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This paper advocates for policy recognition of lifelong learning by institutions of higher learning and governments in Eastern Africa. Lifelong learning and lifelong education are two concepts that aim at widening access to and the participation of adult learners in the acquisition of new knowledge, skills, values and attitudes. There are many reasons for advocating for lifelong learning and education in higher institutions of learning in Eastern Africa. Firstly, the demand for higher education in Eastern Africa has increased phenomenally. Secondly, the need to cope with this fast-changing world calls for a continuous acquisition of new knowledge, skills and attitude. This paper looks at the concepts of lifelong learning (LLL) and lifelong education (LLE) in relation to the changes that are affecting the provision of university-based learning opportunities for non-traditional students in Eastern Africa, with examples from Makerere University Institute of Adult and Continuing Education in Uganda. In looking at the concepts of LLL and LLE, other concepts of lifewide learning and the learning society are also discussed. Adult learning and adult education are discussed as concepts that are used by adult educators in Eastern Africa with very limited understanding of what they really mean. The confusion in the use of these emerging and popular concepts in Eastern Africa is discussed. The paper presents some recommendations for higher institutions of learning in Eastern Africa to develop a clear understanding of and embrace lifelong learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socio-economic implication of the lifelong learning for all agenda is enormous. The very idea of lifelong learning frees learning from time and space constraints. It advocates learning to be an activity of a lifetime both within and without the formal education system. The assumption is that lifelong and life-wide learning will promote competitiveness, creativity, employability and social cohesion. Taking it in the context of developing countries such as Ethiopia, lifelong learning as an educational organising principle may play a vital role in supporting efforts to eradicate illiteracy and reduce poverty. Recently, Ethiopia has introduced the third phase of their education sector development programme, which underscores the importance of adult education, and a national strategy for adult education. This paper analyses the two documents to understand the extent to which non-formal and formal education are linked, and thereby to highlight the significance of institutionalising the recognition of prior learning (RPL) to promote lifelong learning for adults and working population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shares the findings of an international study of 28 fabric arts projects by individual, pairs or groups of women in British Columbia and Ontario in Canada and the north island of Aotearoa New Zealand. Using a feminist approach and lens we explored women's views of their fabric arts work. Our study shows that women's fabric arts/crafts provide important spaces for reflection, contemplation and individual and social learning. In both countries women demonstrated a passion for the process of creation, expressiveness and the artworks themselves, although many tended to undervalue their talent as artists. Two key differences emerged: external and internal censorship of the fabric arts; and the collective public nature of the work in Canada versus the individual approach of the women of Aotearoa New Zealand. The findings contribute to contemporary debates in feminist adult education and to feminist aesthetic theory by emphasising the importance of activist fabric arts in learning for social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the tradition of grassroots environmental movements worldwide, activist Buddhist monks in rural Thailand have, since the late 1980s, led a popular movement to protect local forest, water and land resources while at the same time challenging dominant state and corporate 'economist' development paradigms. Most famously, these 'development monks' (phra nak phathanaa) and 'ecology monks' (phra nak anuraksaa) have led local villagers and NGO activists in the symbolic ordaining of large trees and forests (buat paa). They do this in the hope that they will not only protect forests from logging, but also teach local people the value of conserving forest resources. This paper charts the history, philosophy and practice of the activist forest monk movement in Thailand, its contribution to our collective knowledge of adult education in new social movements, and its value to environmental adult education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lifelong learning has come to be internationally recognized as a framework in the development of sustainable education. However, in spite of rhetoric and its endorsement in some nations’ policy documents, lifelong learning is not operationalized and Africa continues to be plagued by social maladies such as HIV/AIDS, capacity poverty, low quality education, global marginalization and ineffective governance. The article argues that post‐colonial Africa transited from concern with service delivery, went through structural adjustment policies to focusing on African renaissance. It indicates that some countries have embraced lifelong learning as policy framework but have not made sufficient efforts to translate that in their teaching and learning. It contents that lifelong learning in Africa can only be effective if African communities are encouraged to make concerted efforts to embrace principles such as deliberative democracy, multiculturalism, decentralization of decision‐making and helping to redirect the agenda of civil society as a way to use lifelong learning to enhance public participation in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the recognition of prior learning and the figure of thought it represents in Swedish policy on adult education. It can be seen as a technique for governing the adult learner and a way of fabricating the subject. We are tracing this thought back in time to see how it has changed and what it consists of. The material analysed consists of Swedish official documents published between 1948 and 2004. We draw on two concepts from the Foucauldian toolbox: genealogy and governmentality. The result shows that this technique for governing and fabricating the adult subject is not new. It has been present during all periods analysed. However, there is a difference in how the ideas of competence and knowledge are stressed. Today the focus is on the subject's specific experience, which means competence. You are constructed as an adult with experiences that are to be evaluated. During the 1960s and 1970s the focus was rather on general experience. There was also discussion concerning the subject's ability to study. During the 1950s this figure of thought focused on ability was dominant. Those with the talent/ability to study were to be accepted for adult education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Believing that education is vital to improving the conditions of workers in the globalised economy, this international study assesses the factors that are enabling and constraining 18 leading workers education programs' response to the neo-liberal global economy. Two conclusions can be drawn from the findings of this study. This first conclusion is that the constraining factors outweigh the enabling ones, so that unions are still not able to seriously challenge transnational corporations. The second conclusion is that workers' education may be on the verge of a golden age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South Africa under apartheid higher education was inaccessible to the majority. This article argues that in the new South Africa there is an opportunity to redress this situation and promote equity though lifelong learning. This would involve greatly widening access and providing programmes to develop broadly applicable abilities such as computer literacy and problem-solving skills, which would increase the economic competitiveness and personal empowerment of learners. At the same time, the author argues, new educational approaches are needed to promote active citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The imperatives for lifelong learning in South Africa are driven by its reinsertion into the global economy and by the social and political necessities of equity and redress after the years of colonialism, segregation and apartheid. It is therefore not surprising to find the discourse of lifelong learning infused into new policy documents. Utilizing Belanger's framework, which argues that lifelong learning is not a norm to prescribe but an empirical reality to analyze and reconstruct, the contexts for lifelong learning in South Africa are surveyed by focusing in on the state of initial education, adult education, and the learning environments. The framework, which acknowledges the daily lived realities of women and men, is a helpful way of retaining an holistic and integrated vision of lifelong learning and its humanistic, democratic goals. For lifelong learning in South Africa to deepen for more than a small group of well-educated, mainly urban, formally employed people, the author concludes that initial education, adult education and the learning environments of all the people will have to be improved. If this does not happen, then at least two polarized 'lifelong educations' will result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]