"The Learning Age will be built on a renewed commitment to self
improvement and on a recognition of the enormous contribution
learning makes to our society. Learning helps shape the values
which we pass on to each succeeding generation. Learning
supports active citizenship and democracy, giving men and women
the capacity to provide leadership in their communities. As
President J F Kennedy once put it: 'Liberty without learning is
always in peril and learning without liberty is always in vain.'

David Blunkett, UK Secretary of State for Education and Employment
Foreword to The Learning Age, Cm3790, February 1998

The Foundation's purpose is to help lay the foundations for the
development of the UK as a learning society by 2020

Funding research and development is our core activity. Our agenda
has three dimensions:

• Individual: Sparking and sustaining a commitment to
  learning through life
  
  
• Operational: Reforming and revitalising the framework
  for learning and, in particular, compulsory
  education
  
  
• Cultural: Understanding and initiating the "culture
  change" process at the heart of achieving
  lifelong learning

The following pages describe the work we are undertaking to meet the challenge.

• Our perception of lifelong learning in the 21st Century
  
  
• Our first five years' work
  
  
• Our R&D challenges and priorities
  
  
• Our "impact" strategy to 2004
  
  
• Information on The Foundation