Re-imagining a picture: Higher education in lifelong learning

Abstract

In using “lifelong learning” as the frame to observe higher education institutions, our gaze focuses both internally and externally. Internally we see a concern to ensure high quality, and flexible teaching and learning which highlights the needs of diverse individual learners and the multifaceted professional development of staff. Externally we notice an emphasis on helping to ensure access by a range of constituencies to socially and economically relevant education, training and research opportunities. This framework highlights, in new ways, what separate bodies of literature have called “university teaching”, “academic development”, “higher education studies”, “adult education”, “continuing education”, “human resource development”, and “organizational development”.