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This article discusses the current focus of education policies around the world on working with benchmarks, indicators and targets. Its aim is to increase knowledge of potential strategies to meet the fourth United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 4), which strives for quality education. The SDGs form part of the United Nations (UN) "2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development", which was unanimously adopted in 2015 by all UN Member States as a "plan of action for people, planet and prosperity". Structure and agency theory form an important starting point of this article, allowing the ten targets within SDG 4 to be separated and viewed from micro-, meso-and macro-level perspectives. This analysis explores the idea that reaching the SDG 4 targets is a responsibility shared among individuals, education and training institutions, and regulating governments.

This paper discusses the layered nature of lifelong learning participation, bringing together fragmented insights in why adults do or do not participate in lifelong learning activities. The paper will discuss the roles and responsibilities of individual adults, education and training providers and countries' social education policies, often labelled as the micro, meso and macro level. The aim of this work is to add a new model to the knowledge base that attempts to integrate separate insights at the three different levels. Apart from discussing the relevance of the micro, meso and macro level, together with a comprehensive model, the paper provides some recommendations for future research in the area of adult lifelong learning participation, such as the adoption of multilevel models, the need for more data linkage and the desire for more diversification of research in terms of geographical spread and types of educational activities adults can undertake.

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