EURASHE organised a Seminar on Lifelong Learning (LLL) titled ‘Lifelong Learning at Professional Higher Education Institutions: New Learners, New Approaches‘ in Bled (Slovenia) on 15-16 October 2009. It is organised by EURASHE and the Association of Slovene Higher Vocational Colleges (ASHVC). Underneath are further information on:
(Photograph: CC by-nc-sa by r12a)
Day 1 – Thursday 15 October 2009
09.30 – Registration for Seminar attendants and contributors
10.00 – Welcome address by the organisers and hosting institution
Lars Lynge Nielsen, President of EURASHE
Meta Dobnikar, Ministry of Higher Education
Janez Šolar, director of Vocational College for Catering and Tourism Bled
10.40 – Developments of Slovene Higher Professional Education and Vocational College Higher Education sector (LLL)
Meta Dobnikar, Ministry of Higher Education
Zdenka Steblovnik Župan, President of AVCRS
11.00 – Coffee break
11.20 – Trends and changes within the society, new challenges, new needs (Samo Pavlin, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)
12.00 – Responses of Higher Education institutions to the new challenges (Michel Feutrie, President of EUCEN)
12.30 – Lunch
14.00 – Lifelong Learning from the point of view of professional HE: EURASHE working agenda on LLL
LLL strategies: Progress and Setbacks in institutional practice (Adina Timofei, EURASHE researcher)
15.00 – Coffee break
15.30 – Two parallel break-out sessions on items identified in the study:
Tools & Technology for new learners/teachers in Higher Education (presentation of tools DayAct , group discussion)
Implementing the Bologna process into HEI – example of good practice (Marjan Velej, coordinator of the IMPLETUM project)
17.00 – Feedback from the workshops
19.00 – Dinner at the Bled castle
Day 2 – Friday 16 October 2009
09.30 – Segmenting the market, specific requirements of specific groups of learners (Richard Thorn, IoTI, Ireland)
10.00 – Marketing and promotion among the potential learners (Diarmuid Hegarty, President of Griffith College, Dublin, Ireland)
10.30 – Students’ view – reflection by a Slovene graduate of LLL courses (Milka Smrdelj-Topic, adult student at the Vocational College of Wood Technology School Maribor)
11.00 – Coffee/tea break
11.20 – Workshop on New (active) methods of teaching/learning for new learners (Terence Clifford Amos, Canterbury Christ Church University)
12.30 – Plenary Closing
13.00 – Farewell Lunch
EURASHE has in the past few years set up annual seminars specifically devoted to lifelong learning, in which we focused on the different ‘stakeholders’. The Bled seminar on lifelong learning, is now laying the focus on the ‘new learner’, after dealing with the higher education institutions as providers, the employers and the more traditional learners in our previous seminars. This focus on the ‘new learner’ fits into our longstanding commitment to lifelong learning, even before it became part of the official ‘Bologna’ agenda. It is to be explained by an attention for the socio-economic background of the untraditional learner for whom (higher) education is either an economic necessity or a means for advancement in society.
With ‘Bologna’ and the link to the Lisbon Agenda the attention for new groups of learners has become even more stringent. The Communiqué of the Bologna Ministers gathering in Leuven on 23 April this year put a more than usual focus on lifelong learning and explicitly linked it to the social dimension, through widening access, and as an integrated part of the higher education reform. “Widening participation shall also be achieved through lifelong learning as an integral part of our education systems. Lifelong learning is subject to the principle of public responsibility.
The accessibility, quality of provision and transparency of information shall be assured. Lifelong learning involves obtaining qualifications, extending knowledge and understanding, gaining new skills and competences or enriching personal growth” (The Bologna process 2020 – The Leuven Communiqué, 2009). In the Leuven Communiqué, lifelong learning was identified as one of the higher education priorities for the coming decade, and it therefore should be one of the key areas for a stocktaking of the implementation of the Bologna reform in higher education institutions, along with other aspects like the social dimension, mobility, employability of graduates, etc.
















Organisers

