An Analysis of Maturation of Lifelong Learning under the Political, Economic, and Social Circumstances in China

Abstract

This study analyzed the maturation process of lifelong learning in China. In particular, the study was to show how some specific political, economic and social circumstances went together with the whole process of lifelong education development in recent China. The notion of lifelong learning was first introduced into China in the late 1970s with the translation of the UNESCO report—Learning to Be: TheWorld of Education Today and Tomorrow. Since then, lifelong learning underwent a distinctive process of adjustment, rectification, reform, improvement, steady development and finally maturation. China’s current transition to market-oriented economy and industrialized country, together with the involvement in fierce global economic competition formed the macro contexts for developing lifelong learning. The big illiterate population and massive rural migrant labor forces raised great challenges and emergency to develop lifelong learning in China. The scope of period for the analysis is ranged from the foundation of People’s Republic of China in 1949 up to present. The corresponding political, economic and social situations in each period were the best indicators and explanations for the distinctive developing features from other countries.