This Hot Topic paper returns to a central theme for PASCAL, which is the development and implementation of lifelong learning.    Unlike earlier HTs on the theme, Jarl Bengtsson is concerned less with the concept of lifelong learning but much more with those factors at national level which need to be addressed if substantial progress is to be made in making a reality of the widespread policy commitments which are in place in most EU countries and amongst OECD member countries around the world.

The author locates his discussion in the context of an overview of the development of the commitment to lifelong learning over the past 40 years or so, prompted by the work being undertaken throughout this time at OECD. He shows that we have reached something of a paradox with on the one hand the general acceptance in policy terms of lifelong learning as the only viable educational objective for the 21^st century, whilst on the other, weak, uneven progress on implementation, and a commitment which is being severely tested in the current world economic downturn.

Bengtsson goes on to explore a number of issues which, it is argued, all countries will have to address, and find solutions to which suit their particular circumstances, if significant progress is to be made in the implementation of lifelong learning policies. These are a challenging set of issues which are as much to do with how governments operate, how resources allocated to education and learning are regarded within national accounts, and how lifelong learning can be incorporated in national qualification systems, as they are with the practice and delivery of lifelong learning per se.   

The particular contribution it seems to me which is made by this paper is the challenge to locate policy and implementation of lifelong learning as an investment vital to the achievement of a whole range of other policy objectives focussed on economic development and social cohesion and inclusion which are prioritised by governments. Lifelong learning, implying recurrent episodes of learning through the life course presents a challenge to existing ‘front-end’ education systems and the set of interests which maintain them.   Some possible consequences of not doing so are highlighted in some future scenarios at the end of the paper.   

This paper deserves to be widely read in the policy community in the search for solutions to the challenges to which the paper draws attention.   Researchers too need to follow through on many of the questions raised if realistic policy commitments to implementation of lifelong learning are to be achieved.