Author(s)

Marjan Šimenc, Zdenko Kodelja

Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Lifelong education, in its humanistic dimension as the broader right of the individual to education, which in the 1970s was seen as a question of the individual’s free will, has become increasingly understood as the obligation of the individual to educate himself or herself throughout his or her life, or rather as the individual’s personal responsibility for the development of his or her own education, personal development and participation in the realisation of civil rights and economic goals. Lifelong learning (education) is thus no longer a matter of the individual’s free choice, but is a necessity. If one wants to survive in the labour market in a time of rapid social, economic and technological change, one must constantly adapt one’s knowledge and skills to the unpredictable demands of the labour market.

Lifelong Education, Philosophy of Education, Necessity, Free Choice

Šimenc, M. and Kodelja, Z. (2016) Lifelong Learning—From Freedom to Necessity. Creative Education, 7, 1714-1721. doi: 10.4236/ce.2016.712174.