Abstract:

Adult learning throughout life is one of the objectives of society of knowledge proposed by the Lisbon Strategy and, in particular, the work program Education and Training 2010. The Education is an instrument for social change in our globalized world; learning is considered an essential component for the individual and collectives development as it promotes the required characteristics in the globalized world and neoliberalism (Krishna & Srilatha, 2015). This must be considered from early childhood to the end of life, especially at the university as a specialized context for lifelong learning. The relevance of Lifelong Learning and its full incorporation to Higher Education has arisen in the Bologna Declaration in 1999 and has been addressed in the different biennial meetings of Ministers responsible for Higher Education in the European Union. In this context, Lifelong Learning was included in the Strategy document 2015. The development of Lifelong Learning is closely related to the social function of the University as it seeks to promote independent learning, professional and occupational development and, therefore, improving employability, from the base of adult education. Each adult learner has their individual learning needs and we need theories of adult learning as andragogy (UNESCO, 1985). Malcolm Knowles Andragogical theory of adult learning clearly brings out the distinction between the adult and child learner since it is based on the distinctive and unique characteristics of adult as a learner (Kapur, 2015). According to Knowles (1984), the practitioner and theorist of adult education, the ‘adult learning principles’ that should be applied while teaching/training adults are: learner’s need to know, self-concept of the learner, prior experience of the learner, readiness to learn, orientation to learning and motivation to learn. The aim of this study is both to analyze the basic characteristics of the adult learner highlighted by Knowles as regards as learning throughout life and to check their differences according with the certified training level, presuming that the formal school system as a whole has this as a mission, and according to the situation of the individual employment/unemployment, both as indicators of employability. We measure the self-esteem, intellectual openness, autonomy, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in a heterogeneous sample of Workers= 74; Unemployed= 182; Formal education= 69; VET and Bachelor= 65; University students= 120. Results show that levels of all the variables analyzed are not as high as it is desiderable and expected in adulthood. Along with this, it seems that formal education systems tent to promote higher levels of self-concept and intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, it seems that unemployment decreases the levels of self-concept; the intrinsic motivation seems to differentiate between college students and workers with job security from unemployed; and extrinsic motivation differentiates workers with job security from the college students and unemployed. These results are relevant for organization of the education system because they allow us to investigate the alignment of education and the labour market in order to maturation and autonomy and to eliminate problems of society as social exclusion, unemployment, etc. We urge stakeholders to think of the ways through which reality is interpreted if we are to be fully aware of how this process influences education planning.

Keywords:

Lifelong learning, employability, unemployment.