Lifelong learning is not just another collective
term for describing learning after school or, in
some cases, college and university. The
distinctiveness and strength of the vision - in
policy and practice - rests with the framework
it provides for developing a coherent, inter-linked
process of cumulative learning through life. Learning
in school is in many respects the key to the success of
lifelong learning; it is here that the key capabilities and
attitudes must be developed. Unlike much current thinking
and policy, our approach is not based on arbitrary
distinctions between pre-16 compulsory education,
FE and HE, followed by learning during adult life

Over the next two years The Foundation will pursue
an "impact" strategy designed to bring this vision
and concept "from the margins to the mainstream".

The overall strategy has three strands:

• curriculum reform
• assessment strategies
  
• guidance frameworks
• teaching and teachers
  

b) Bring together leading edge thinking on lifelong
learning to strengthen its intellectual basis and
produce a more coherent framework for policy
development.

c) Collaborate with our research teams and other
similarly-minded organisations to design and
deliver a programme of "influencing" events
and initiatives, including pilot studies and
the possibility of commercial development.

Key changes in thinking and process that we support are:

• Moving education and learning - policy and
  practice - out of the "school-shaped" box
  
• Moving the locus of change from principle
  to practice
  
• Moving the current debate from structure to
  process; from "where we learn to how we
  learn"
  
• Adding a realistic appreciation of the impact
  of ICT on all types and contexts of learning
  
• Creating and using a "joined-up" perception
  of learning through life

For a further statement of The Foundation's views on lifelong learning, click here for " Life Sentence", Chris Brookes, "RSA Journal, 1/6 2002