The Purpose of Lifelong Learning - Literature review Example

Note: Please if you need anything just sends me a simple message and I will respond ASAP. Thanks! The Purpose of Lifelong Learning 1. Introduction Lifelong learning was originally intended to prepare the workforce and enable continuous learning through life. In other words, lifelong learning is about systematic individual development which recipients can use to maintain, advanced, or change their career. Lifelong learning is also about individual’s ability to manage their skills and level of competitiveness as well as controlling the outcome of their social and economic well-being. Recently however, this widening conception has been under criticism because for some people such notion is restrictive of its initial purpose and somewhat focusing on self-directed, individually controlled learning and ”species of liberal education” (Aspin 2001, p.15) than national workforce development. The following sections discusses these varying conceptions of lifelong learning and its value along with the nature of vocations, its connection to people’s working lives and vocational education, and the purpose of vocational education itself in promoting and enabling lifelong learning. These include the determining and justifying purpose and relationship of lifelong to vocational education based on own professional experience. 2. Conception of Lifelong Learning Lifelong learning was actually a product of different associated concept John Dewey sometime in the 1960s already saw the importance of continuous education and learning to the community and its people which was later adapted by ILO, UNESCO, and the OECD that subsequently added the concept “re-entry into education for adults”| (OECD, 1998, p.35) . Although termed differently as in ‘continuing education’, ‘recurrent education’ for OECD, and ‘lifelong education’ for UNESCO and the Council of Europe, the organising concept is still lifelong learning. The difference is that some of these organisations, OECD for instance, widened its scope and include a learning society that can access formal and non-formal education in different institutions and settings. For clarity, the concept of lifelong learning differ from traditional educational system because it allows vertical integration or learning at any age and recognised the capacity of people to learn in different ways or horizontal integration (Aspin 2001, p.572). It is not comparable with second-chance education and training for adults because it is wider in scope and does not discriminate on type of learners and setting (McKenzie 2001, p.368). Lifelong learning in its initial form is merely a cognitive process that mainly starts in early childhood and ends in old age. It is generally conceived as a form of education where one gets a degree and non-formal learning with earned knowledge and skills but no reward. If lifelong learning is continuous direct formal and informal activities intended for development of knowledge and skills then it can viewed as discovering, acquiring, and organising pieces of information throughout a person’s life (O’hidy 2008, p.18). Since lifelong learning as interpreted by large organisations like OECD, UNESCO, and others appears knows no boundaries in terms of knowledge acquisition and place of learning, it has blurred the distinction between different levels of education. In Australia for instance, Further Education was generally for training while Higher Education is for education but today students can also get vocational education in universities while others can go to TAFE colleges to take degree level programmes (Hativah & Goodyear 2002, p.266). The idea that learning may stretch out across a lifetime according to Field (2006) is beautiful and reality of the new educational order and economic requirements. This is because many industrial countries are suffering from significant competitive disadvantage due to outdated knowledge and skills of their workforce (p.10). However, excessive emphasis on the vocational and economics benefits of lifelong created some concerns about the social benefits of learning as well as the significance of informal learning. Another is the view that government is controlling individual and institutions through promotion of lifelong learning policies and practices. Education from this perspective is seen as emancipatory and its good but it can only be realised when it is linked to politics where government strategy is to internalise compliance or self-discipline. Similarly, the argument that lifelong learning is a post-modern condition of education reflects greater heterogeneity, diversity, uncertainty, and fluidity of post-modernity (Morgan-Klein & Osborne 2008, p.6). In other words, lifelong learning is being used by government to control the social order which is likely not. The more credible arguments however is the notion that lifelong learning should be offered in formal course to be of any good and the confusing use of the term “lifelong education” and “lifelong learning” interchangeably. The former argues on the quality of learning that can only be achieved in formal education while latter points to the differences between formal education and learning formally or informally outside the sphere of accepted norms. A learning approach that encourages autonomous learners to become consumers where they abandon their responsibilities, and avoiding hard choices by situating learning on the open market (Hager & Halliday 2008, p.21). 3. Vocations and their relationship to working lives Working professionally entails several responsibilities not only with work but balancing work with our private lives. The relationship between vocation and working lives in is strong particularly in my case where the nature of vocation, unwanted occurrences, and changes in work affects the intensity of my desire and interest at work negatively or positively. For example, I always expect the same work every day and I enjoy working alone thus whenever management ask me to go on field work with others, I suddenly feel sorry for having the job or chosen vocation which is a tiring and not well paying job anyway. The experience is somewhat temporary but the dissatisfaction is accumulating in my heart and mind thinking one day I just have to leave and find a new vocation. If one would follow the thinking the privileged working lives often develop positive internal values, interests, and desire to work then the less privileged is the