Flexible Delivery of Education: The Globalization of Life Long Learning
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61538/jipe.v4i2.226Abstract
 In this paper the author provides brief explorations on flexibility in the delivery of education, globalization and lifelong learning. Flexible online, m-learning inclusive, is conceived as the most appropriate means through which globalization of lifelong learning can be realized. Among the issues that are discusses as pertinent to the globalization of lifelong learning are: flexibility in terms of institutions, instructors, programmes, time and space; qualifications in education are no longer measured in terms of paper credentials, but rather on practical outcomebased relevance of what is attained through the education provided; assessment mechanisms in online education is no longer teacher-based or institutional based; learners acquire extensive freedom/autonomy to either engage institutions and instructors or to educate themselves through Open Education Resources (OERs) and other forms of online educational resources.    Globalized online learning and proposes that relevant contextualized online education has great potentials as a realization of democratization of education on a global scale in accordance with UN‟s proclamation of education as a human right. It provides a means through which meaningful and relevant innovations in education can be realized instead of current trends where education has become a sustained system of producing technological and scientific products. Globalizing lifelong learning is realizable, while online education provisions contemporary educational technologies and enhanced capabilities for content development, use, distribution, storage, retrieval, updating, and pedagogical alternatives and enhancement.   ÂReferences
Faure, E., & International Commission on the Development of Education. (1972).
Learning to be; the world of education today and tomorrow. Paris: UNESCO.
Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2001). Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Freire, P. (1973). Education for critical consciousness. (1st American ed.). New York:
Seabury Press.
Friedman, T. L. (2006). The world is flat. A brief history of the twenty-first century. New York. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Goodfellow, R. & Lamy, M. (2009). Learning Cultures in Online Education. UK. Continuum.
Martin, I. (2003). Adult education, lifelong learning and citizenship: Some ifs and buts. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 22(6), 566-579.
McLaren, P. & Jaramillo, N. E. (2008). Alternative globalizations: Toward a critical globalization studies. Rhizoma freirean Vol. 1-2
Peters, O. (2004). Distance education in transition. New trends and challenges (4th ed.). Bibliotheks- und Informationsysytem der Universität Oldenburg, Center for Distance Education.
Reich, R. B. (1992). The work of nations: Preparing ourselves for 21st century capitalism. New York: Vintage Books.
Sachs, J. (2005). The end of poverty: How we can make it happen in our lifetime. London. Penguin Books.
Vygotsky, V. (1978). Mind in society. The development of higher psychological processes. Havard University Press.
Walker, J. (n.d). Towards alternative lifelong learning(s): what Freire can still teach us. Educational Studies. University of British Columbia.
Walker, J. (forthcoming). The inclusion and construction of the worthy citizen through lifelong learning: a focus on the OECD. Journal of Education Policy.