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From Lifelong Education to Lifelong Learning

Lifelong Education and Lifelong Learning are related but different concepts. Many people use them as equivalent.To a great extent, this is due to the fact that most people do not distinguish between education and learning. There are also many translation problems.

A few examples:

» Paul Lengrand's book An Introduction to Lifelong Education was published by UNESCO in 1970, International Education Year. Lifelong Education was selected by the General
Conference of UNESCO as one of twelve major themes proposed to Member States in connection with the international year. The book was translated into Spanish as Una introducción al Aprendizaje a lo Largo de la Vida o Una introducción al Aprendizaje Permanente.

» The Faure Report (Report to UNESCO by the International Commission on the Development of Education, Learning to be: Education in the Future, 1972) proposed two basic concepts: lifelong education and learning society. In the report in Spanish they were translated respectively as permanent education and educative society.

» The Delors Report (Report to UNESCO by the International Commission on Education for the 21st Century, 1996) was published in French as L'Education: Un trésor est caché dedans, in English as Learning, the treasure within, and in Spanish as La educación encierra un tesoro.

» 1996 was proclaimed European Year of Lifelong Learning (translated into Spanish as Año Europeo de la Educación a lo Largo de la Vida o Año Europeo de la Educación Permanente).

» Sustainable Development Objective 4 (SDG4) within the Agenda 2030 aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” Many translate «lifelong learning opportunities» as «oportunidades educativas».

■ The Faure Report (1972) and the Delors Report (1996) referred to lifelong education and to lifelong learning. The Faure Report proposed “lifelong education as the master concept for educational policies in the years to come for both developed and developing countries.” At the same time, the main concepts proposed by the Faure Commission were learning, learning to learn, and learning society. The title of the report - Learning to Be - indicates its main concern and orientation.

The report is based on four basic assumptions: 1) the existence of an international community, moving towards the same destiny, 2) the belief in democracy, each man's right to realize his own potential and to share in the building of his own future, 3) the aim of development as the complete fulfilment of man, in all the richness of his personality, 4) the need for an overall, lifelong education, able to produce «the complete man». We should no longer assiduously acquire knowledge once and for all, but learn how to build up a continually evolving body of knowledge all through life.

The report began with a critical assessment of the educational situation in 1972 and some of its «dead ends». It aimed at having a practical nature, that is, leading to action, in the twenty-three countries that were visited by the Commission members.

“The Commission laid stress above all on two fundamental ideas: lifelong education and the learning society (…) If all that has to be learned must be continually re-invented and renewed, then teaching becomes education and, more and more, learning. If learning involves all of one's life, in the sense of both time-span and diversity, and all of society, including its social and economic as well as its educational resources, then we must go even further than the necessary overhaul of 'educational systems' until we reach the stage of a learning society. For these are the true proportions of the challenge education will be facing in the future" (Preamble, Learning to Be, 1972, page xxxv).

“The aim of education in relation to employment and economic progress should be not so much to prepare young people and adults for specific, life-time vocation, but to ‘optimize' mobility among the professions and afford a permanent stimulus to the desire to learn and to train onself” (Preamble, Learning to Be, 1972, pages xxxiii-xxxiv). (1)

■ The Delors Report, Learning: The Treasure Within (1996), proposed four pillars for education: «learning to be», «learning to do», «learning to know» and «learning to be together». Learning throughout life was translated as lifelong education. Learning society was translated into Spanish as educative society and as cognitive society (sociedad cognitiva).

■ The Report of the International Commission on the Futures of Education, created by UNESCO in 2019 (Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education, UNESCO, 2021) refers to lifelong education. It does not mention lifelong learning. It defends "the right to quality education throughout life".

From the right to education to the right to learning

Many countries acknowledge in their constitutions and education laws the right to education throughout life, including all ages: childhood, adolescence, youth and adulthood. However, few acknowledge the right to lifelong learning, which implies ensuring effective learning in education systems and learning opportunities beyond classrooms.

» Education implies a teaching-learning relationship, whether it is formal education (organized education taking place in education systems at the various levels) or non-formal education (organized but more flexible education taking place on the margins of the formal system).

» Learning occurs with or without teaching. Informal learning takes place everyday, in daily life, without the intervention of a teacher or an educator. Children learn while playing; play is their main learning resource; they learn to speak without anyone teaching them to speak. Most of what we learn in life is informal learning through observing, listening, talking, working, reading, watching TV, interacting with nature, navigating in the Internet, etc.

