EcCoWell 2 Briefing Paper 7: Rethinking Lifelong Learning within Current Contexts of Time and Space

The paper by Schuller, Biao, and Osborne opens up fresh lines of thinking about lifelong learning across a broad set of dimensions relevant to the challenges confronting us in a period of dislocation and turbulence as we look to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

While these questions need to be addressed in a range of contexts over time, the practical issue for participants in the PASCAL EcCoWell 2 Community Recovery program is how these important questions can be addressed in a committed learning city or neighbourhood looking to recover from the pandemic in the best possible way.

Looking across the six dimensions of the proposed framework, I am struck by how much can be progressed in local learning  neighbourhoods. In the aftermath of the impact of the pandemic, personal relationships, social cohesion, citizenship, maintaining employability, health and well-being will all  be important in recovery. The increased significance of informal learning and technology-assisted learning point to ways of progressing these objectives in local neighbourhoods with a range of partners, including active civil society participation. In the era of ageing populations with increasing automation and digitisation, local neighbourhoods will become increasingly important in supporting people in adjusting to these conditions and maintaining well-being.

The objective in the proposed framework that does not easily fit into such a local community led recovery, is global interdependence. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has shown how fundamental global interdependence is in 2ist century conditions. When we add climate change, implementing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and a spectrum of economic aspects, it is clear that this dimension of building a sustainable civilisation must receive attention in local communities as elsewhere.

I wonder then, if a positive response to the dimensions of rethinking lifelong learning might be to develop networks of Global Learning Neighbourhoods that combine local and global objectives in synergistic ways. There is a broad spectrum of institutions supporting learning in local communities such as Kominkan in Japan, Volkhochschulen in Germany, Folk High Schools in Scandinavian countries, Neighbourhood Houses in Australia and elsewhere, the numerous U3A institutions around the world, as well as community colleges that could progress such an agenda with the active support of civil society and universities.

In shaping responses to this paper, I welcome responses to two questions.

1. Do you favour the development of Global Learning neighbourhoods for the reasons outlined above?
2. Which of the questions in the Rethinking Lifelong Learning Paper is most relevant to the future development of your city or neighbourhood in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and preparing for a better sustainable future?