Lifelong education, as a concept that states a system dealing with educational needs of all children, youth and adults, depends on an educational paradigm for to combine formal, informal and nonformal types of learning. Discussions on...
moreLifelong education, as a concept that states a system dealing with educational needs of all children, youth and adults, depends on an educational paradigm for to combine formal, informal and nonformal types of learning.
Discussions on lifelong education have become more important due to rapid global change. Else, the concept has another point for Turkey as a country aiming to be a member of the European Union. Because, as it could be observed in the political papers of the Union on education, lifelong education is at the centre of all educational debates for more than the last decade.
Educational opportunities in the European Union have been increasing in number. However, the traditional structure of the education systems is so far away to meet the new quality needs. Population of the European Union is growing older and technological progress is so fast. These two factors on the working population forces the European Union to form a new educational system in order to upgrade their skills permanently.
The study is an evaluation on Turkey’s lifelong education policy, as a country aiming to be a member of the European Union. Findings depend on the data from the policy papers on lifelong education of the European Union and Turkey. Comparison is conducted on schooling rates, rates of participation to adult education activities and data of population and unemployment as factors to effect lifelong education policies.
One can argue that lifelong education policy papers of Turkey are prepared based on the European Union ones. Discourse of the Turkish papers points out that the real and only factor effecting the Turkish policies is her aim to be a member of the Union.
Whereas Turkey has problems of her own and these cause educational needs of her own. Thus, lifelong education policies should depend on a kind of specific approach that takes this into account. As a concept becoming more and more popular among the international debates on education in the last two decades, lifelong education is considered to be an organizing principle for the change in educational systems. Naturally, just like all other educational approaches, lifelong education has been shaped among the wider economic, social and political power relations.
Rising importance of the concept is related with some other trends that heve become more important in the globalisation era, such as human resources approach, new vocationalism and marketization of education. Population of advanced capitalist societies are growimg older and there is a rapid and permanent change in labor markets. Thus, adult education seems to be more important than before. Because participation and success in adult education is closely related with formal education, lifelong education gains importance as an integrative approach. This liberal meaning attributed to the concept hides the humane potentials of lifelong education that could be found out by a critical view.
It is possible to form a humane approach to lifelong education against the current ones which reduce the person to an input in the production process and education only to a technological apparatus used to increase productivity. The integrative content of the concept is to be considered as an important contribution to educational systems. And if lifelong education is considered as an egalitarian and emancipatory approach helping the participants to become a respectful and transformative agent in his life, and if it is placed on not only economic relations but also democracy, it could contribute to a better life.
Needs stated by the European Union point out to a specific type of labor that has the ability to upgrade his skills at work and more that has the ability to gain totally new ones. This statement underlies every discussion on lifelong education in the European Union today. Validity of this statement needs to be discussed but it could be observed clearly that education systems in Europe are getting reorganized based on this view.
Considering the debates on lifelong education, one can argue that Turkey needs to decide what the meaning of lifelong education should be for the needs of education in fact. In order to form concrete educational policies within this scope, meanings attributed to the concept should be stated concretely. Otherwise the uncertainity of the liberal discourse on lifelong education might disable the potentials hidden in the concept.
There are so many economic, social and cultural problems in Turkey that forces the country to change the current politics of education. There is a widespread problem of adult illetracy; an increasing rate of class-gender-region inequalities; a deep social segregation feeding from education; a usual agenda of honor crimes and feud; an uprising problem of xenophobia and an ongoing problem of coservatization etc. in Turkey. In this circumstances, it would be a false political way to form policies of education on only the needs of labor markets. Education cannot solve all the problems in Turkey but there should be something to do with it. Lifelong education, with an egalitarian and emancipatory content, may serve Turkey as a new way of educational paradigm grounding on real and urgent problems of education.