Whatever happened to lifelong learning? And does it matter?

Speaker:
Professor John Bynner

Chaired by: Professor John Gray FBA, University of Cambridge

While adult education has a long history in Britain going back to the Workers' Educational Association of the early 20th Century, the term ‘lifelong learning’ does not extend much further back than the 1970s. The talk considers the socio-economic and technological changes that lay behind the idea of cradle to grave learning in a global context and the life enhancing benefits to be expected. The British birth cohort studies chart people’s changing lives since the second world-war, display the benefits to be gained from learning and reveal a growing learning divide. What halted lifelong learning’s progress? Where does it go next? 

About the speaker:
Professor John Bynner is Emeritus Professor UCL Institute of Education and prior to retirement, director, Centre for Longitudinal Studies, co-director, Wider Benefits of Learning research centre and founder director, National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy.   He held earlier positions at City University Social Statistics research unit, Open University and Government Social Survey. 

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