Actors in Long Life Learning - Essay Example

? EDUCATION Actors in Lifelong Learning ……………………… College………………………………. …………………. Words-count: 2595 Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Lifelong Learning and implication on immigrant community 3 Lifelong Learning as a means of social control and reproduction among Immigrants 5 UK’s immigrants demography 7 Immigrants integration and Lifelong Learning in UK 8 Lifelong Learning for Economic and Social Prosperity of the Host country 9 Social Capital and Community Practice interact with Lifelong Learning 11 Conclusion 12 Reference Lists 13 Introduction For any immigrant community, the central ingredient for economic and social prosperity of the host country requires blending in to the norms, ideology, culture and social settings that country’s environment. Lifelong learning, which gains widespread attraction since its necessity for people to thrive in the current rapidly changing social and technological environments, serves as a link between professional and personal development of the immigrants and the social assimilation and economic prosperity of the host country. The global economy is highly influenced by transitions and adjustments challenges at the social, business and cultural levels. Knowledge is not just the power, but a property to highly be marketed and commercialized. Lifelong learning is considered to be a vehicle that can enable immigrant community to adapt the challenges of new global economy. Human brain is perceived to represent a new ‘grey capital’ as it is set alongside the familiar economic resources such as land, labor and finance (Field, 2006, p. 9). This piece of research work presents the concept of lifelong learning and analyzes how this can help immigrants improve their personal and professional development and as a result improve the economic prosperity of country they migrated to. This paper investigates the role of lifelong learning in contributing to the economic and social prosperity and reflects on the personal experiences of lifelong learning in terms of personal and professional development. Lifelong Learning and implication on immigrant community In today’s competitive knowledge economy, lifelong learning has become a critically important strategy to make people highly competitive and productive. (World Bank, 2003). Lifelong learning is a human process and a metaphor to describe societies, regions and organizations. Lifelong learning is described as an ideal goal for better education (Parson, 1990), as a human process (Parson, 1990), as a product (Hatton, 1997) and moral duty of people (Wain, 1991). Learning is a human process and it requires consciousness and the capacity to utilize their knowledge. Lifelong learning is a continuous learning throughout one’s life directed by the individual needs and intentionality mediated by the capacities and interests (Billett, 2010, P. 402). World Bank (2003) explained that lifelong learning refers to learning throughout the lifetime including formal, non-formal and informal education and training. Formal education and training are structured programs recognized by formal education system. Non-formal education is structured education system but not recognized by national systems. Informal education and training are fully unstructured education or training systems that can take place anywhere such as home, organizations, workplace etc. Lifelong learning aims at positively influencing the inexperienced people in changing their career targets and making them highly demanded individuals by taking the self-responsibility of their learning and education. It thus assists them in developing their own learning skills (Uzunboylu and Ursen, 2011, p. 450). Technology in modern society plays significant role in lifelong learning. Distance or online-education facilitated by colleges and universities can be considered as examples for how modern technology assist lifelong learning. It occurs very flexibly when individuals have more freedom and choices. People who are effective in lifelong learning are found skilled and highly capable in various qualifications such as ‘self-planning their learning’, self-assessment’, becoming active-learners’, learning from any environment, peer-learning etc (Uzunboylu and Ursen, 2011, p. 450). More specifically, lifelong learners, with their own skills of assessment and strategic planning, continually learn from different situations and environments. When it comes to the present immigrant environment in UK, there are evidently five categories of immigrants, namely refugee, asylum seeker, failed asylum seeker, economic migrant and illegal migrant. Asylum seeker, for any legal or other reason, has left his country of origin and migrated UK and has applied for asylum. A refugee is one whose asylum application has been approved and is allowed to stay in UK. One whose application for asylum isn’t approved is known to be Failed Asylum Seeker. An economic migrant has moved from his country of origin to UK for work. Immigrant professionals can be considered as economic migrants. Illegal migrant has arrived a country and has no legal basis to stay there. Out of these, professional migrants has attained professional status and completed certain qualifications making them fit for certain jobs and they seek better economic opportunity in an industrialized country. lifelong learning can have significant impact on their personal and professional development and the economic wellbeing of the host country. Lifelong learning, as Coffield (1999, p. 480) identified it as a mechanism for bringing broader economic wellbeing, will be the most beneficial channel to improve the social prosperity of immigrant community. Lifelong Learning as a means of social control and reproduction among Immigrants Societies worldwide became increasingly aware of the need to developing skilled workforce in order to foster competitive