Page 25 - Learning-while-working-Success-stories-on-workplace-learning-in-Europe

Learning while working 19

to have periods of more and less intensive learning. (...) So the lifelong learning rhetoric
about “learning all the time” may be insufficient, because although continuing adaptation
can keep individuals employable in their current roles, it is periods of intensive learning
which tend to be decisive for individuals’ career direction. Most people with successful
careers display episodic learning: periods of intensive learning interspersed with “quieter”
times, which nevertheless can involve learning through challenging work. (...) It is also
interesting to note that where individuals have had one or more episodes of substantive
learning mid-career and these episodes have been used as a platform for career change,
then, they often feel reinvigorated and are willing to remain in the labour market for a longer
period of time’ (European Commission, 2010f, p. 38-39).

In the context of continuing career transitions and rapid changes in the
workplace, in which acquiring transversal competences may be more critical
than job-specific skills linked to working procedures, should vocational training
prepare for ‘ working life’ and not narrowly for an occupation (Cedefop, 2010f)?
We all need to maintain our knowledge and skills, upgraded in increasingly
demanding working environments and changing labour markets. Similarly, we
all may need to shift and even reshape our professional life from top to bottom,
when new developments make our professional knowledge and skills obsoles-
cent, we face redundancy following business restructuring, need to move to
another region or country, or we simply decide to change sector in quest of a
more fulfilling job. Transitions are now an ordinary pattern of our working life.
Continuing learning should not be seen as the privilege of the most educated,
nor is skill upgrading the sole obligation of the low-skilled, who are the most
fragile in the labour market, but a necessity and a responsibility for all.

1.4. Structure and concepts underlying the report

This report presents an overview of key trends related to adult learning in
the workplace, using previous research carried out by Cedefop between
2003 and 2010, and with reference also to other European and international
organisations. The report recognises the central role of the workplace in
lifelong learning and employment strategies. This review of workplace learning,
presents and discusses four driving forces for adult learning policies and
strategies at the European, national, regional and sectoral level:
(a) public strategies that combine a range of support measures, services and
incentives with the aim of both widening access to learning opportunities
in the workplace and increasing adult participation in education and
training, in which guidance and counselling play a fundamental role;