Continuing Education and Training: The Quest for Effective Provisions

There are growing national and global policy focuses as well as local concerns about what is often referred to as ‘lifelong learning’, particularly as it pertains to adults’ learning across working life. To understand and be responsive to those concerns in both policy and practice, it is helpful to articulate key precepts and premises. These are helpful to inform what constitutes effective provisions of continuing education and training (CET) and how, in their diverse forms, they can support individuals’ learning across working lives. The effective promotion of, engagement in and support provided by CET is central to achieving important individual, workplace and national goals. These goals include sustaining individuals’ employability as workplace and occupational requirements change, and supporting the viability of public and private sector enterprises that provide both employment for these adults but also, more importantly, the provision of goods and services that individuals and communities need. Collectively, these contribute to meeting national social and economic goals through the generation of the goods and services that nation states require to be globally competitive, import-competing and export-oriented. More than being about the profitability of these enterprises is the capacity to provide effective social provisions that nation states require (i.e., health, social welfare and education). It has been commonly acknowledged that individuals’ initial occupational preparation is now insufficient to meet their needs for employability across lengthening working lives. The increasingly dynamic requirements for work and occupational practice mean that focused and sustained learning across working life is required by all kinds and classifications of workers, occupations, and industry sectors. This is the case for nation states albeit with developed and developing economies. Thus, the need for effective and scalable CET provisions to sustain workers’ employability has never been greater. To provide the appropriate educative provisions for working age adults, it is important to identify the kinds of experiences, their accessibility and pertinence for them to sustain that employability. Based on a review of extant literature, this chapter sets out what is known and understood about the imperatives for adults to learn across working life, both personal and institutional and how that learning might be best supported, guided and realised, and in ways scalable to entire working populations. It considers approaches for organising, ordering, supporting, and guiding this intentional learning through CET provisions.