Too little time to learn? Issues and challenges for those in work

Abstract

The research project reported here arose out of questions we had in relation to time pressures, increasingly heavy workloads and concerns that we were, it seemed to us, neglecting our families and friends. We kept on asking ourselves: how do people manage? Open University students, for example, most of whom are working full-time, have families and friends, often study more than 14 hours a week on various programmes for either work-related purposes or personal development. How meaningful, therefore, is the concept of lifelong learning to adults in the context of everyday reality? Does the policy-led demand for lifelong learning not place too heavy a burden on individual learners? What does the concept of ‘time’ mean to them? This paper draws on theoretical perspectives of time (rather than space and time) in relation to lifelong learning in the context of work, seen from both the employees' and the employers' perspectives