Supporting Lifelong Learning: Global Internet Colloquium

Situating lifelong learning Lifelong learning pedagogies do not, as yet, exist in the UK. We have a stratified and segmented educational system in which there is little connection between those sectors which might be regarded as contributing to the virtual concept of lifelong learning. There is little conceptual connection between adult and further education, higher education, training and professional development and a growing wall between these sectors in the pedagogical literature. Even within obvious areas for overlap such as work-related learning, each sector has developed its own sub-specialism. The notion of lifelong learning and the theme of this colloquium implies some continuity within the system; we argue that, so far, lifelong learning pedagogies are marked by disjunctions. These claims may seem overstated but one example demonstrates the point. Adult education and higher education in the UK still retain their identities as ‘separate spheres ’ even when adult education is provided through universities. Despite the evidence that the efforts of adult educators to open up higher education for the students have borne fruit (adults now constitute the majority of the student population in universities), once they arrive in higher education, students mov