GLOBAL PATTERNS OF LIFELONG LEARNING: LOOKING FOR ITS STUDY AND EMPLOYABILITY OPPORTUNITIES

Schedule Event Date: 9th February 2023

A Special Lecture has been organized by the Department of Education in collaboration with the IQAC, West Bengal State University, on 9th February 2023, titled GLOBAL PATTERNS OF LIFELONG LEARNING: LOOKING FOR ITS STUDY AND EMPLOYABILITY OPPORTUNITIES. The speaker was Dr Sk. Aktar Ali, Faculty at the Department of Educational Sciences, University of Turku, Finland, is an eminent scholar in the field of Lifelong Learning from a global perspective.
Dr Shnaoli Chakraborty Acharya, Assistant Professor, Department of Education, West Bengal State University, the host and the convener of the Special Lecture, commenced the programme with a short welcoming speech to express her gratitude towards the distinguished speaker and other honourable Professors and Chairs of the University; the Chief Patron of the program honourable Vice-Chancellor Prof. Mahua Das in her absentia, IQAC Director Prof. Sutapa Chatterjee Sarkar in her absentia and the Head of the Education Department Prof. Abhijit Kumar Pal in his absentia. She introduced the speaker to the audience and welcomed Dr Sushanta Banerjee, the University Librarian & Director of the Centre for Advanced Studies; Prof. Anirban Sarkar, Director of the Management Studies and Srimanti Sarkar, Department of Political Science, WBSU, with great pleasure for their physical presence and concern for the relevant talk.
Dr Ali delivered his lecture in two segments. In the first half of his lecture, he illustrated the process of defining the term ‘Lifelong Learning’ using the documentary research method. He mentioned the UGC guideline on Lifelong Learning and pointed out that so far India has no dedicated policy on Life Long Learning. He mentioned that he had initiated the documentary research looking for the global perspective of Lifelong Learning. He emphasized the impact of some transnational organizations, like ‘The European Union’, ‘UNESCO’ and ‘The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’, on Lifelong Learning. He revealed how global capitalism, reflexive modernization and digitalization boosted the relevance of a knowledge-based society and its inclusion in the curriculum. From global policies he concluded that this discipline cannot be considered as an isolated entity, it must be integrated with some other socio-economic entities like ‘the labour market’, ‘social security’, ‘education’, ‘literacy’, ‘ethnicity’ and ‘gender equality’ etc. Hence the speaker mentioned Lifelong Learning as a floating signifier.
In the second half, the speaker criticized that Lifelong Learning is continued to be dominated by Adult Literacy in India. He illustrated the triangular connection among stakeholders, educational institutions and the labour market and mentioned that there is a huge mismatch of competency between the labour market and the education sector. He pointed out some supportive data from newspaper articles, research papers and policy papers to emphasize the mismatch. He briefly introduced the various scholarships/fellowships/funding available for higher study in abroad. He ignited the desire among the students with his great oratory skill. Overall, it was an interactive programme. Students were highly attentive and enjoyed the lecture thoroughly. At the end of the programme, a few students shared their experiences of listening to the lecture.
The programme was successfully ended with a vote of thanks by Dr Ajit Mondal, Assistant Professor at the Department of Education, WBSU.