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The lifelong learning agenda maintains a pivotal role in educational discourse. It reflects government policy that as a conceptual framework it is shaping a new model of learning. Moreover, it reinforces the view that the establishment of a learning society is vital to meet the growing diversity of economic and social imperatives. This paper explores some of the challenges facing further education in constructing an effective and vocational paradigm for lifelong learning that addresses the impact of widening participation and accessibility. It highlights the significance of recent post‐16 government initiatives and the relationship between a knowledge economy and the inclusive learning agenda in the context of policy and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which workplace learning forms a building block in national lifelong learning policies by obtaining evidence, first-hand, from mental health practitioners about their perceptions of their individual country's national lifelong learning policy and, in particular, its application to adults with long-term mental illness.

Text analysis: review of relevant literature and European Union policy documents and survey questionnaire.

It is evident that the use of workplace learning as a linchpin in national strategies for lifelong learning in Denmark and France is clear and empirically supported.

Comparative evidence of evaluations of impact and effectiveness of workplace lifelong learning provision in the two countries examined is patchy at best raising further questions about the “value” of investments in both workplace learning and lifelong learning in these countries.

There is a risk that by focusing on jobs and workplace learning, the specific needs and desires of people with mental illness who, in the main, might want to engage in lifelong learning for reasons other than jobs and workplace learning, may end up being disadvantaged as their (non-economic) needs go unmet.

Until now there has been little or no attempt to examine Europe's conception of lifelong learning policy and its application to a multiple disadvantaged group such as mental health service users. This is a major attempt to remedy current dearth of research in the area.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the evolution of open educational resources OER initiatives in India – how OER movement emerges from the open access movement in the backdrop of an emerging knowledge‐based economy. This paper also illustrates how OER help in democratizing lifelong learning spaces that eventually help in skills development.

This paper primarily uses baseline surveys and recommendations of different working groups of Indian National Knowledge Commission. Relevant policy instruments of the Ministry of Human Resources Development, UNESCO, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions and other national and international bodies are also critically examined to understand India's stand on OER in comparison with other promising developing countries. This paper analyses impact of OER on Indian systems of education, ranging from lifelong learning, technical and vocational education and training to higher education systems. This paper also illustrates various models of innovations which are shaping up multi‐dimensional lifelong learning pathways to cater to career aspirations of young Indians.

This paper finds out that Indian OER initiatives make use of textual platforms as well as audio‐visual platforms embracing YouTube, Metacafe and other web‐based streaming video channels. This paper also illustrates the collaboration patterns in OER initiatives in order to attain sustainability, optimum usage and integration with formal curriculum of skills development programmes.

Although this paper identifies external as well as internal factors that are shaping up OER movement in this emerging knowledge economy, this paper mainly focuses on country‐level initiatives. The challenges faced at the institutional level as well as users level can be traced through advanced research studies.

This paper suggests some sustainable models for OER deployment, lessons learned and challenges faced by practitioners and users communities.

OER development has become a social movement. Proper deployment and utilization of OER resources will lead to social empowerment of young adults. This paper helps in understanding how Indian society embraces OER in order to attain social justice and empowerment through sustainable educational development.

This paper is a unique attempt to produce a state‐of‐the‐art report on the emergence of the OER movement in a transitional emerging economy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ideas of John Dewey on experience and experiential learning. The context is that of trainee teachers participating in a higher education (HE) through in‐service initial teacher training (ITT) for the Lifelong Learning sector in the UK.

The paper uses recent practitioner research conducted with trainee teachers to explore and contextualise Deweyan ideas and practices around notions of experience and experiential learning. The research methodology is qualitative, interpretive and, reflexive. What is actively sought, and welcomed are examples of congruence, dissonance, conflation and confusion in relation to several theoretical perspectives, one of which is Dewey's ideas on experience and experiential learning.

It is argued that initial teacher training should be broad based and situated, rather than focused on mastery or competency, in order to counteract the funnelled and routinised nature of much of current teaching practice in the sector.

Trainee teachers participate in classroom practice by developing firstly a situated understanding of the concepts and principles surrounding teacher knowledge; secondly strategies for using these in a future situation and thereby assimilating, accommodating and negotiating shared beliefs, identities and values from the practices of a situated community. These are interpreted by Ottesen as knowledge and experience of concepts as taught, derived from knowledge and experience of practice as applied.

This research suggests that increasingly, given the heavily regulated nature of the lifelong learning workplace, trainee teachers have a limited “fund”, or repertoire of experiences through which to sift for appropriate strategies to employ in a specific situation, leaving their capacity to reflect fairly fruitless without the help of others.

