Lost Soul or New Dawn? Lifelong Learning Lessons and Prospects from East Asia

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?