opposite. Less privileged working lives according to Martin (2011), are those jobs attained by some individual that are not consistent with their hope and dreams or just merely working to survive (p.202). Those that are much affected by disadvantaged working lives are workers with less education and training that are enabler of self-determination and better decisions (Blustein 2006, p.265). This is what the emphasis on preparing and equipping individuals in vocational education is all about as the original lifelong learning conceived by Dewey addresses this issue - identification of the right vocation an individual is suited for and developing capacities to practice the vocation (Billet 2011, p.26). In contrast, changes in working situations in the workplace affects people’s working life particularly in the way they deal with work including decisions they will make later in their working lives such as frequent change of vocation (Heikkinen & Kraus 2009, p.13). The greater impact is on personal identities, self-control, self-commercialisation, and self-rationalisation where individual can no longer effective plan and control his work resulting to overlap between working and private time where the former takes the larger part (Rauner &MacLean 2009, p.498). People often chose the right vocation which I myself made before but similar to my experience; such choices are later shaped by the job and organisation we work for. These include our beliefs, behaviours, and values at work. According to Furnham (2005), people shaped by their working environment make some decisions or take some options that have dramatic impact on their working lives (p.107). This is the reason why I am not taking any drastic decision about getting another vocation or transferring to another organisation. I am afraid the change of vocation or transfer can lead to much greater frustration that ultimately will bring down as a worker and professional. There is thus a strong relationship between vocation and people’s working lives and by analysis, this relationship is inseparable due to the fact our vocation is as important as our working lives. 4. Vocation as the basis of vocational education The concept such as ‘education by and in work’ or equivalent to training in school and in the workplace in dual systems of vocational education is closely linked to the concept of vocation. For instance, vocation often situates a person’s ability to work and act competently in the workplace thus vocational education and training is part of this development wherein an individual is being equipped with abilities required for his chosen vocation (Hayward & James 2004, p.121). In my professional experience for instance, I cannot imagine working effectively without my training and skills acquired from this learning institution. Vocation in my opinion is something individual chose for various personal or economic reasons thus if one would want to work in that particular vocation, the general tendency is to seek appropriate qualification. Although there seems a sharp distinction when vocational education is applied with lifelong learning as aside from formal development of skills or abilities it can also be used to non-instrumental reasons, the use of lifelong learning in vocational education is undoubtedly larger and common. The liberal use of lifelong learning to pursue knowledge for individual’s own sake (Collins & O’Brien 2011, p.491) in my experience is rare considering since many of us in the workplace still think along the line of national economic needs and prosperity. In fact, as far as I am concern, none of us can succeed in our vocation without vocational education and the reason we took the course – appropriate and updated knowledge and skills for our chosen vocation. This sharp distinction as mentioned earlier is being used to criticise lifelong learning as a form of autonomous education transforming students into consumers of learning in the open market but I honestly do not feel that way. This is because in my experience lifelong learning taken in vocational institutions does not make us anymore than students seeking qualification for our respective vocation. If it does some sort of consumerism then deciding to take another vocation is easy but it is not. This is because vocation is a progressive activity with a purpose (Dewey 1966, p.309) which people usually do not change so often. Aside from the reality that people do not play around with their vocation, they generally select their vocation first then take vocational education. In other words, vocation is the basis of vocational education and not the other way around. Moreover, it is argued that vocation is always been the basis of vocational education because the interest that guides an individual in choosing his or her vocation is the same interest that drives them to select the vocation courses (Sharma 1994, p.121). For example, when a certain individual wants to work as a carpenter he will likely enrol in vocational courses that have something to do with carpentry or the vocation he is targeting. Similarly, those that graduated from vocational teaching courses will never take carpentry as vocation simply because they are not trained for such job. 5. Educational worth of the current conception of lifelong learning and purpose of vocational education As mentioned earlier, lifelong learning was conceived with useful and flexible education in mind. This is actually the reason why it is closely identified with vocational training and adult literacy programmes (Aspin 2000, p.571). The current conception is no different in terms of education aside from the fact that it is clearly an expanded version of the original conception where emphasis to liberal education seems excessive or beyond its intended purpose. However, this does not necessarily mean it is losing its educational worth but rather merely blurring distinction between quality of learning taken from vocational institution and learning anywhere as Bagnal (2000) presented in his article wherein educational value is determined by the extent of vocational skills learned and can be applied at work (p.22) This is what some literature termed as de-contextualized and situated learning where the former occurs in formal educational institutions while the other occurs in everyday setting as a product of life (Knapper & Cropley 2000, p.38). It thus important to note that activities such as sport, watching movies, and others have significant educational value