programme scrutinises the practices and impact of education through the whole life-span, and is now planning its final stages. Most of education has an overall goal of empowering people either in life in general or in work. And finally, the issue ends up asking whose voice actually is heard in society.

VALUING LEARNING FOR RESULTS?

300 RESEARCHERS SCRUTINIZE LEARNING IN THE UK. LLINE INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW POLLARD

The UK has made a major investment on research on learning through the Teaching and Learning Research Programme TLRP. It is cross-sectorial and covers the whole life-span. The empirical work will be finished in 2007, then they have a year for analysis and dissemination of the results. OECD has concentrated on defining the key competencies, asking what lifelong learning is targeted for. http://tlrp.org

Hannele Niemi
LEARNING TOWARDS EMPOWERMENT IN THE FUTURE EUROPE

Life-wide learning as empowerment means continuous processes of learning, vertically throughout various ages, and horizontally in cross-boundary spaces of life. It is essential that people manage their own learning in different situations. In life-wide learning they need skills for self-regulated learning and collaboration. We need high quality research on how to build empowering learning spaces, we need system-level structures which respect humanity and the real needs of people. Advancement of learning is a key social, political and economic objective in Europe. The article gives the summary how European countries have launched or are initiating national research programmes on learning and teaching to meet new challenges of learning. Life as Learning program http://www.aka.fi

Carmel Borg and Peter Mayo
DILUTED WINE IN NEW BOTTLES. THE KEY MESSAGES OF THE MEMORANDUM

After a short discussion on the background of the concept of lifelong learning, the writers concentrate on discussing each of the six messages of the EU Lifelong Learning Memorandum, now a few years after issuing the document.

Dominique Simone Rychen
LIFELONG LEARNING – BUT LEARNING FOR WHAT?

The OECD project Definition and Selection of Competencies: Theoretical and Conceptual Foundations DeSeCo started with a discussion of the concept of key competency. The final report was published in summer 2003. The project involved a wide range of experts and stakeholders like socioloigists, economists, an anthropologist, philosophers, psychologists, a historian, education researchers, statisticians, assessment specialists, policy-makers and policy analysts, unionists, and employers and leading representatives of various sectors and national and international institutions. The Report takes a holistic view on key competencies, also personal development, cognitive and non-cognitive dimensions.
http://www.statistik.admin.ch/stat_ch/ber15/deseco/deseco_strategy_paper_final.pdf
http://www1.worldbank.org/education/pdf/Lifelong%20Learning_GKE.pdf
www.deseco.admin.ch

Raili Moilanen
HRD AND LEARNING FOR WHOSE WELL-BEING?

Even though human resources are in rhetorics valuable, employers need to reflect their values and means in Human Resource Management. the well-being of the best talents is important to keep them in the organisation, especially when the number of retired employees will exceed that of young employees. The article discusses also of human resource development and learning as a historical and relational phenomenon.
In an analysis of some of the writings published in the proceedings of a conference on Researching Work and Learning in order to identify those who gain from development and learning, the focus in them seems to be on the well-being of individuals. Previous studies suggested that the reasons behind learning and human resource development activities concentrate more on organisational aspects.

Attilio Oliva
EMPLOYERS WORRY ABOUT WORKERS’ LEARNING LEVEL
and
Petri Lempinen
APEL AND SCHOOL LEAVERS INTEREST TRADE UNIONS

The surveys in several European countries show that the workforce has too low educational level to be able to answer to the demands of the working life. Both the writers express a concern on the state of employees’ necessity, wish and capacity to lifelong learning under the present circumstances. Training should not be only for work but also for life. And both of them refer to the need to share the financial responsibility for it. In surprising unanimity they propose employers, employees and public authorities to co-finance education and training for the needed skills.

Shirley Pollak
INDIVIDUALISATION AND SUPPORT. THE FLEXIBLE MASTER’S DEGREE PROGRAMME IN DENMARK

New legislation (2000) in Denmark reformed the vocational education and training system (VET reform) structurally to integrate vocational education and training, and the vocational adult education system and the general education system. A master’s degree is the highest level of qualification in the Danish adult education system. They are one-year degree programmes provided as part-time open education, and admission to a programme requires a minimum of two years’ professional experience. The flexible master’s degree programme, as opposed to the institutionally regulated one, is based on an individually chosen topic of study and thus on the needs of adult learners. The present case study examines an innovative form of educational provision for adults in the context of the transformation of universities into institutions of lifelong learning.
http://www2.trainingvillage.gr/etv/agora/themes/agora10.asp
http://pub.uvm.dk/2000/newstructure/
http://us.uvm.dk/voksen/voksenuddannelse/engelskpjece.htm
http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/copenhagen/copenhagen_declaration_en.pdf

VALUES in MULTICULTURAL LEARNING

Wim Smit
PLURALISM AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

After the tragedy in the Balkans, we have to rethink the role of religions and education in religion in the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies. The writer discusses the challenges of secularism (religion is still a strong part of culture) and pluralism in today’s societies, the necessity and difficulty of meeting and dialogue of people from different religions, an inter-religious education.

FACEPA
WHO SPEAKS? IMMIGRANTS’ VOICES IN ADULT EDUCATION

In three different countries (Spain, Romania, Denmark), people have in practice started a dialogue, a meeting with and among local immigrants, by offering a space and encouraging them to use their special knowledge of their own culture to present it to others (also their own children) and guide them in it. Together they have given a voice to these strangers in their communities, and even produced a Manifesto for an Intercultural Adult Education.