Lifelong Learning in the South: Critical Issues and Opportunities for Adult Education

A report in the Sida Studies series. A critical review of international development initiatives and policy recommendations as to adult education and lifelong learning. The present gap between the North and the South could be overcome and a great potential for poverty reduction and for social and human development could be realised, given that current initiatives are reorientated. Different local experiences around the world are illustrated. The report is a revision of the report Lifelong Learning, New Education Division Documents No. 14, published in May 2003, (2726en). This report is also available in Spanish: Aprendizaje a lo Largo de Todo la Vida (2726es). Download Lifelong Learning in the South Critical Issues and Opportunities for Adult Education.
Lifelong learning has been acknowledged as a need and a principle for education and learning systems worldwide, and is being actively embraced by the North for its own societies. However, the learning needs of adults continue to be sidelined or ignored in recent international development initiatives and education policy recommendations for the South, including Education for All and the Millennium Goals. Rosa María Torres illustrates the need and opportunities for governments, national societies and the international donor community to re-frame the North-South gap and to re-orient education and learning towards social transformation and human development.
Lifelong Learning is activated today as the key organizing principle for education and training systems, and for the building of the “knowledge society” of the 21st century. There is an overall shift in focus from education to learning and from lifelong education to lifelong learning.
This study focuses on adult basic learning needs and adult basic education in the South, within a systemic and holistic approach to education and learning, and with a Human Development perspective. Literacy is viewed as part of basic education, not in isolation, and basic education is understood in a broad sense, far beyond literacy and numeracy. Learning is emphasized over education as the key organizing category and within a lifelong learning framework. Broadly defined, this paper deals with the issue of Basic Learning Needs of Adults for Human Development in the South. We introduce the notion of Adult Basic Learning and Education – as different from Adult Basic Education – to stress the importance of learning both within and beyond educational provision: learning in the family, in the community, at work, with friends, learning through the mass media, libraries, traditional and modern technologies, learning by observing, by doing, by working, by teaching, by participating. The term “adult” is used here as an all-embracing category that includes youth, adults, and the elderly, thus stressing the meaning and value of lifelong learning, across the life span. We maintain that all people, irrespective of age, gender and of the country and zone where they live, have a right to learn and to continue learning and must thus be considered learners and part of the “learning-age population” for basic education/training/learning purposes.
The term South is preferred to that of “developing countries”, while acknowledging the many problems of these and other designations (i.e. “Third World”, “low- and middle-income countries”, “periphery”, “aidreceiving countries”, “partner countries”, etc.). The very notion of “development” is today blurred and distant in most countries labeled such by the international community, in a world context where poverty and inequality continue to grow. We keep the term “developing” as a reminder that the goal continues to be (social, economic, human) development and progress, and that education continues to be, more than ever, decisive for such progress.