Speaking of lifelong education implies speaking of educational institutions and opportunities, that is, instances mediated by teaching acts or processes.

Speaking of lifelong learning implies incorporating the vast world of informal learning, learning thtat is mostly invisible for the conventional world of education. (The majority of people do not acknowledge, for example, that students learned during the COVID-19 confinement, while schools were closed. For most people, learning is associated with classrooms and teachers).

It is worth noting that the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) refers to formal education, non-formal education and informal learning. There is no informal education: informal learning is mostly autonomous learning, self-learning, without teaching involved.

Lifelong Education and Lifelong Learning

Lifelong Education (LE) is a concept developed in the late 1960s. Its origin is attributed to Paul Lengrand, Chief of the Continuing Education Section at UNESCO's Department for the Advancement of Education, and author of An Introduction to Lifelong Education (UNESCO, Paris, 1970). Lengrand referred to «lifelong education» as an education covering all ages, and conceived it as a world movement to reorganize and overhaul education, not only to expand it. However, LE - translated into Spanish as educación permanente - has been associated to adult education. ”We by no means identify lifelong education with adult education, as, to our regret, is so often done” (Lengrand, 1975: 20).

After the publication of the Faure Report (1972), Lifelong Education became the focus of the UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE), in Hamburg.

Lifelong Learning (LLL) is a concept introduced in the 1970s. LLL refers to learning throughout life, from birth to death, in formal, non-formal and informal environments. LLL is often translated into Spanish as aprendizaje permanente.

LLL has been proposed by UNESCO as the paradigm for education and learning in the 21st century. "A new vision of education" necessary to achieve the Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development Goal 4.

The UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE), focused on adult and continuing education, literacy and non-formal basic education, changed its name to UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) in 2006.

*Lifelong Education*	*Lifelong Learning*
- The concept emerged in the 1960s. - Paul Lengrand, An Introduction to Lifelong Education, UNESCO, 1970. - After the publication of the Faure Report (1972), Lifelong Education became the focus of the UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE), in Hamburg.	- The concept developed in the 1970s. - The European Union adopted the concept in the 1990s. - The UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE), in Hamburg, focused on adult and non-formal education, changed its name to UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) in 2006.
Focus on education.	Focus on learning.
Speaks of educating society.	Speaks of learning society.
	Lifelong and lifewide learning. Learnng as a continuum, from birth to death, everywhere, in and out of classrooms.
Formal and non-formal education, out-of-school education.	Learning in formal, non-formal and informal environments, with or without teaching.
Mentioned by the Faure Report (1972) and the Delors Report (1996). The Faure Report proposed two main concepts: lifelong education and learning society for both developed and developing countries.	Mentioned by the Faure Report (1972) and the Delors Report (1996). Also mentioned in the Jomtien Declaration (1990, Education for All) and in the Incheon Declaration (2015, Sustainable Development Goals).
“A new concept of education that takes into consideration constant and universal needs of human beings to educate themselves and to progress": Lengrand.	Proposed by UNESCO as the paradigm for education and learning in the 21st century. "A new vision of education" necessary to achieve the Agenda 2030 and Sustaiable Development Goal 4.
Elaboration: Rosa María Torres

Notes

(1) Given the usual translation problems, I decided to translate the English texts myself. In the case of the Faure report there are numerous inconsistencies between the text in English and its Spanish translation https://www.berrigasteiz.com/monografikoak/inklusibitatea/pubs/unesco_aprender%20a%20ser.pdf

References

» Comunidades Europeas: Un memorándum sobre el aprendizaje a lo largo de toda la vida, publicado en 2000
https://uil.unesco.org/es/documento/comunidades-europeas-memorandum-sobre-aprendizaje-lo-largo-toda-vida-publicado-2000

» Delors, Jacques, Learning: the treasure within. Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century, UNESCO, Paris, 1996.
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000109590

» Delors, Jacques, La Educación encierra un tesoro. Informe a la UNESCO de la Comisión Internacional sobre la Educación para el Siglo XXI (compendio), UNESCO, París, 1996.
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000109590_spa

» Faure, Edgar, Learning to Be. The World of Education Today and Tomorrow. Report of the International Commission on the Development of Education, UNESCO, Paris, 1972.
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000001801

» Faure, Edgar, Aprender a ser. La educación del futuro. Comisión Internacional para el Desarrollo de la Educación, Alianza Editorial/UNESCO, Milán y Madrid, 1973. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000132984

» International Commission on the Futures of Education, Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education, UNESCO, Paris, 2021.
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379707.locale=en

