Special issue on lifelong learning

1. Introduction

The Scandinavian countries are generally regarded as having the best provision for adult education and lifelong learning, with the highest participation rates:

… adult education and training in Nordic countries remains exceptionally universalistic, allowing the continuous improvements of skills throughout the life course (Green 2021, 24)¹

Singapore is also often cited, with their government’s commitment:

… to developing a Continuing Education Training (CET) ecosystem that is responsive to the evolving skill requirements of the economy and will focus on transforming our Institutes of Higher Learning into Institutes of Continuous Learning. We also commit to supporting trainers and providing subsidies to enable individuals to keep their skills relevant throughout their careers.²

In the UK, on the other hand, Evans and Egglestone (2024) report that the regional inequalities – which were widely reported as having played a major role in the ‘Brexit’ vote, for the UK to leave the European Union – are replicated in terms of learning inequalities, and that these are damaging the economy and the country as a whole. The Financial Times report on Evans and Egglestone (2024) was entitled ‘Funding cuts have halved number of adult learners in England since 2010’ (see Borrett 2024).

2. The special issue papers

This is the global background to this Special Issue of the International Review of Applied Economics on Lifelong Learning, and to its lead article, which is a ‘Manifesto for Lifelong Learning’. This arose in the UK with the aim of influencing what, at the time of writing, is expected to be an incoming Labour Government. The previous Labour Government of 1997–2010 was elected for the first of its three terms with Tony Blair saying the priorities would be ‘Education, Education, and Education’, and this was certainly seen through initially, with Secretary of State for Education David Blunkett demonstrating an understanding of and support for lifelong learning. David Blunkett has since expressed regret that their government was not able to see this through more actively and successfully. The purpose of this Manifesto is thus to impress upon a new government the importance of lifelong learning. And while having been drafted with an immediate focus on the UK, the issues, and the policy needs, have much wider, global significance and importance.

This Manifesto was drafted and agreed by three organisations. The origin of one of them, the Adult Education 100 Campaign, is worth reflecting on. It is sometimes said that with the current climate crisis, threats of pandemics, armed conflict, threats to democracy, and inequality of income, wealth, geography and power we are living through unprecedented crises. During an earlier time of grave crisis, namely the 1914–1918 World War, the UK Government established a Ministry of Reconstruction, and probably the most impactful thing they did was create a Committee on Adult Education whose 1919 Final Report called for education for all, throughout life, as being vitally important for the future of the economy, society, individual development, and democracy. Given the importance and relevance of this message for seeing a way through to recovery from today’s multiple crises, the Adult Education 100 Campaign was formed to draw attention to this call, a century later. This Campaign thus created a Centenary Commission on Lifelong Learning, which published its report exactly one hundred years on, in November 2019.

The other two signatories are the National Education Opportunities Network, which promotes access to and inclusion in education, and the Universities Association for Lifelong Learning, which represents the adult education and lifelong learning activities of UK universities, although it also has member universities globally, along with partnership agreements with equivalent national bodies and international associations.

Of the subsequent pieces in this issue, one is from the UK, and the other from Canada, with two review articles discussing a collection of five books that cover these issues in various ways.

In ‘The benefits of university adult learning’, Professor Michael Osborne traces the ways in which lifelong learning has emerged in policy discourse in the UK since the 1980s, the arguments and evidence for its benefits, and the means by which it has been supported and implemented.

In ‘Experiences of Microcredentials in Canada: Perspectives, Possibilities, and a Case for National Data Collection’, Dr Christie Schultz surveys students of micro-credentials to ascertain their expectations and experiences, and points out that while data are gathered on degree courses, they are not for what is a growing educational phenomenon, with which data collection exercises need to catch up and encompass.³

‘“A permanent national necessity … ”: the long revolution will resume’ discusses The 60-Year curriculum: new models for lifelong learning in the digital economy, edited by Christopher J. Dede and John Richards; Lifelong Learning, Young Adults and the Challenges of Disadvantage in Europe, edited by John Holford, Pepka Boyadjieva, Sharon Clancy, Günter Hefler and Ivana Studená, and Raymond Williams and education: history, culture, democracy, by Ian Menter. The review article argues that the common thread across the three works is indeed the call in 1919 from the Ministry of Reconstruction ‘as to what was necessary for society and the economy to emerge out of multiple crises caused by World War One, and how the key ingredient of adult education and lifelong learning could be a force for good in enabling the newly extended electorate to play an educated role in the governance of the country’:

This is precisely what is urgently needed today. … there is indeed a way to reconstruct from our multiple crises of the economy and austerity; pandemics; the changing world of work, with increased insecurity in the gig economy and the threats from unregulated Artificial Intelligence and robotics; mental health and wellbeing; ‘left behind’ regions; unsustainable inequalities of income, wealth, geography and power; societal division, drug epidemics, and homelessness; and the threats to democracy from the misuse of social media and the rise of demagoguery.

Finally, ‘The role and importance of residential adult education’ reviews books by Dr Sharon Clancy on Sir George Trevelyan, Residential Adult Education and the New Age: ‘To Open the Immortal Eye’, and Professor Mark Freeman on The Vital Message: Continuing Education and the University of Cambridge 1945–2020, both of which in various ways explore not only the importance of adult education and lifelong learning, but also how this can most effectively be delivered, and the positive role that residential colleges and universities can play, have played, and should play in achieving these outcomes which are so important for the economy, for society, for individuals, and for democracy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. And see Figure 13 of Green (2021), showing Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway respectively having the highest participation rates globally.

2. See https://www.moe.gov.sg/microsites/forwardsg/lifelong-growth.html.

3. Dr Christie Schultz was a recent President of the Canadian Association of University Continuing Education.