The Future of Education: Strengthening the Relevance of Lifelong Learning

Abstract

This chapter explores educational practices to increase work relevance in lifelong learning education programmes. The outlet of the analysis is the development of skills for change, and to lay the grounds for innovativeness and entrepreneurial behaviour in future organizations. For the Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s), there are different pathways to shape and improve on their relevance to education for the work life. We examine how higher education institutions can consolidate their position in the future by agile attention to the development of the necessary skills that promote innovative and entrepreneurial behaviour. The primary argument is a need for a dynamic co-evolving relationship between the work environment and the fine tuning of educational content and educational practices in order to bridge the gap from curriculum to work context, and the probability of a meaningful application of educational content at work. The qualitative data is collected through interviews with students and their colleagues and superiors within two different organizations in Norway. From the analysis, we suggest a conceptual model providing further details of these “relational interdependences” between educational and work factors and outline some basic underlying factors in the work environment that help shape the relevance of skills needed in work life.