but they are not necessarily equal to the value acquired in formal setting. According to Knapper & Cropley (2000), systematic lifelong education is not entirely about liberal education or learning but integration and strengthening of such type of learning, its major features and all, to learning within institutions (p.37). In similar manner, it is also true that learning is shaped by every activity people are engaged including social interaction and activities in the workplace (Billet 2001, p.20). In other words, learning anywhere has its own educational value but it is not necessarily to be labelled as lifelong learning by itself. Therefore, the educational worth of lifelong learning can only be achieved through the above mentioned integration where vocational education play an important role as integrating body of combined knowledge and skills. “Creativity in the production processes must be matched by creativity in education “(Gelpi 1986 cited in Forrester et al. 1995, p.303). The purpose of vocational education from this perspective is the development of knowledge and skills including those that are learnt or acquired as a product of everyday life. For example, a particular person may be well-experienced cashier in their own restaurant but no formal training or qualification required by the industry thus his chances of landing a job outside the family business is low. Through lifelong learning, vocational institutions can help this person developed his skills to meet the standard of the industry and later receive qualifications he can use to land a job. Similarly, given that this same person does have an accounting background but earned 25 years ago, lifelong learning through vocational institutions can do the same but this time it would be an upgrading of skills that would suit current industry standards and requirements. The education worth of lifelong learning in my professional experience is priceless not only because of the above example but own practices at work. For instance, although it seems I am very familiar with my current vocation, there are certain times that I have to stop and think of what I am going to do particularly when a new process is introduced or at times when I have to use a new office equipment which I am not familiar with. This is induced by the changes occurring in production and emergence of new technologies (Belenger 1999, p.20). This changes I am talking about happen so frequently for the last two years and I can imagine the impact of such changes to my knowledge and skills when I go on vacation and return after 3 months. The point here is simple, the work environment and practices are rapidly changing and if no lifelong learning around, those who decided to leave the workforce say 10 years ago can never come back to their previous vocation. Similarly, those that stayed and trying to catch up with the rapid change would be spending majority of their time self-upgrading. 6. Conclusion The purpose of lifelong learning in general is to help people from all walks of life and from all ages to earn knowledge and skills they can use to work and for other purposes. The current conception of lifelong learning is clearly an expanded version of John Dewey’s principle but it does not necessarily mean that its educational value is lost. In fact, as mentioned earlier, it is actually harnessing the educational value of different types of learners and settings. Although the current conception may viewed as commercial, political and so on, the fact that its affordable, practical, and useful mode of education makes it relevant to the changing world. 7. References Aspin D, (2001), International handbook of lifelong learning, Vol.2, Springer, United Kingdom Bagnal R, (2000), Lifelong learning and the limitations of the economic determinism, International Journal of Lifelong Education, 19:1, pp.20-35 Belanger P, (1999), Adult learning and the transformation of work, in M. Singh (ed) Adult Learning and the Future of Work, Hamburg, UNESCO Institute for Education, pp. 19-28 Billet S, (2001), Learning Throughout Working Life, Interdependencies at Work, Studies in Continuing Education, 23:1, pp. 19-35 Biller S, (2011), Vocational Education: Purposes, Traditions, and Prospects, Springer, Australia Blustein D, (2006), The psychology of working: a new perspective for career development, counselling, and public policy, Routledge, United Kingdom Collins J. & O’Brien N, (2011), The Greenwood Dictionary of Education: 2nd Edition, ABC-CLIO, United States Dewey J, (1966), Vocational Aspects of Education (Chapter 23), in Democracy and Education, The Free Press, New York, pp. 306-320 Field J, (2006), Lifelong learning and the new educational order, Trentham Books, United Kingdom Forrester K, Payne J, & Ward K, (1995), Lifelong education and the workplace: A critical analysis, International Journal of Lifelong Education, Vol. 14, No.4, pp. 292-305 Furnham A, (2005), The psychology of behaviour at work: the individual in the organization, Psychology Press, United States Hagger P. & Halliday J, (2008), Recovering informal learning: Wisdom, Judgement, and Community, Springer, United Kingdom Hativah N. & Goodyear P, (2002), Teacher thinking, beliefs, and knowledge in higher education, Springer, Netherlands Hayward G. & James S, (2004), Balancing the skills equation: key issues and challenges for policy and practice, The Policy Press, United Kingdom Heikkinen A. & Kraus K, (2009), Reworking vocational education: policies, practices, and concepts, Peter Lang, Germany Knapper C. & Cropley A, (2000), Lifelong learning in higher education, Routledge, United Kingdom Martin P, (2011), IAAP Handbook of Applied Psychology, John Wiley and Sons, United Kingdom McKenzie P, (2001), How to make lifelong learning a reality: Implications for one planning of educational provision in Australia, Aspin D, Chapman J, Hatton J, & Sawano Y., eds, International Handbook of Lifelong Learning, pp. 367-377 Morgan-Klein B. & Osborne M, (2008), The Concepts and Practices of Lifelong Learning, Routledge, United Kingdom OECD, (1998), Pathways and Participation in Vocational and Technical Education and Training, OECD Publishing, France O’hindy A, (2008), Lifelong learning: Interpretations of an education policy in Europe, VS Verlag, Berlin Rauner F. & MacLean R, (2009), Handbook of technical and vocational education and training research, Springer, Germany Sharma S, (1994), Vocational Education and Training, Mittal Publications, New Delhi Read More