Critical Aspects of a Higher Education Reform for Continuous Lifelong Learning Opportunities in a Digital Era

Abstract

In the knowledge society today, there is a strong need for providing continuous lifelong learning opportunities. Recently, the Covid-19 pandemic has acted as a catalyst for technology enhanced learning, involving new challenges for higher education. The main focus for this study has been the ongoing reform of higher education for providing lifelong learning opportunities. This study is the second phase of a Delphi study on higher education reform. Data were gathered by email interviews with an expert panel, where all respondents have genuine knowledge in the field of technology enhanced lifelong learning. The interview answers were analysed according to the Grounded Theory concepts of open coding and axial coding. The central main category for the axial coding was ‘Higher education reform for the provision of lifelong learning opportunities. This category was later found to be dependent on ‘Infrastructure’, ‘Multimodal delivery’, ‘Pedagogical change’, ‘Financial aspects’, and ‘Quality and organisation’, ‘Digital literacy’, ‘Accessibility’, and ‘Equity, diversity and inclusion’.