28 mars 2008

Lifelong learning beyond Bologna

EUA - Trends V: Universities shaping the European Higher Education area

Institutions in the process of reconsidering their traditional curriculum need to give a higher priority to
lifelong learning, and to consider this agenda as a central element of institutional strategic development.

Lifelong learning offers ways to rethink approaches to higher education, as well as for institutions to develop
relationships with other formal and informal education providers and the rest of society. However, the term
“lifelong learning” is itself the subject of conceptual misunderstanding, used confusingly both to cover
continuing education and training for qualified graduates, and initial education for disadvantaged groups
often through part-time education. Although it may have been expected at the beginning of the decade that
lifelong learning would be central to institutional reform processes, this has so far failed to happen, with issues
of structural reform taking precedence over these challenges. Lifelong learning has thus been developed
more on the periphery of institutional strategy, rather than as a driving element of it.

Download report here: EUA_Trends_V_for_web.pdf (application/pdf Object)