» Lengrand, Paul, An Introduction to Lifelong Education, UNESCO, Paris, 1970.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220612.1972.10671918

» Lengrand, Paul, An Introduction to Lifelong Education, UNESCO, Paris, 1975. (Enlarged edition).
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED118876

» Parkyn, George W, Towards a conceptual model of life-long education, UNESCO, Paris, 1973
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000005902

» Soler Roca, Miguel, “El concepto de educación permanente”, en: Educación, resistencia y esperanza. Antología Esencial, CLACSO, Buenos Aires, 2014.
http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/se/20140718012935/SolerRoca.pdf

» Torres, Rosa María, Lifelong Learning in the South: Critical Issues and Opportunities for Adult Education, SIDA Studies 11, Stockholm, 2004.
https://cdn.sida.se/publications/files/sida4303en-lifelong-learning-in-the-south-critical-issues-and-opportunities-for-adult-education.pdf

» Torres, Rosa María, Lifelong Learning, Sida Studies, Stckholm, 2003
https://cdn.sida.se/publications/files/sida2726en-lifelong-learning.pdf

It all starts at school? It all starts at home

Rosa María Torres

Todo empieza en el hogar

This graph of the 17 Global Sustainable Goals (SDGs) was circulated by the World Bank on Twitter with the following text:

"It all starts at school. Education is key to achieving SDG Goals. Who else agrees?".

I replied saying I disagree. When referring to education, it is not true that it all starts at school.

It all starts at home.

Despite its fundamental role, especially in early childhood, 'home education' or 'family education' is often ignored or sidelined.

The Lifelong Learning paradigm acknowledges that learning is a continuum that starts at birth. Early Childhood Care and Education officially cover from birth to entry into primary school (UNESCO-GEM Report Glossary 2020). Parents, grandparents and other caregivers play the most important role in this early stage of life.

Studies and evaluations throughout the world consistently ratify that family conditions and backgrounds are a major factor in children's present and future life prospects. Parental education is a factor with tremendous impact on children's education and learning in school; it is responsible for over 50% of student achievement in various kinds of national and international standardized tests, including PISA.

Millions of children do not attend school or stay in school only for a short period of time. For them, the family and the community are their main education and learning environments.

School is not a starting point in terms of knowledge. When children arrive in school, they are not blank slates; they know a lot. Some of the fundamental and long-lasting learning experiences take place in early childhood. Without tutors, children become fluent speakers of their language. They know many things about the natural and the social world around them, and have learned to interact with them in many ways. Research shows that important values and attitudes are developed in these early years, prior to any school experience.

School age and school entry may be too late for many interventions. Child malnutrition is high in many counties among children between 2 and 5 years of age. Chronic malnutrition, if not dealt with on time, condemns children to physical, emotional and cognitive problems that may affect them for the rest of their lives.

Contrary to popular belief, reading and writing do not begin at school. Abundant research shows that home and the local community play a key role in stimulating the curiosity and the initial contacts with the written world. Differences between children who have rich cultural contexts at home and those who do not often result in important differences in terms of learning achievement in reading and writing in school.

So: when it comes to education and learning, and seen with a Lifelong Learning perspective, it is not true that all starts at school. It all starts at home and we must make sure to provide families with the best conditions possible to raise and educate their children, including dignified living conditions and parental education.

Related texts in this blog

- Pre-niños: Los cimientos invisibles
- Los niños pequeños deberían ser los mimados de la sociedad. Entrevista con Rosa María Torres

- El trauma del primer grado

- Tarjetas navideñas

- Educaciones

- El enfoque del Aprendizaje a lo Largo de Toda la Vida: Implicaciones para la política educativa en América Latina y el Caribe / The Lifelong Learning approach: Implications for education policy in Latin America and the Caribbean

¿21st century education?

Rosa María Torres

(updated: 27 June, 2021)

Texto en español: ¿Cuál 'educación del siglo 21'?

Everyone talks about 'Education in the 21st Century':

- 21st century skills
- 21st century students
- 21st century educators
- 21st century schools
- 21st century classrooms

Strictly speaking, however, there is no 'Education in the 21st Century'.

▸ What 21st century?

- About 1 in 4 people live in multidimensional poverty or are vulnerable to it.
- More than 40% of the global population does not have any social protection.
- 840 million people live without electricity. 
- Over one thousand million people has no drinking water and 2 in 5 people have no facilities for hand-washing.
- 43% of schools have no facilities to wash hands with water and soap (UNICEF, 2019)
- 6.5 billion people – 85.5% of the global population – don’t have access to reliable broadband internet.
Source: UN/UNDP 2020

The 21st century is not the same for everyone.

