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Originally published in 1987 and now with an updated preface, this book distils and reflects upon major issues confronting adult educators worldwide. Theories, practices and systems of adult education unify the contradictions between different traditions and phases, drawing on the distinctive perspective offered by the Chinese setting and experience of the Shanghai Adult Education Research Society on which the book is based.

Most learning takes place in communities, neighbourhoods and workplaces. Here practical solutions to big problems work or fall down. We may call this the iron law of social learning, recognised in ‘community development’, ‘community capacity-building’, ‘workplace’, ‘work-based’ and ‘work-integrated’ learning. Language is problematic, the gap between words and deeds often large. Will social learning allow richer ‘third generation lifelong learning’ in Asia? Could it retain the hard economic edge of second generation lifelong learning while recovering the broad vision of the first generation inspired by Unesco's Faure and Delors Reports? That initial vision was of a perceived imperative for survival in and of a stressed world. There are in some societies roots in older traditions and forms of knowledge; foundations for wider and deeper lifelong learning known as indigenous knowledge and knowing. What might this look like? Current globally dominant policies are of mainly European and American origin, like the neo-liberal ideology and policies that survived the global financial crisis. Will ‘business as usual’ continue, with lifelong learning meaning vocational and education and training, and old paradigms still imported into Asia? Or might a reverse flow of influence from what we call the East and South wash over the North and West?

Zgaga, Pavel, Teichler, Ulrich, Schuetze, Hans. G., and Wolter, Andrae (Eds.) (2015). Higher education reform: Looking back - looking forward. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Pages: 430. Price: 72.95 USD (hardback and eBook).This substantial book is the eighth volume in the Higher Education Research and Policy (HERP) Peter Lang series, which employs comparative international perspectives to study higher education systems in transition within rapidly changing environments. "The series intends to explore the impact of such wider social and economic processes as globalization, internationalization and Europeanization on higher education institutions...." The four editors are firmly anchored in Central Western Europe scholarly experience and traditions. Their substantial jointly authored Introduction concludes that "there are many more challenging questions for higher education research than appear at first sight," before going on to explain the genesis of this book in the series of Higher Education Reform (HER) workshops held annually from 2003 in the three northern continents. Today there are many "book-of-the-film" type volumes that, part of the contemporary HE research business, reproduce from an often heterogeneous set of conference papers presented (heterogeneous to capture wide contributor participation) a loosely linked and not overly satisfying volume. This book is different. It draws not on last year's fest. Instead it is written thoughtfully and selectively from papers first aired at the 2011 and 2013 HER workshops in Berlin and Ljubljana.A test of success in terms of series purposes is the choice of Section themes, and the coherence provided by the editors who briefly introduce each of the five Sections. These address in turn: (A) Changing Contexts and Directions (chapters by Peter Scott and two of the editors, Teichler and Zgaga); (B) Changing Environments and Missions of Higher Education (with two European chapters and one each on the Chinese and Japanese systems); three chapters that vigorously critique new managerialism under (C) Academic Freedom: A Story Whose Ending is Uncertain. A natural sequel is (D) Globalization, Privatization and the Future, from North America, especially Mexico; and five chapters on Higher Edu- cation and Lifelong Learning. These sustain the well sourced and grounded character of the earlier Sections, concluding with a discussion of conflicting narratives on MOOCS - a subject approaching which my eyes tend to glaze over yet for me, personally and not to detract from the quality and utility of others, the most novel and stimulating chapter of all. The quality and connectivity of the whole volume make it an excellent book. There is no attempt to draw the threads together with a concluding chapter, but notwithstanding the book achieves a balance of diversity and connectivity around the Section themes. In an age of e-publishing, social media blogging, think-tank papers and other more or less scholarly material including heterogeneous conference papers struggling to present as thematic books, it is tempting to conclude that the age of the substantial hardback copy is dead. This volume suggests otherwise.Different user-readers will find different chapters more or less close to their interests. My own preoccupation and often frustrated irritation of recent years pivots around "lifelong learning," both as a loose, easily trivialised and often pitifully reduced idea for which carelessness of words and meanings are much at fault, drew my attention to the final Section. I also have inexhaustible fascination with chronic tension: between general trends and unique national and regional contexts; between aspiration and observation; between the internal somewhat closed world of the university and the raging demands placed on higher education by a distressed globe across all aspects of cultural, social and economic life and its eco-systems. …

The authors show ways in which Jarl Bengtsson, a Swedish social scientist and policy analyst, has influenced international policy making. As a member and later director of the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation from the beginning of the 1970s to the end of the twentieth century, he has contributed to the international discussion as well as on concrete policy initiatives for lifelong learning as a comprehensive concept for education and other forms of learning outside the formal education system. He was convinced that only such a wider concept would provide equal opportunity to many groups disadvantaged under the present education system, especially adults, indigenous groups, people residing in remote areas, learners from low socio-economic backgrounds and people with disabilities. Since ‘lifelong learning’ does not start after school, the foundations being built well before, he was also emphasising that learning during one's lifetime was dependent on other enabling and motivational factors such as brain development and early childhood education.

