Lifelong learning in Sustainable Development Goal 4: What does it mean for UNESCO’s rights-based approach to adult learning and education?

Abstract

This article, which draws on a review of primary and secondary literature, examines the role of a human rights-based approach to adult learning and education (ALE) in the context of the global Education 2030 agenda, which is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) launched in 2015 by the United Nations. Whereas the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) focused on primary education, the SDGs, through SDG 4 which is devoted to education, call on Member States to "ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all". The inclusion of lifelong learning has awakened hopes for a stronger role of ALE in global education agendas and policies. In principle, the ten targets of SDG 4 open up clear possibilities for ALE. However, the author cautions that there is cause for scepticism that ALE, in particular human rights-based ALE, will receive more attention under the SDGs than it did under the MDGs. The article is structured into three sections. The first section traces the emergence of a rights-based approach to adult education as an international paradigm, with particular attention given to the role of UNESCO. The second section discusses how the rights-based approach to adult education has been contested by other actors in the field of education for development. In the final section, the author draws on recent empirical data to reflect on the role of ALE in the age of the SDGs. Keywords lifelong learning • adult learning and education (ALE) • Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) • education as a human right • UNESCO • literacy Résumé Apprentissage tout au long de la vie dans l'Objectif 4 de développement durable : quelle importance pour l'approche de l'apprentissage et de l'éducation des adultes fondée sur les droits que préconise l'UNESCO ?-Cet article s'appuie sur une ana

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“…Ever since a number of policymaking entities and other international institutions such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the EU have made lifelong learning a policy priority and an instrument for supporting economic development there has been a conflict about the precise meaning of the term lifelong learning. The original concept of lifelong education supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the 1960s emerged from an “egalitarian and democratic spirit inherent in the idea of education as a human right” (Elfert 2019 , p. 540). It reached its fullest expression in UNESCO’s work on the concept of lifelong learning, represented by two publications, namely Learning to be … (Faure et al 1972 ) and Learning: The Treasure Within … (Delors et al 1996 ) (Elfert 2019 , p. 540).…”

“…The original concept of lifelong education supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the 1960s emerged from an “egalitarian and democratic spirit inherent in the idea of education as a human right” (Elfert 2019 , p. 540). It reached its fullest expression in UNESCO’s work on the concept of lifelong learning, represented by two publications, namely Learning to be … (Faure et al 1972 ) and Learning: The Treasure Within … (Delors et al 1996 ) (Elfert 2019 , p. 540). But this spirit has changed: UNESCO’s utopian and citizenship-oriented vision of lifelong learning has largely been supplanted by more economics-driven proposals for education put forward by other international organisations (ibid., p. 540).…”

“…reached its fullest expression in UNESCO’s work on the concept of lifelong learning, represented by two publications, namely Learning to be … (Faure et al 1972 ) and Learning: The Treasure Within … (Delors et al 1996 ) (Elfert 2019 , p. 540).…”

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