DIPLOMA IN TEACHING AND LEARNING IN THE LIFELONG

Diploma in teaching and learning in the lifelong sector



Diploma in teaching and learning in the lifelong sector

Introduction

One approach to conceptualising lifelong learning claims it is concerned with promoting skills and competences necessary for developing general capabilities and specific performance in work situations. Skills and competences developed through programs of lifelong learning are vital for workers performance in their tackling of precise job responsibilities and how well they can adapt their general and particular knowledge and competences to new tasks.

On this analysis a more highly educated and skilled workforce will contribute to a more advanced and competitive economy.

However, there is much more to be derived from stressing the necessity of lifelong learning for all than merely its economic imperatives. As Smethurst remarks: What does not come out of the statistics is that, in order to succeed in life, in the world, in history, you need not just academic skill but personality, independence of mind, and autonomy of spirit(1995: 33).

Many countries support initiatives developing this view.

OECD members maintain that their future citizens must be equipped with the skills of 'the knowledge economy' (OECD 1992). These include wide-ranging and thorough bases of knowledge content and cognitive competences: communication; numeracy and computer literacy; research ability and 'learning how to learn'; team-building and cooperation; inter-personal skills; judgement and discrimination, imagination and creativity. Governments believe that strategies to promote these skills and extend knowledge need to be developed and put into place. The aim of such strategies is to achieve change in all levels and sectors of education, while providing for an integrated, multi-faceted approach to the provision of learning opportunities throughout their citizens' lives.

Literature Reiew

People can have their view of the world and capacity for rational choice continually expanded and transformed by the educational experiences and cognitive achievements offered by lifelong learning. This notion has been taken seriously by community groups, who have articulated and promoted other versions, styles and patterns of lifelong learning. In addition to the provision of lifelong opportunities available through traditional institutions and agencies, there is a trend for offering opportunities for lifelong learning by the creation and expansion of a range of community initiatives.

This version of the community as an agency and forum for lifelong learning flourishes in the realisation that those engaging in lifelong learning enjoy a range of additional options, from which they may construct a satisfying and enriching pattern of life-enhancing activities (White 1982).

Lifelong learning offers people the opportunity to bring up to date their knowledge of activities which they had either previously laid aside or always wanted to try but were unable; to try out activities and pursuits that they had previously imagined were outside their time or competence; or to work at extending their intellectual horizons by seeking to understand and master some of the recent cognitive advances, that have transformed their worlds.

However, lifelong learning is not restricted to those beyond the age of education in formal or institutional ...