lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for europe
TRANSCRIPT
Image courtesy of Permamarks at http://permamarks.org/in-an-age-of-collective-learning/
© Prof. Georgios K. ZarifisPresentation prepared for the 7th International Course of Lectures 2013-2014
“Lifelong Learning”12 December2013
“Lifelong learning as collective learning:
a proposed framework for Europe
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
Presentation’s scope and structure
1. LLL in crisis: How far are we since 2000?
2. LLL and the power of policy language
3. The need for shifting the paradigm
4. Developing European learning collectives
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
LLL in crisis: How far are we since 2000?
Since 2000 the discourse on lifelong learning in Europe revolves around four distinct
objectives: employment, education and training provision, citizenship and inclusion.
These objectives that appear in the Memorandum messages are very much related to each other and operate as the platform on which a number of more intrinsic topics evolve: skills and competences, learning outcomes, quality,
innovation in teaching and learning, access, guidance, values and equity.
How far are we since the Memorandum?
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
In the midst of an economic crisis with vast sociopolitical repercussions that nearly
divide Europe into the ‘sluggish South’ and the ‘diligent North’ and revive stereotypes among Europeans largely fomented by certain national and international media, lifelong learning seems to be totally out of place in
Europe
Image courtesy of CASUS BELLI at: http://casusbellifilm.com/el
LLL in crisis: How far are we since 2000?
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
LLL in crisis: How far are we since 2000?
In spite of the deep commitment of European policymaking to the idea of
lifelong learning, the language of the Memorandum and of all relevant texts thereafter echoes the neologies of
globalisation.
The relevant discourse however does not deserve to be called neoliberal, at least not in its intention as the
Memorandum messages reveal a kind of naivety suggesting steps and solutions that do not respond to the real nature of the proclaimed goals and do not give
a realistic direction for reaching them.
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
Despite the strong rhetoric on promoting the idea of lifelong learning in Europe and after over a decade of
ongoing adjustments, relevant policies have neither responded to nor have they fulfilled any concrete social demand or a coherent attitude towards learning (as a mode of development) amongst
Europeans.
LLL and the power of policy language
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
It is the language and the meanings proclaimed by the usage of neoliberal
terminology that consist the underbelly of the current European policy agenda on lifelong learning. And although one could argue that language does create realities, at the time Memorandum was
released, this was not much the case as it is today.
In Europe LLL is used as a mechanism of social control mediated by the market. As promoted in this context, the word “learning” does not refer to those reflective incidentally acquired understandings which enable us to
navigate our daily lives.
LLL and the power of policy language
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
LLL and the power of policy language
In most cases contemporary usage of the term lifelong learning refers to the process of allowing ourselves to be exposed to pre-packaged gobbits of knowledge, allowing ourselves to be
assessed on the mastery of that knowledge, accepting the implications of the resulting indicators of our
performance for access to the labour market and our resultant positioning
within it
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
What we need today is a new paradigm that will be based on a collective
approach on how different appreciations (narratives) of learning in Europe may
support thedevelopment of participatory learning ‘networks’ that will involve exchange
of ideas, decision-making and collaboration among different actors in
a small scale
The need for shifting the paradigm
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
The ecology of lifelong learning in Europe differs greatly from the initial approach. The overarching notion today
is that of lifelong learning for employability and a narrowly defined notion of active citizenship which
overlooks the collective dimension of education for social change and which provides a very problematic notion of
individualised learning
The need for shifting the paradigm
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
Today educational policymaking in Europe is exceedingly connected to economic benefits and human capital
growth rather than social and cultural capital development
Lifelong learning in Europe is increasingly looking upon the learner
as an employable unit that needs to fit in the market rather than a free
individual that validates the benefits of its own learning
The need for shifting the paradigm
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
Developing European learning collectives
We need to reinstate the learners in the centre of the objectives set by the
European Commission
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
Developing European learning collectives
The term collective stresses the need for a shared promotion of lifelong
learning from the learners and for the learners
Although the word ‘collective’ is not totally absent from European policies of lifelong learning (it is used twice whereas the word ‘individual’ is used
29 times in the Communication on Making a European Area of Lifelong
Learning a Reality ), it is ‘the centrality of the learner’ – understood as the ‘individual’ learner – that is
considered to be ‘the key characteristic’ of lifelong learning
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
Developing European learning collectives
It is an old idea, already present in the labour movement in the first half of the nineteenth century in Europe, long before the creation of trade
unions, which later strongly defended this principle
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
Developing European learning collectives
The collective (or the group or the society or the labour market) becomes the entity in which the individual learner has to be included (or
empowered or employed) depending on various levels of networking
This collective promotion should be understood as promotion inside and to the benefit of one’s social group
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe
Developing European learning collectives
Image courtesy of the Centre for Collective Learning and Action (CCoLA) http://www.ccola.cc/
Thank you for your attention
Lifelong learning as collective learning: a proposed framework for Europe