A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK TO ASSESS UNIVERSITY PARTICIPATION IN LIFELONG LEARNING

Abstract

Lifelong learning has grabbed the attention of both scholars and practitioners in the last decade and has developed into an orientation embraced by universities from all over the world as creators of knowledge and providers of learning for the knowledge economy. This article proposes a conceptual framework to assess universities’ participation in lifelong learning activities based on previous researches conducted by the author on Romanian universities involvement in lifelong learning. The proposed framework is envisaged to act as a practical management tool that can be used to obtain a holistic overview of the implementation of lifelong learning activities in Romanian universities: the forms of learning, the contexts of learning, the types of learning activities, the mostly used financial instruments to finance lifelong learning activities by Romanian universities.

Keywords

• conceptual framework
• lifelong learning
• higher education