Lifelong Learning
Ireland and the European Union
As observed in Ireland’s educational technology policy, the initial impetus for the integration of technologies in the classroom was twofold: first, businesses demanded the Irish workforce be competent in the application of such technologies in the business context; second, continued innovation in internet and communications technologies required the workforce be capable of continuous learning. Ireland’s initial educational technology policy attempted to address the first demand through the provision and use of technological infrastructure, affording students the opportunity to develop computer and digital literacies. However, it may be more accurate to qualify this attempt as a component of Ireland’s attempt to address the second demand: the demand for lifelong learning.
In 1999, the Government of Ireland published “Ready to Learn”, a whitepaper on childhood education. Government of Ireland. “Ready to Learn.” The Stationary Office, 1999. https://www.gov.ie/pdf/?file=https://assets.gov.ie/24631/4adbb26bec8d4f43b9d529919d47536c.pdf. In brief, the Government outlined a number of strategies to support children’s development and achievement in early education. In doing so, the Government lays out a formula for lifelong learning without explicitly naming the construct. For example, the Government contrasts what it believes education ought to be against what it believes it once was: the consideration that, “education began when children went to school and ended when students left the formal education system at the end of first, second, or third level”. Ibid., pg. 8. Rather, the Government expands the notion of education beyond the limits of educational institutions and ought to be concerned with the learner in all stages of their life or, succinctly, their lifelong learning. With regards to childhood learning, the whitepaper is an opportunity for the Government to outline strategies to instill a “disposition” in children inclining them to “adjust well to the transition to the primary school system” and “have the capacity and motivation to master new skills and challenges”. Ibid., pg. 18. “Ready to Learn” was the Government’s first attempt to lay a foundation for lifelong learning in its workforce, though the Government never refers to “lifelong learning” in name.
The Government of Ireland soon formalized their concept of lifelong learning under the Department of Education’s (DES) 2000 whitepaper “Learning for Life”, a policy document for adult learning. Ireland Department of Education and Science. “Learning for Life: White Paper on Adult Education.” The Stationary Office, July 2000. https://assets.gov.ie/24723/8eaa8222690f43279dd017f686427e9b.pdf. The DES’ definition is simple, regarding lifelong learning as the, “systematic learning undertaken by adults who return to learning having concluded initial education or training”. Ibid., § 1.3. The DES situates lifelong learning in the Irish context by claiming the implementation of a lifelong learning strategy may elicit personal and cultural development, higher social awareness and responsibility, increase in social and intellectual capital for individuals, competitiveness in the knowledge economy, and engagement in cultural and communal development. Ibid., § 1.4.2–1.4.7. That is, the DES situates lifelong learning as the highest form of adult education. It is a direct response to the information society and its continual imposition of change in the global knowledge economy insofar as it outlines a number of strategies to ensure adults have the resources necessary to learn and adopt new skills and careers. Put differently, it is an attempt to realize the dispositions ideally seeded in children through the childhood learning established in “Ready to Learn”. In the Irish context, lifelong learning amounts to an “upskilling” agenda rendered necessary by the country’s economic strategy of knowledge and technology exports.
However, in truth, Ireland was deriving its conception of lifelong learning from the European Union (EU). In the 1994 white paper “Growth, Competitiveness, and Employment”, President of the European Commission, an executive body of the EU, Jacques Delors observed the European community had long been building to a conception of lifelong learning as a consequence of the cyclical, structural and technological unemployment common to European economies at the time. Delors formalized the solution as lifelong learning, “the overall objective to which the national educational communities can make their contributions”. European Commission. “Growth, Competitiveness, Employment: The Challenges and Ways Forward into the 21st Century.” 1994, pgs. 11, 17. Put differently, lifelong learning is a broadly European construction made in response to the changing world economy. Ireland’s educational and adult learning policies, then, are situated within this context—the general policy trends of the EU. Pepin (2007) credits the white paper for marshalling European governments to take action for lifelong learning, stating it made educational leaders “aware of the requirements of the knowledge-based and information society and their consequences” and unified the once-separated concepts of education and training. Pépin, Luce. “The History of EU Cooperation in the Field of Education and Training: How Lifelong Learning Became a Strategic Objective.” European Journal of Education 42, no. 1 (2007): 121–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-3435.2007.00288.x, 125–126. From this perspective, the EU has had a drastic influence on Ireland’s educational policy—with or without technology.