Handbook

Introduction

The complexities of modern life demand adaptability – populations that are resilient, open to change and willing to engage in learning throughout life. Increased mobility, population displacement, climate and technological change, threats to global health and democratic systems, and new patterns of economic production and consumption affect, in different ways, almost all countries in the world.

Lifelong learning (LLL) represents an effective and potentially transformational means of addressing many of these new challenges. Increasingly, the global community is waking up to the fact that investing in learning throughout life – for everyone – fosters democratic citizenship; improves employability through the promotion of flexibility, creativity and productivity; promotes people’s health and well-being; and makes communities more cohesive. In other words, it makes a major contribution to sustainable development across countries, regions and localities. The value of lifelong learning has become still more apparent as the global community tackles the profound, shared challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, which, as well as precipitating an acute public health crisis, has significantly disrupted education. Governments, institutions and individual facilitators have had to adapt rapidly to restrictions in order to ensure continuity of learning and, where more traditional learning programmes in classrooms have not been possible, online alternatives have sprung up. Non-formal and informal learning have come to the fore with a proliferation of more flexible online courses, new communication channels between education stakeholders, and the opening up of vast collections of digital resources.

LLL may help to address problems arising from rapid demographic changes and mass movements of people – whether the result of armed conflict or the climate crisis – and to promote tolerance and democratic values in the face of seismic social and economic changes (see Singh, 2018), since LLL comprises different models, platforms and interventions aimed at distributing flexible learning opportunities for different populations, regardless of their location, personal characteristics or previous educational experiences.

LLL also mitigates challenges posed by the recent digital revolution: as robotics, artificial intelligence and increased connectivity rapidly transform our world, demands for new skills for workers and different forms of citizenship emerge. All of these factors, among others, are making LLL an economic, political, social and environmental imperative for any country, as it plays an important role in reducing social and economic inequalities, and enhancing social, civic and community life.

Advancing the adoption of LLL means actively informing and sensitizing decision-makers, as well as developing national and local capacities to better understand the benefits this model can bring to bear. This handbook serves the latter purpose, providing information, evidence and basic conceptual models to facilitate the adoption of LLL in national and local settings. It provides evidence from diverse initiatives and describes some of the contemporary issues to which lifelong learning responds – including how it shapes the sustainability agenda. The aim is to help policy-makers and potential champions identify and create opportunities to communicate the core principles of lifelong learning, and to formulate and implement lifelong learning policies and programmes that are cognizant of contemporary issues. Taking a global, comprehensive perspective, this handbook supports the strengthening of lifelong learning systems in all contexts.