Perspectives of lifelong education in Portuguese higher education: a critical analysis of learning outcomes

ABSTRACT

Nurturing students’ continuous learning is a current trend in the higher education agenda. Curricula and academic contents should enable students to take part in stimulating learning experiences, as well as promoting both developing and training opportunities in the course of their lives and careers. Despite the relevance given to lifelong learning in the educational system, there are still some open questions: how this concept is understood and put into practice by higher education institutions? The paper aims to analyse the conceptions of lifelong learning as reflected on the learning outcomes proposed in a sample of study programs. A qualitative methodology and a data-driven approach are adopted to explore the content of the learning outcomes proposed in 10% of total study programs submitted to quality accreditation, since 2009. Generally, results reveal that higher education institutions are committed to the lifelong learning paradigm, particularly in master and PhD degrees. Students are expected to ‘invest in personal and professional development through life’, to ‘develop learning competences through life’, as well as to ‘foster lifelong learning’. This study provides a better understanding of the range of perspectives and the relevance given to lifelong learning as a valuable learning outcome.     

The impact of higher education on lifelong learning

The UK’s National Adult Learning Survey has emphasised that graduates are more likely than other groups of people to engage in further learning and to be motivated by the intrinsic nature of the subject matter. However, beyond this we know relatively little about the learning of graduates as a specific group. In particular, we know very little about how experiences of higher education affect attitudes towards learning in the years after graduation. To start to redress this gap, this paper draws on in‐depth interviews with 90 graduates from six different UK higher education institutions, five years after they completed their first degree. It argues that, in the case of many of these young adults, the influence of higher education on further learning was exerted at three levels in relation to: the process of learning; the construction of learner identities; and understandings of the relationship between learning and the wider world.     

Muslim women in higher education: new sites of lifelong learning

How does a traditional research-led university embrace the implications of lifelong learning and widening participation? If it lowers its entry requirements or offers a more flexible approach to adult learning, can it continue to strive for and attain academic excellence? Using a project designed to increase participation by an under-represented group, this paper explores the institutional issues involved in developing lifelong learning strategies in partnership with local colleges and community organizations. Lifelong learning is not cheap to deliver, as non-traditional students may need additional learning support. Off-campus delivery can decimate an orderly campus-based timetable, extra exam boards had to be set up; extra books and learning resources have to be duplicated across different sites. However, the institutional benefits include greater flexibility in university procedures, and a source of enthusiastic mature learners from an under-represented group.     

Creating systems for lifelong learning in asia

This paper investigates the formation and establishment of lifelong learning support systems in six Asian countries, including Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong(SAR), Thailand, and the Philippines. The countries included in this research are quite diverse and unique in their basic characteristics. Despite the divergent values, systems, and social roles, since the 1990s, the basic ideas and trends have been toward a somewhat integrated model in which each component of the system was geared to function for serving the global knowledge economy. In this paper, the process of recent lifelong learning system development in the selected six Asian countries was traced in two ways: global aspects and local peculiarity. I argued in this paper that the cases in Asia mostly follows the ‘global trends’, especially with the ‘business mind’ of global capitalism. I also suggest that Asian experiences can provide several distinctive characteristics rarely observed elsewhere: new role in mitigating diploma-disease, building centralized supporting system between central and local governments, the impact of colonial legacy, unbalance between HRD and humane-orientations, and preservation of the emphasis of adult basic education.     

Professional development,teaching, and lifelong learning: the implications for higher education

This article will address three issues relating to professional development and lifelong learning. The context of the discussion is teaching, research and learning with respect to the researcher teacher within higher education in the UK. A definition of professional development is given, and used to explain how it may contribute to the process of teaching, research and learning. Considering teaching as part of scholarship helps the discussion. Underpinning the discussion is the premise that professional development is essential to the role of the researcher teacher, and has significant implications for lifelong learning for those involved in higher education.     

