Continuous lifelong learning: historical overview, current realities.

Abstract

The phenomenon of continuous lifelong learning has been substantiated in the article; there has been revealed its contents which is shaped by socio-cultural and economic changes caused by fast developing technique and technologies. It has been proved that the continuity of education and learning is not new in the history. There have been identified and explained major principles of continuous adults’ lifelong learning which are available in European documents. The views of famous German researchers (P. Altheit, E. Gruber, J. Knoll, K. Houl, Z. Nold, V. Lentz, P. Faultisch) on the role of lifelong learning have been analyzed. Having taken into account the above-mentioned researchers’ generalizations of the problem in question, there have been identified and described four periods of its evolution (ascertaining-identifying, methodological, of theoretical expansion, activity-evaluating).