advantages in business and marketplaces and this in turn has caused humanistic focus of lifelong learning as a way to economic framing. The same can be observed among the immigrant community in almost all different economies. The economic and social focus of lifelong learning can also be viewed from its significance to enhance social control and reproduction mechanism. As Holford (2008, p. 79) noted, there has been a social move to linking welfare benefits to attending vocational training and education programs since social control can be obtained through lifelong learning. For instance, well qualified professionals migrate to UK seeking advanced economic opportunity, but their skill and qualification might not be fully utilized for that they still needed to improve the English communication. These professionals should get easy access to courses in English for Speakers in Other Languages, so that they and their skills can be integrated and contributed to the social and economic prosperity. Employment plays pivotal role in ensuring social control and social security. Learning, no matter whether it is formal or non-formal or informal, helps increase people’s employability and thence improve the social control contexts. Though some literatures including Jackson (2011, p. 8) argued that lifelong learning is a mechanism for exclusion since it can uphold and generate deep-rooted inequalities, most literatures and researches have concluded that lifelong learning generates social control. Sutherland and Crowther (2006, p. 161) emphasized that community and lifelong learning form to be vital part of a government’s drive to build social inclusion by widening participation in learning, by building self confidence of people and by promoting better citizenship as well as personal and professional development. Lifelong learning thus can be used as a mechanism for promoting the social integration of immigrant community. Centre for Research on Wider Benefits of Learning in UK identified the benefits arising from the lifelong learning (Sutherland and Crowther, 2006, p. 161). When it comes to UK’s case, the social security benefits were tied to requirements for people to participating in up-skilling and active labour market. More specifically, social control functions of lifelong learning were very evident from the growth of efforts to link social welfare benefit system and use of lifelong learning to promote some specific ideologies (Holford, 2008, p. 24). UK’s immigrants demography Immigrants, undoubtedly, can be considered as an economic asset for that immigrant community may hold diversity experiences, different ideas, norms and cultures and also that they therefore seem to be efficient and skillful labours. According to the latest statistics, since 1990s, net immigrants in to UK has significantly increased and has boosted UK’s labour wealth. Since 1997, the net immigrants were accounted to be 1.5 million. These immigrants have taken a higher share of new jobs created in the UK economy. Between 1997 and 2007, foreign-born workers have taken around 70 percent of all the new jobs created during that period of time (Salter and Mehta, p. 5). The skill level of immigrants arriving at UK is critically important issue. How does it impact the economic prosperity? Recent data shows that immigrants in UK in recent years are less likely to be skilled and they are quite less productive than they were before. For instance, in 2006, the share of all foreign national working in professional and managerial levels were accounted as 40 percent being quite similar to the workforce as a whole, but share of working in elementary jobs was around 30 percent compared to the UK’s average 23 percent (Salter and Mehta, p. 5). Immigrants integration and Lifelong Learning in UK Humanity must remain as an unfinished process and all human being should keep on learning throughout the life time. This not only gives him personal and professional advantages, but makes his country active and alive in terms for economic and social benefits. Learning is thus intrinsic to living. As Guo (2010, p. 159) noted, learning, especially based on lifelong learning perception, comprises four dimensions: learning to know, learning to do, learning to be and learning to live together. As far as immigrants are concerned, they are moving to a new country and therefore they need much assistance in housing, daycare, schooling, education, health, counseling, legal, religious and other secrecies. Immigrants will learn to live together if they are provided of equal access to education, housing and so on. But, researches show that immigrants often face difficulties to access social services and that is the way they lack learning to live together (Guo 2010, p. 159). Learning through work is another important aspect of learning to learn and learning to live together. But, unfortunately, many immigrant labours fall below the skill levels required for professional and managerial jobs for their English communication barrier. They are deprived of better employment opportunity for two factors, one is English communication and the second is skill-development. Though they are high or more qualified than the requirement for the specific job, their skill need to be still integrated and adapted to the industrial environment within UK. Lifelong Learning for Economic and Social Prosperity of the Host country Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] (1996, P. 15) stressed that lifelong learning fosters personal development, strengthens democratic values, cultivates community life, maintains social cohesion, thrives on innovation, promotes productivity and economic growth. Lifelong learning directly impacts the wellbeing of immigrants, social standard and economic growth of the host country. As Coffield (1999, p. 480) argued that lifelong learning is a mechanism for bringing broader economic wellbeing. Lifelong