关于高校素质教育的思考

高校素质教育包括思想政治素质教育，专业素质教育，化素质教育和身心素质教育四个方面。总结我国高校教育发展的经验，高校素质教育取得了突出的成就，但离全面推进素质教育的目标和要求还有一定的距离，因此，提高认识，转变教育思想和观念，进一步加强思想政治教育工作，深化教育教学改革，加强人素质教育，重视大学生身心健康教育等，是高校进一步实施素质教育的重要途径和方法。     

高校体育与大学生素质教育

素质教育是我国高等教育当前所面临的迫切问题,高校体系在培养大学生的品德素质、能力素质和心理素质中能起到良好的促进作用。     

演进与质变：从终身教育到终身学刁

终身学习是在新的时代背景下对终身教育的继承和超越。从终身教育到终身学习的转变是一种质的飞跃，终身学习是对时代发展要求的应答，它实现了整个教育的重心转移，保证了终身教育制度的有效实施，更符合学习化社会的要求。     

关于当前高校就业教育的思考

高等教育大众化使大学毕业生的就业矛盾日益突出。高校就业教育可以从大众教育与精英教育相结合,选修课设置与社会需要相结合,学生综合素质培养和就业指导相结合,拓宽就业门路与社会保障相结合等各个层面出发,提高学生的竞争力、就业力、职业素质,以增强社会的稳定因素,确保社会生活的动态平衡。     

The Cape Town statement on characteristic elements of a lifelong learning higher education institution

We see a key purpose of lifelong learning as democratic citizenship.…Democratic citizenship highlights the importance of women and men as agents of history in all aspects of their lives. (As quoted by Professor Kadar Asmal, National Minister of Education of South Africa at the opening of the Cape Town Conference, 10 October 2000.) This statement grew out of a need recognized by adult and higher educators, scholars and specialists in the area of adult and lifelong learning to build on previous work focusing on transforming institutions of higher education into institutions of lifelong learning. It continues the work begun at the Fifth International Conference on Adult Education in Hamburg, Germany, 1997, continued at the University of Mumbai, India in 1998, and the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education in Paris in 1998. It was developed at the Conference on Lifelong Learning, Higher Education and Active Citizenship from the 10–12 October 2000 in Cape Town which was co-hosted by University of Western Cape, UNESCO Institute of Education and the Adult Education Research Group of the Danish National University of Education.     

我国西部高校人文教育的创新问题

要重新审视西部地区人文资源,改变“西部没有人文学科发展优势”的不全面观念;西部地区高校应保护好、利用好西部地区的文物资源,培养文物考古高级专门人才,为西部大开发服务;为了创造西部高校人文教育的“优良环境”,国家要制定体现国家意志的方针政策和措施,西部高校要加强团结协作,促进人文学科的发展。     

高校德育的文化观照

文化的本义是以文化民,其作用是对人自己的自然属性和本能行为进行自律和改造;高校学生思想道德素质的提高必须有文化素质的支撑。道德教育不是单纯的认知问题,没有情感体验和内心认同感的道德律令的作用是极其有限的。文化素质是成就道德人格的基础。“两课”教学、专业课教学以及学生的课余生活要有高雅文化的引入和渗透,让学生在人文灿烂的环境中受到良好的教育。     

试论学习社会中的社区教育与终身教育

学习社会是一个人人都能终身学习和受教育的社会，终身教育是实现学习社会的途径和手段，而社区教育则是实现并完善终身教育体系必不可少的教育理论和实践形式。     

电大远程开放教育与普通高校网络教育学习支持服务之比较

20世纪末,教育部批准了68所大学开展现代远程教育或网络教育,在这68所大学中除电大以外,其他67所均属全国普通重点大学。广播电视大学作为一所成人高校,何以能够在远程教育中占有一席之地．能够与重点高校并驾齐驱地开展远程教育或网络教育？其办学特点与普通高校相比有何优势？文章就二者在学习支持服务方面各自的优势及问题进行了探讨,同时也提出了相关的建议。     

Creating space for learning: conceptualizing women and higher education through space and time

This paper highlights the strengths of giving visibility to the concepts of space and time in research related to women's lives and higher education. It is based on research that explores the everyday practice and experience of women higher education students at a community college in the north of England. It focuses on the ways in which space and time to study are both socially and personally constructed. The concepts of space and time are drawn on to theorize and analyze women students' experiences and to draw attention to the ‘behind scenes of power and control’ shaping action (Layder, 1993 Layder D 1993 New strategies in social research (Cambridge, Polity)  [Google Scholar], p. 249). Women students from a range of backgrounds are considered, including younger/older, mother/non‐mother and differential class and geographical heritage. The paper highlights three issues. Firstly, the increasingly restricted ground available for academic studies in women's lives, resulting from the restructuring of paid work, social welfare and higher education. Secondly, the hierarchy of values and ambiguous meanings attached to higher education when women attempt to study. Thirdly, the intense negotiations undertaken by women students in order to construct space and time for academic work.