UNESCO and Lifelong Learning: The Road to and From Belem There can no longer be any doubt that adult education within lifelong learning is a key factor for economic and social development, as well as being a human right. New policies for adult education must now result in coherent forms of laws and legislation clearly spelling out ways and means for financing adult education. These must involve the public, private, and non-governmental organization (NGO) sectors, social partners, and individuals. As studies for CONFINTEA VI demonstrate, change in most countries is slow and not far-reaching enough, especially because of too low a public sector investment in human resources. In the current global financial crisis things are getting worse, and the gaps between those with and those without are widening at all levels. The need to reverse this trend is urgent. What is being done about it, especially by the key international body UNESCO? The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) now has 193 states and seven associates in membership. It was foreshadowed in 1942, the year after the United States entered World War II, to provide ways and means for reconstructing systems of education once peace was restored. The United States was a central partner in its formation. UNESCO came into force on 4 November 1946 after ratification by twenty countries and held its first General Conference from 19 November to l0 December 1946 with the participation of 30 governments. The first International Adult Education Conference was held three years later in 1949. The sixth conference in a series sustained over 60 years, CONFINTEA VI, was held in Belem in Brazil in 2009, with 1,125 participants from 144 countries and representatives of other international agencies, non-governmental organizations, and learner associations. UNESCO is now carrying out a follow-up strategy in an endlessly patient cycle of activity, concentrating on three aspects with actions at national and regional levels: policy development, improvement of provision and quality, and data collection and documentation of progress. UNESCO already has a schedule of activity running through to mid-term, which is halfway through the time before the next CONFINTEA is due. Most immediately, UNESCO's follow-up strategy looked to the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 20 to 22 September 2010. This meeting was embraced as a precious opportunity to disseminate the Belem Framework for Action (UIL, 2010), making the case for adult literacy and adult learning being central to the achievement of all the MDGs. What has this unceasing activity achieved, and where do we go from here? Unfortunately, the importance of quality youth and adult education, training, and learning was again not recognized as a major factor that helps in achieving the MDGs. So, challenges beckon and we still have much work to do. Some may want to start by further familiarizing themselves with the eight MDGs agreed upon by member countries at the Millennium meeting of the United Nations in 2000, available at both the United Nations and UNESCO websites. Namely: 1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger 2. Achieve Universal Primary Education 3. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women 4. Reduce Child Mortality 5. Improve Maternal Health 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Other Diseases 7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability 8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development For a better understanding of the goals and targets of the Millennium Declaration and the accompanying indicators for monitoring progress, see the official United Nations site for the MDG indicators (http://mdgs.un.org/ unsd/mdg). For further inquiry see also UN (2010). UNESCO became rather politicised in the difficult Cold War era; its fourth big conference, in 1985, was fraught with power bloc difficulties, yet managed to achieve significant results. …

The UK higher education community is well served for news and policy discourse by the weekly Times Higher Education ( THE). THE also provides a window into the conduct of this community. Concern about the contribution of research to the wider society beyond academe has risen along with its scale and cost. Views became polarized about the possibility and desirability of measuring ‘impact’ as a basis for allocating funds for research. The ‘impact debate’ is entangled with efforts to assess the quality of research, and thus in turn with the recent rapid rise to prominence and influence of competitive worldwide rankings of universities, so far informed principally by research performance. Within this wider setting, the paper concentrates on the nature and effect of public controversy about impact in the UK, as expressed in THE over a two-year period. The author's main interest is in the contribution of universities to balanced social and economic development, nationally and especially regionally. It is proposed that the defensive positions taken by some opponents of impact assessment may damage universities' capacity to behave as responsible regional citizens, and weaken the wider community's support for universities that is needed for their public funding, helping to precipitate what critics fear.

This paper considers the idea of a university as it exists and is discussed in Australia at the beginning of the 21st century. Australia's history and partly derivative culture provide the relatively unintellectual context for sceptical utilitarianism in relation to a system which has expanded rapidly and is frequently described as being in crisis. Resource constraints and pressures to marketise and become more entrepreneurial have increased managerialism at the expense of a perhaps mythical ideal of a community of scholars. Different interests, influences and ideals jostle in a process that continues to determine the character of higher education, and the character of the different institutions that comprise the sector. The influence of national politics is recognised, including the possibility of softening the extreme free market position of recent years.

