Lifelong learning can empower individuals, support sustainable economic growth and contribute to just societies. That is why the EU is focused on making it a right for all, writes Maya Ivanova of the European Commission
The right
to lifelong learning is an investment in our future – an investment that pays
dividends many times over by helping people to maintain and acquire skills, to
participate fully in society and to manage successfully transitions in the
labour market. Today, European Union (EU) countries are firmly committed to
making the right to lifelong learning a reality for all. The road ahead hides hurdles,
but also opportunities. Having embarked on a journey towards universal access
to lifelong learning, the EU can offer insights valuable beyond the continent.
The world of work is undergoing a
fundamental shift. Although it is not easy to picture exactly the jobs of the
future, understanding the driving forces
that shape our tomorrow can help us prepare for the challenges ahead. Continue reading →
The challenges facing education demand responses that are genuinely transformative. But how should we understand transformative education and what can we do to promote it, asks Katarina Popović.
The crises
caused by the COVID-19 pandemic inspired a wave of new and revived concepts, ideas
and practices in education. The need for a new approach had been highlighted in
response to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and our likely
failure to deliver against Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on
education by 2030. Continuing educational disparities and exacerbated gaps and
setbacks underscore the urgent need to promote adult education and lifelong
learning for all.
One of the
ideas born out of this sense of urgency is ‘transformative education’, which
UNESCO defines as teaching
and learning ‘geared to motivate and empower happy and healthy learners to take
informed decisions and actions at the individual, community and global levels’.
The concept dominates discussions about post-crises education and is perceived
as a panacea for many of today’s problems in education.
Without robust, high-quality and relevant adult learning and education programmes, we are in danger of neglecting our workforce and reducing the chances of a sustainable future, argues Paul Comyn of the International Labour Organization.
Adult learning and
education (ALE) serves multiple
purposes in many different local and national community contexts, one of which
is to support adults to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will
enable them to look for and find work, either in paid employment or through
other livelihoods. Employability is a key concept that underpins the work of
the International Labour Organization (ILO), which it defines
as the ‘portable competencies and qualifications that enhance an individual’s
capacity to make use of the education and training opportunities available in
order to secure and retain decent work, to progress within the enterprise and
between jobs, and to cope with changing technology and labour market conditions.’
Investing in lifelong learning and strengthening it against future shocks is essential to enabling people and societies to adapt to the changing world of work, writes Francesca Borgonovi of the OECD Centre for Skills
Ⓒ Perfect Angle Images / Shutterstock.com
The COVID-19 pandemic is the worst health
crisis in a century. It has caused deep shocks and scars in economies and societies
throughout the world. The pandemic continues to cause major difficulties for
businesses and to challenge individuals around the world, creating disruptions
to trade and labour shortages at a time of increased energy prices. At the same
time, the recovery plans that many countries put in place to heal the scars of
the pandemic could now be threatened by the war in Ukraine, the associated geopolitical
instability and its consequences for the global economy.
Now, more than ever, it is important to
invest in lifelong learning to ensure that individuals and societies will be
able to navigate and integrate into a rapidly changing world of work. Learning
from the past two years is critical to strengthening the resilience of lifelong
learning systems to future and ongoing shocks.
As preparations begin in earnest for CONFINTEA VII, it is critical that Southeast Asia continues to contribute to the global movement for adult education and lifelong learning as part of a sustainable future, writes Ethel Agnes Pascua-Valenzuela
Lifelong learning plays a significant role
in building a learning society and, therefore, supporting a nation’s economic
development. Because of this, there is growing awareness in Southeast Asia of
the importance of lifelong learning and of engaging stakeholders on issues of sustainable
development.
Interest in
developing lifelong learning systems took root in Southeast Asia in the early
2010s, when the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO)
established the SEAMEO Regional Centre for Lifelong Learning in Ho Chi Minh
City, Viet Nam. The centre functions as a setting for countries in the
region to share knowledge, strengthen national educational strategies, train teachers,
and expand cooperation between universities and civil society in order to
enhance literacy and lifelong learning opportunities for all. Continue reading →
Adult education is about more than learning, argues António Nóvoa, former Permanent Representative of Portugal to UNESCO. International Women’s Day is a reminder that it is also key to delivering on our commitments to human rights.
