Learning Communities for a Learning Century

Abstract

The Lifelong Learning movement is rapidly gathering ground in most liberal democracies. Despite differences in interpretation that may be based on differences in culture and tradition, there are some common fundamentals and perceptions: the use of new technologies for learning, and in particular the power of distance and open learning tools and techniques to improve the delivery of, and access to, information, courses and seminars offered on a global scale the acknowledgement of human rights as a priority, above all the recognition of the rights of individuals to develop their own potential the development of globalised information societies in which the distinction between work, leisure and life is increasingly blurred, and where old concepts of nationalism and ethnic and religious boundaries are breaking down. We are coming to realise, with the European Round Table of Industrialists and University Rectors that the ‘Information Society’ will not be effectively implemented without a huge increase in the ability of human beings to create a parallel ‘Learning Society’.