Millions of people do not enjoy the benefits of modernity and comfort, do not have running water, toilets, electricity, decent work and housing, reading and writing, good education opportunities, basic services and basic citizenship rights.

Inequalities - within each country, between countries, between the global North and the global South - become structural: extreme poverty and extreme wealth, hyper-consumption and misery, overinformation for some and zero information for others, the illiterate and the overqualified, the connected and the disconnected.

Home-based virtual education, recommended while schools were closed because of the covit-19 pandemic and confinement, remains out of reach for half of the world's population who lack access to the Internet.

Evidently, life in the 21st century is very different for those living with less than 1 or 2 dollars a day (those living in extreme poverty) and for those participating fully in the Information Society, the Knowledge Society, the Learning Society, the Digital Society.

▸ What education?

There is no education in singular, as a universal fact and as a homogeneous experience for all. There are educations, in plural, diverse in nature, purposes and qualities, because realities, cultures, ideologies, aspirations and needs of concrete social groups are diverse. And because education is not confined to the education system; there is education in the family, in the community, at the workplace, through the media, the arts, participation, social service, etc.

Education and learning needs and experiences are shaped by specific economic, social and cultural contexts and conditions. Community, family and school education models developed historically by indigenous populations, many of which are alive in many countries, coexisting with the dominant Western models, are not only different education models; they are alternative knowledge systems.

▸ Education in the 21st century?

Education in the 21st century is diverse, placed historically in this century and geographically in each specific context, and does not necessarily correspond to the '21st century' vision coming from the 'developed world'.

Millions of children, youth and adults have never used a computer and don't know what can be found behind a screen. Millions of children and youth don't know where food comes from, how to grow a potato, a lemmon, a tomato. Different types of ignorance.

▸ 21st century skills?

Skills needed are different or have different priorities for different people in different places, cultures and circumstances. Lists of "21st century skills" circulated by international organizations are generally conceived and proposed from the North, mainly for urban realities. Several skills grouped today as "21st century skills" were previously presented as "20th century skills".

Children, young people and adults living in poverty - the majority of the world population - develop skills than enable them to survive in very difficult circumstances and to become resilient at an early age. They learn to take care of themselves and their families, to cooperate with others, to solve practical problems, and to learn in all circumstances.

There are several lists of "21st century skills" proposed by international actors such as the European Commission (key competences for lifelong learning in European schools), the World Economic Forum (job skills for the future), OECD (learning for life), UNICEF (transferable skills), and the InterAmerican Development Bank (skills for life).

The pandemic revealed the real magnitude of economic, social, educational and digital inequalities throughout the world and in each particular country, and the need to radically rethink education and learning systems and practices: what, where, when and how do children, young people and adults, families and communities need to learn if we are to ensure the right to education, that is, the right to educational inclusion, equity and quality for all.

Related texts in this blog (English)
» Basic Learning Needs: Different Frameworks

Girls' education: Lessons from BRAC (Bangladesh)

Rosa María Torres

En español: Educación de las niñas: Lecciones del BRAC (Bangladesh)

I learned about BRAC and got in contact with its education programme while working as a senior education adviser at UNICEF's Education Cluster in New York, in the early 1990s. From the start, I became fascinated with BRAC's 'non-formal primary school' concept. This programme, initiated in 1985 with 22 schools, attempted to address the needs of the poorest sectors in Bangladesh, especially in rural areas. The specific aim was to attract girls, who were mostly absent from schools.

I visited Bangladesh twice, in 1993 and in 1995, and had the opportunity to see BRAC's non-formal primary schools in action. Together with Manzoor Ahmed, UNICEF Programme Director at the time, we wrote a dossier called Reaching the Unreached: Non-formal approaches and universal primary education, (UNICEF, 1993). BRAC's non-formal education programme was one of the experiences included in the dossier. BRAC's programme was also included in Education for All: Making It Work - Innovation Series organized jointly by UNICEF and UNESCO right after the Jomtien Conference on Education for All (1990). Dieter Berstecher (UNESCO Paris) and I (UNICEF New York) coordinated the project. (In 2000, 10 years after the Jomtien conference, the series was transferred from UNESCO Headquarters to PROAP, in Bangkok. See issue No.14 dedicated to Lok Jumbish, in India).