We live in a strange time. Every day we reaffirm
our commitment to human rights, and every day we deny them. And we seem unable
to understand the importance of considering new rights, especially in relation
to the planet and access to the digital sphere.
We live in a strange world. Every day we reaffirm
the importance of gender equality, and every day we deny it, through gestures,
words and silences. And we seem incapable of understanding that, today, equality
rhymes with diversity; it implies ensuring freedom of identity and gender
orientation. Continue reading →
The UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development is an opportunity to create a culture of sustainable living. But it will only be successful if we find better ways to support and strengthen adult learning and education for sustainable development, argues Christiana Nikolitsa-Winter
The UNESCO
World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development takes place from 17
to 19 May 2021. While education at all levels has experienced unprecedented
interruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact on adult learning and
education (ALE) has been little considered, certainly when compared to schools
and universities. While the pandemic has highlighted the importance of ALE in
coping with and emerging from the crisis, it has also deprived adults around
the world of access to education, and presented providers with difficult challenges in maintaining their learning
offers, with a particularly, and by now depressingly familiar, negative impact on the poorest and least-advantaged.
It is important that we reflect on this and consider, in particular, the key
role of ALE in sustainable development and how we can foster it. I would like
to reflect briefly on the role of ALE in education for sustainable development
(ESD) and in building bridges to a future that is safe, fair, inclusive and
sustainable.
Sustainable
development begins with education. Agenda
21, adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 in Rio
de Janeiro, recognized the critical role that education plays in the transition to sustainable
development. Education is an essential tool in making individuals aware of the issue
of sustainability and providing them with related skills, while encouraging them
to take actions and find solutions to the local and global challenges we face. In
addition, education for sustainable development and citizenship education are
strongly linked. Yet, although the question of sustainability has risen to the
top of policy agendas worldwide, policy action is limited, particularly in
adult learning and education. Continue reading →
When we
talk about infrastructure, we tend to think of roads, railways, cables and
other physical networks crossing the landscape, enabling economic activity and
growth. But the term can be extended to other areas that provide people with
ways to achieve their goals, such as culture, research, and, of course,
learning.
This blog
looks at the last of these – the infrastructure for learning, throughout life.
In particular, it considers the role of libraries both as providers of support
and as partners and platforms for others, and looks at how to make the
most of the unique characteristics of libraries as public, non-commercial,
well-known and trusted community spaces. Continue reading →
To truly achieve sustainable development, writes Norman Jackson, we must embrace, consciously and fully, our experiences and what we learn and become through them.
Humankind has always engaged in lifelong learning, but it has
meant different things at different points in time. This will always be the case. In this period of rapid transformation, contemporary society obliges people to learn and to keep on
learning throughout their lives. The world is complex, hyper-connected and increasingly turbulent. It is also fragile, and cannot be sustained if we carry on using it in the way we have.
The idea that lifelong
learning can be harnessed in the service of preserving our presence on this fragile planet is gaining more traction among sustainability’s strategic planners. Remedies to the myriad
threats to our survival can be found in the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Education has its own goal – SDG 4 – which
calls on countries to ‘ensure
inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’ (UN, 2015).SDG 4 advocates a new role for education: to educate the
world in ways that encourage behaviours that support
sustainable development. Continue reading →
The COVID-19 pandemic could come to be seen either as an important turning point for humanity or a huge missed opportunity, a landmark in the decline of human civilization. The choice, in the end, is ours, writes Paul Stanistreet.
As the 51st
World Economic Forum (WEF) meets virtually to discuss
rebuilding trust, making ‘crucial’ choices and reforming systems in the context
of the agenda WEF founder Klaus Schwab describes as the ‘great reset’, it is
clear that we are living through times of profound change and challenge, in some
respects unprecedented in human history.
And whether you
welcome this for reasons of social justice and the promotion of equity and
equality, or see as it a threat to entrenched systems of advantage that must be
carefully, and, if necessary, coercively, managed, it is clear that the
COVID-19 pandemic has created a rare moment in the human story when we have an
opportunity to read the map, change direction and do things differently. Continue reading →