The internationalisation of industries has spilled over to academia, whereby institutions of higher learning (IHL) increasingly compete in the graduate quality and applied graduate knowledge capabilities that they can offer. With increasing global competition for students, combined with the evolving need for lifelong learning in dynamic industries impacted by digital knowledge management, there is an opportunity for IHLs to be able to evolve to ensure their business models enable services and service delivery to cater to and help shape industry demands. This chapter will look at micro-credentialing (MC) and how the provision of MCs has changed along with the evolving IHL education environment. The demands of students, employers and ecosystem considerations will be addressed through a review of the current landscape, pathways to MC and how MC may be operationalised. The Bersteinian approach to pedagogic classification, which identifies the framework of knowledge as being communicable via three axes of singularism, regionalism and a wider generalist approach is referenced as a framework. The resultant recommendations that draw upon these foundations will conclude the chapter.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the national policy context for the development of higher apprenticeships (HAs) and discuss the initial vision and rationale for the University of Derby Corporate's (UDC) High Impact Apprenticeship project.

A critical evaluation of historical policy developments is undertaken outlining the potential for the development of a highly skilled workforce for businesses across all sectors. An embedded case study articulates the application of this learning to emergent thinking on the evolution of a framework and infrastructure to support the development of HAs.

Initial findings discuss the challenges to be faced when developing flexible and sustainable frameworks and highlight areas of good practice encountered to date. UDC's recognised expertise in work‐based learning is applied in the context of curriculum development and specifically the development of the capacity and capability of work based tutors to support learners in the workplace.

Key areas for further investigation within a longitudinal study are identified, which will contribute to the academic discourse in the area and offer insights into the perspectives of the key stakeholders involved in HAs, with a view to identifying and disseminating best practice for all parties.

The paper will be of value to all key stakeholders in the HA partnership: providers, tutors, employers, as well as those charged with the governance of such developments, including Sector Skills councils and NAS.

This chapter discusses the findings of doctoral research into further education lecturers' and middle managers' perceptions of how Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in the sector is planned and implemented. Thematic analysis revealed that mandatory CPD is perceived to: involve conflicting purposes between those planning it and its recipients (deriving from divergent understandings of professionalism and the role of CPD among stakeholders); and be characterised as mostly generic, didactic, and ineffective, leading lecturers to compensate by engaging in additional, separate forms of CPD. This chapter demonstrates the value of practice-based doctoral study in enabling the voices of educators to be positioned at the centre of an exploration of their own professional learning.

We live during an era in which the pace and scope of change are unprecedented. This is particularly true in the Asia‐Pacific region where rapid growth has challenged the capacity of people and organizations to adapt. It has become increasingly clear that learning is now the keystone to bringing about change at both the personal and organizational levels. This article examines the role which system‐level leaders in public sector organizations play in creating learning organizations. It discusses tools which system leaders may use to establish conditions that support development of a learning organization.

Describes how the former warehouse manager at UK furniture‐installation company Rubicon Developments Ltd was trained to become a top manager and so free the firm's two directors to spend more time obtaining new business and diversifying the company.

Explains the background to the training, the form it took and the results it has achieved.

Details how the directors delivered the 16‐week tailor‐made program, after themselves attending a course on preparing to teach in the lifelong‐learning sector.

Highlights how the ex‐warehouse manager developed new skills in areas such as cost management, report writing, delegation, conflict resolution, commanding respect in the workplace, finance, time management, project management, change management, sales and marketing, management reporting through Microsoft Excel charts, effective monitoring of quality systems and setting realistic targets.

Highlights an important success in the area of lifelong learning.

Reveals that close monitoring of the employee's progress helped him to complete the program within the allotted 16 weeks, even though he had done little studying in the previous 30 years.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how mentors can act as change agents for social justice. It examines mentors’ roles in initial teacher education in the lifelong learning sector (LLS) and how critical spaces can be opened up to promote a flow of mentor, trainee teacher, learner and community empowerment.

Two thematic literature reviews were undertaken: one of UK LLS ITE mentoring and the other an international review of social justice in relation to mentoring in ITE and the first year of teaching. Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, field and habitus (Bourdieu, 1986) are used as sensitising tools to explore LLS mentors’ practices and the possibilities for increasing the flow of “pedagogical capital” between mentors, trainee teachers, learners and communities, in such a way that would enable mentors to become agents for social justice.

LLS mentors and trainee teachers are uncertain about their roles. In the UK and several countries, mentoring is dominated by an instrumental assessment-focused approach, whereby social justice is marginalised. In contrast, what we call social justice mentors establish collaborative democratic mentoring relationships, create spaces for critical reflection, support trainees to experience different cultures, develop inclusive critical pedagogies, and generally act as advocates and foster passion for social justice.

While the literature reviews provide timely and important insights into UK and international approaches, the existing literature bases are limited in scale and scope.

A model for mentoring that promotes social justice and recommendations for mentor training are proposed.

The paper addresses the omission in policy, research and practice of the potential for mentors to promote social justice. The proposed model and training approach can be adopted across all education phases.