One thing that astonished me was the basic and pragmatic wisdom with which BRAC was developing the programme. The first step was conducting a survey to find out why parents were not sending their daughters to school. Three major reasons came out: 1) the school journey was too long (they needed girls to help at home with domestic chores); 2) teachers were mostly men (parents expressed they would feel more comfortable if there were female teachers in the schools); and 3) the school - when available - was too distant from home.

Acknowledging parents' expressed needs, BRAC acted accordingly. The design of the programme adopted three key measures:

1) shortening the school journey (3 hours a day), rethinking the entire school calendar (more months in school, no long holidays), and adjusting the curriculum to fit those time arrangements (the idea is to complete the nation's five-year primary school cycle in four years);

2) identifying women in the local communities and providing them with some basic initial training so that they could act as teachers; and

3) building schools that were closer to home.

BRAC's non-formal primary schools were the simplest and nicest schools I had seen in poor rural areas. One-room schools built with local materials, with the help of the community. Bright, clean, colorful. Small mats on the floor for the children, a medium-sized chalkboard, posters and visual aids all around.

Children walked shorter distances to school and remained there only for 3 hours a day, so they could continue to help at home.

There were few women in the communities with a teacher certificate, so BRAC selected in each community women with the highest school level (often primary education) and interested in teaching, and trained them. Initially with a 12-day course, later complemented with monthly refresher courses and yearly orientation courses.

This is how BRAC managed to include girls who would otherwise have never attended school. By the time I visited BRAC the NFE programme was already a 'success story' attracting attention not only in Bangladesh but worldwide. Since then BRAC has continued to grow - it is today "the worlds' largest development organization" - and its education programme became a full education system. It remains free of charge. It reached also urban slums, it incorporated e-learning and it includes now a university and a network of mobile libraries. In terms of learning results, BRAC's NFE schools do not lag behind government formal schools; on the contrary, their results are ahead of the country average.

Some data for BRAC's non-formal primary schools (January 2017):
14,153 schools
389,910 students, of whom 62.17% are girls
5.3 million students completed courses, of which 60.43% are girls
5.55 million students transferred to formal schools to date, of which 60.12% are girls
14,153 teachers

BRAC's education programme has received numerous international awards, one of them the prestigious WISE Prize from the Qatar Foundation in 2011. I was happy to be in Doha, attending the WISE event, when Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, BRAC's founder and director, received the prize.

Girls' education remains a major issue worldwide, starting with early childhood and primary education. The problem continues to pose old and new challenges. Diagnoses and studies multiply, debates and fora repeat often what is already known, there is hunger for more data. In the middle of all that, I often remember BRAC's long and fruitful experience, its pragmatic wisdom, its short, medium and long-term vision, its consultation with families and communities, its permanent interest to connect with local needs and realities.

In times when everything seems to start from scratch and anything can be considered an innovation, it is essential to look back and learn from experience.

Related texts in this blog
» Aprender a lavarse las manos
» WISE Prize for Education Laureates: Bottom-up Innovators
» Kazi, the graceless | Kazi, el sin gracia

OTRA∃DUCACION - Texts in English

Rosa María Torres

Poetic and Dreamlike Paper Cut Artworks - Fubiz

This is a bilingual blog. Most texts are published in Spanish. Here is a compilation of texts written in English (alphabetical order).

One Decade of 'Education for All': The Challenge Ahead (IIEP-UNESCO Buenos Aires, 2000, PDF)
http://www.iipe-buenosaires.org.ar/publicaciones/one-decade-education-all-challenge-ahead

What did the MDGs achieve?
http://otra-educacion.blogspot.com/2015/10/what-did-millennium-development-goals-achieve.html

What Happened at the World Education Forum in Dakar (2000)?
http://otra-educacion.blogspot.com/2015/05/what-happened-at-world-education-forum.html

What is 'basic education'?
http://otra-educacion.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-happened-to-expanded-vision-of.html

What is youth and adult education - today? http://otra-educacion.blogspot.com/2017/01/what-is-youth-and-adult-education-today.html

WISE Prize for Education Laureates: Bottom-up Innovators
http://otra-educacion.blogspot.com/2013/11/wise-prize-for-education-laureates.html

OTRAƎDUCACION

Recordando al Conejo - Fernando Velasco Abad

From Lifelong Education to Lifelong Learning

It all starts at school? It all starts at home

¿21st century education?

Girls' education: Lessons from BRAC (Bangladesh)

OTRA∃DUCACION - Texts in English

Poetic and Dreamlike Paper Cut Artworks - Fubiz

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