Does lifelong learning perpetuate inequalities in educational opportunities?

By Dirk Van Damme Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress division, Directorate for Education and Skills. More than 40 years ago, the former French Prime Minister Edgar Faure and his team published one of the most influential educational works of the 20th century: “Learning to Be”, better known as the “Rapport Faure”, in which he mainstreamed the idea of lifelong learning. In Faure’s view, lifelong education was to become the leading educational policy principle for the future. Indeed, it became a powerful, evocative notion, nurturing dreams about “learning societies” in which people’s entire lives would be filled with opportunities to learn.
In the lifelong learning discourse, especially in its more optimistic variants in the late 20th century, there was a strong social equity argument. By creating more and better learning opportunities later in life, this argument went, the inequities in education that marked the first 25 years of a person’s life could be corrected or compensated for. A child’s schooling might be determined by his or her family background or economic and social capital; but missing out on educational opportunities early in life should not necessarily condemn individuals to be excluded from the benefits of learning later on. Second-chance or special education programmes that target low-schooled adults should ensure that providing access to education over a lifetime also results in a better redistribution of learning opportunities across society. Read more...