Forging new pathways of research and innovation in open and distance learning

Changing Landscape of the Lifelong Learning Innovation in Europe
András Szűcs
Uncertainty can be experienced in the priorities, policy actions and implementation pathways
on national (member state) levels as well showing conceptual and even terminology
confusions, leading to loss of strategic momentum and misplacement of this important
terrain.
In the recent years, we are at a meta-stable point of the development-change curve. Lifelong
learning is meanwhile considered to be one of the areas where EU cooperation showed the
greatest added value (EUCIS, 2014). It is a structuring element for competitive knowledge
societies but also for personal fulfilment and well-being, social cohesion and active citizenship.
Lifelong learning is creating a sense of self-worth and self-confidence in EU citizens,
enhancing their position and acceptance in society.
Implementing the related strategies requires working in partnership across sectors. Reforms
should adopt a life-wide approach to learning where all its kinds – formal, non-formal,
informal – are recognised as genuine paths to gain competences and access qualifications. A
recurrent but unavoidable quest is that education should be more open and relevant to the
outside world, which includes the labour market as well as civil society and communities
(EUCIS, 2012).
Remarkable efforts come into sight nowadays to initiate a renaissance of broad and inclusive
interpretation of lifelong and lifewide learning in systems thinking. Coherent and
comprehensive lifelong learning strategies are needed to modernise education and training
systems and ensure individualised pathways for learners.
Building on the above, new horizons and a holistic vision of the learner and broader objectives
for lifelong learning are desirable, to ensure the systemic impact which makes real a crosssectorial
partnership approach with civil society and key stakeholders for better multilevel
governance. This also would mean formalising the structured dialogue and consultation
mechanisms (EUCIS, 2012; Kálmán, 2016).
It is timely to look at Lifelong Learning as paradigm change element in education and through
better understanding and assessment of current practices to explore strategies for addressing
unmet needs.
Notwithstanding, paradigm shift requests have often been used as rhetoric tool but in times of
strategic importance, recognizing the relevance of their smart use is indispensable. Kuhn
envisioned a science as having, at any one time, a world view, or paradigm, of its environment.
Society meanwhile needs quite a bit of stability. You should not abandon a paradigm until you
have one to put in its place, because our paradigm is that which allows us to function
(Kálmán, 2016).
Reaching from the roots – 9 th EDEN Research Workshop Proceedings, 2016, Oldenburg 339
ISBN 978-615-5511-12-7