Education in the Learning Economy: A European Perspective

Abstract

Innovation is crucial to the competitiveness of the economies of Europe, and learning is crucial to innovation. The most important trend shift is not that knowledge is becoming more important but that it is becoming obsolete more rapidly than before, so that firms and employees constantly have to learn and acquire new competencies. This involves different types of knowledge of which the less formalised, learnt through experience, are often just as important as the formalised, learnt through exposure to teaching. The article opens with a presentation of different categories of knowledge, their consequences for approaches to education and the concept of the learning economy. Drawing on cross-national data it is then shown how European economies are characterised by dramatic differences in work organisation and learning at the workplace. The authors illustrate how such differences are linked not only to inequality of access to workplace learning but also to institutional and cultural differences between different national school systems in Europe. They argue that traditional schooling, isolated from society and organised according to traditional disciplines and educational methods, is insufficient in the context of the learning economy. Educational principles and cultures focusing on collaboration, interdisciplinarity and engagement with real-life problems are needed to prepare people for flexible and innovative participation in the economy and society.