learning, no matter whether it is carried out through formal or informal education, influences the productivity of immigrant workforce and increase productivity which is the competitive advantage for any economy to meet challenges of modern global economy. Jackson (2011, p. 8) is of the opinion that the current mantra of lifelong learning needs to be positioned in a way that learning is about citizenship for social action and social justice rather than learning how to become a citizen who embodies new-liberal values. At its best way, lifelong learning can serve as a route for personal development and economic growth, as it can enable personal fulfillment, developing active and inclusive society and political engagement etc. Lifelong learning, unlike professional or career training and development, is more likely not only to impact the career and professional development of the immigrants, but also to influence overall skills, qualifications, personality traits, behavior, knowledge, wisdom that will make them highly productive to meet increasing demand in the host country. When it comes to UK, though its productivity has increased in recent years, its overall skills-level and productivity was lagging behind many other comparator nations. On an average, French worker produced 20 percent more than that of UK’s worker, German worker produced 13 percent more than that of UK and US worker produced 18 percent more than that of UK’s worker (Leitch Review of Skills, 2006, p. 7). In recent years, the skill and qualification base of UK’s public has significantly increased along with increasing standards in schools and colleges. The numbers of UK people in working age being qualified to Level 2 was estimated to have risen by more than 1 million since 2003. The proportion of people with not sufficient qualification to attend specific jobs has almost halved (Leitch Review of Skills, 2006, p. 45). It is also observed that refugees and asylum seekers who have migrated to UK have brought wealth of skills and experience that have benefited UK’s economy. Over 40 percent of refugees were well qualified before arriving in the UK, and about half of them have received more than ten years of education. Out of the refugees and asylum seekers who came to UK, more than 32 percent of men and 25 percent of women have completed either graduation or post graduation and 37 percent of them were in managerial or other highly valued professional backgrounds (Morris, 2007, p. 155). Refugees and asylum seekers coming to UK face difficulty since lack of UK work experience, poor English language, inefficiency of handling with advanced technology, lack of information about UK’s education system etc. Apart from these difficulties faced by asylum seekers and refugees, Morris (2007, p. 156) argued that social capital is a key factor in social exclusion of refugees. The significance of social capital in a social system calls for the lifelong learning to promote social wide learning opportunities, by giving emphasis on both formal and informal learning systems. Social Capital and Community Practice interact with Lifelong Learning The very basic idea behind the norms of social capital is personal relationship. Most people know how and why personal relationship matters and it can also be used to overcome shortcomings in other assets, because people’s relation with others provide a basis for wider social stability and cohesion (Field, 2005, p. 18). Bourdieu identified three types of capital, namely economic, social and cultural capitals. According to Bourdieu, social capital is the resources arising from the engaging in durable networks characterized by reciprocity and mutuality (Morgan-Klein and Osborne, p. 25). Bourdeiu claimed that economic capital underpins social capital and interacts with wider structures so that it reproduces inequalities. Social capital is found in social networks. Individual relations thus matter in micro level. Social or network connections, contacts and group memberships thus support access to valued resources (Osborne, Sankey and Wilson, n.d, p. 16). Social capital, according to the view of Putman, comprises of features of social organizations such as trust, belief, norms etc that can improve the efficiency of society through coordinated actions. From his point of view, individual relationship is significantly important matter to social capital. As Schuller (2009, p. 10) highlighted, lifelong learning could contribute to lower offending behavior even though the evidence for that is highly variable. He noted that human capital is an economic asset of personal skills and qualifications, supplied mostly through education and training and personal relations too. Social networks and shared norms are thus critical to social capital. In a closer observation to social situations, it will be very evident that offenders, criminals etc have lower human capital since they lack qualifications to enable them gain lawful employment. They lack skills for becoming competitive in a workplace. Lifelong learning, therefore, can certainly be effective social strategy to enhance social capital, which in turn help immigrant people possess greater potential, skills, qualifications to enable them entail lawful employment and thus reduce injustice, offends etc. Conclusion This paper presented a piece of research analyzing the conceptual framework of lifelong learning as a means of personal and professional developments among immigrants and social as well as economic prosperity of the host country. Lifelong learning reduces social disparities and inequalities since it helps individuals achieve personal development and the economy attain growth. Lifelong learning is a strategy to improve the knowledge and skill base of immigrant people in an economy and that in turn can help the country be competitive in today’s global economy. 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