The Concept of Permanent Education – Paradigmatic Approaches

Abstract

Abstract When we speak about the concept of “permanent education”, our attention focuses on comprehensive and broad approaches to the instructive-educational process that go beyond, or, at least, should go beyond what we call or we mean by the traditional boundaries of school and formal education. In fact, the lifelong education constitutes sine qua non a continuing process of learning and development throughout life, a process that takes place in various contexts and at different stages of our lifetime. In this context, we can state that the permanent education must be in agreement with everything that means, on the one hand, the educational market, and on the other hand, the economic market corroborated with the idea of the labor market. We believe that such an assumption is justified by the very demands and new orientations of the labor market as well as by the need of the human being to continuously develop himself in relation to himself and also to everything that is around him. Such a reform of the educational society (Comenius) and of the human being (Dewey), in relation to what the continuous development entails, only brings into discussion a series of ideas such as the continuous learning, the (self) exploration, the personal development and so on.Therefore, the analysis of this paper will focus on the one hand, on the paradigmatic approach to the concept of “permanent education” (from a diachronic and synchronic viewpoint), and on the other hand, on the analysis of specific features of some paradigms related thereof. Thus, we will try to show that its benefits and impact may vary according to individual context and needs.