National planners struggle to formulate policies which will enable mass higher and universal tertiary education systems to meet diverse needs for lifelong learning in a knowledge society. Institutional leaders experience ambiguity and stress in seeking an identity appropriate to their particular university in a contradictory policy environment which gives mixed messages. With high levels of stress, multiple conflicting demands and scarce resources, there is a natural but short-sighted tendency to manage more tightly and prescriptively as a way of trying to ensure productivity and accountability. This analysis from a large, broad-based and deliberately innovative Australian university examines these tensions. The new RMIT leadership has set out by transparent and participatory means to diagnose its environment, restate its mission and strengthen internal and external partnership to do its work. Networking and engagement are essential for a knowledgemaking and knowledge-using institution to learn and contribute effectively. However, contradiction and uncertainty in the policy environment, which reflect wider societal ambiguities, make this a daunting task...

Lifelong learning remains a powerful and valid concept important for the evolution of higher education and the university in the changing context of globalization, 30 years after its first popularization around 1970. Like the related concept of the learning society, it suffers trivializing fashion and reductionism. As we move into a phase of universal tertiary education, it is all the more necessary to understand how to enable universities to become learning organizations playing a distinct role in a fast-changing world. Enterprise is an essential associated characteristic, rather than a betrayal of the essentially academic. Universities need to function as open systems, building partnerships and sharing networks in and beyond their localities, and playing leading roles in the creation of learning regions and in new modes of knowledge protection. A grasp of these issues points the way for universities to survive as valued and unique social institutions adapted to and playing an active part in the making o...

Australian universities under stress are pulled between competing paradigms of managerialism and networking. External pressures towards homogenisation contradict the national requirement for higher education system diversity. Managing complexity requires a degree of self-confidence which reinstates collegiality and administration above managerialism and enables the institution effectively to engage with its local-global environment. This paper draws out the competing paradigms. It then sketches the purposes, processes and outcomes whereby UWS Nepean rejuvenated and energised itself to cope with the changes of the late 1990s and the demands of the new entrepreneurialism, without succumbing to economic rationalism. It suggests how changed culture may result in changed behaviour and greater productivity via networking. Structure is less important than shared purpose, culture and morale. Process matters, but can lead to displacement, so that means become ends and outcomes are lost to the procedural outputs of...

This paper examines aspects of the experience of a male University Pro-Vice-Chancellor with responsibilities for equal opportunity (EO). It reflects upon attitudes within the university and efforts at equalizing opportunity; on some practical obstacles; and on some devices used to promote EO. This responsibility is anchored and explained in the context of an interest in organization development, organization culture, and the management of innovation. The paper considers EO but also scans other attempts to achieve cultural change in support of other policy aspirations: strengthening a ‘research culture’, creating a ‘teaching culture’, fostering staff development, access and community service. It considers how far change has been internally or externally driven and has been intrinsic or extrinsic, rational, persuasive or coercive, principled or pragmatic, interested or disinterested, and with what success it has been promoted by formal and informal means. The university’s membership of Opportunity 2000 is located within this analysis. An attempt is made to illuminate what has worked and why, taking account of the resilience with which change can be subverted; informal as well as formal modes of working; and the extent to which working with the grain may be effective. The paper combines practical experience of promoting EO with reflection upon the experience.

Old assumptions and new practices change and higher education - the new discourse missions, aims and objections - what may be new? out of the box - continuing education university-wide finishing school or service station - what mix? access, quality and success - old and new criteria staff development and organizational learning the fallacy of the ivory tower.

The global context of competitive mass higher education damages university support to adult education and lifelong learning (AE&LLL). Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) had limited success, making this a crucial time for AE&LLL in the next global planning cycle commitment to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) post-MDG. Adult educators and universities must both address the real needs of a stressed fast-changing world. Education and higher education are not closed systems, but we may lose sight of what they are for. What are the implications for AE&LLL of longevity and ageing, massive migration, and emergent ‘knowledge societies’? What about new socio-political and cultural challenges, threats of global warming, and finite natural resources? Individuals and social systems need lifelong learning more than ever, but policy-making favours metrics, quality and testing; what are the high-level policy objective? We confuse ‘education’ and ‘learning’, and are unclear what the difference means for AE&LLL policy. The roles of universities include basic and applied research on learning, learning needs, and the professional development of AE&LLL staff, and direct provision, and partnership with providers in their regions. Adults need equal priority with young learners. LLL delivered locally should be at the heart of new ideas about learning cities, regions and neighbourhoods. Can university leaders and their governments resist ‘world class’ league tables and provide world class fit-for-purpose higher education systems?