PIMA Bulletin 21

The PIMA Bulletin Number 21 for December 2018 can now be read in full below.

This issue of the Bulletin is devoted to a substantial Special Report on Learning in Later Life. It also concludes a cluster of papers arising from the PASCAL Suwon Conference at the end of August. All other items are carried over to issue No. 22, which will be published in January 2019.

Bulletin No. 20 included five ‘reflections’ after the PASCAL Learning City Conference, Suwon, South Korea’, contributed by Rob Mark, Colin McGregor, Shirley Walters, Han Soonghee and Heribert Hinzen. This issue adds two further contributions by Waltraut Ritter, Hong Kong, and Dorothy Lucardie, Australia, the President of PIMA. 

The second of these, in the Suwon spirit of learning from and working forward, invites Bulletin readers to contribute to a new discussion on richer meanings of Lifelong learning. Suwon Discussion at Suwon reflected on it as not only cradle to grave - in an older expression, womb to tomb. It had also to be Life-wide, spanning all fields of human activity, including family and local community, the full diversity of workplaces and arrangements, and the ‘global community’ and global ecosystem; and Life-deep. The term, not new but seldom probed, attracted murmurs of assent but little analysis.

The President here invites contributions, a few paragraphs or a page, about Life-deep learning, exploring what this really means. She and PIMA through the Bulletin ask why it matters, how seriously it should be taken, and how it might be given more practical expression through learning support, education and training. Please email draft contributions and expressions of interest to the Editor, [email protected]. 

For compelling reasons lying beyond ‘education’, the education and learning of older adults has become a subject of significant economic, health, other social, and now political concern. Dramatically changing demography affects labour markets and reinforces well-established programmes for senior citizens, notably among them Universities of the Third Age (U3A). They are  informed by the recognition of ‘use it or lose it’; and the value of community companionship for wellbeing. From being an economic burden on social welfare and health budgets as ‘retired-age’ populations expand and ‘working-age’ numbers decline, older adults are increasingly seen as a resource: a source of employees nd citizens with active minds, knowledge, wisdom and skills.

This much extended special end-of-year issue is devoted to a substantial Report addressing a main theme of the Suwon Conference. Edited by Peter Kearns and Denise Reghenzani-Kearns on behalf of the PIMA Later Life Learning Special Interest Group or SIG, it carries contribution from 15 authors It appears also on the PASCAL Website with the work of other SIGs and will be taken up in other national, local and trans-national forums. Readers are invited to disseminate it widely, and assist its study, influence on policy, and practical application.

All the articles above are featured in full in the Newsletter below...