Worklife Learning: Contributions of Tertiary Education
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Le, Anh Hai
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Billett, Stephen
Salling Olesen, Henning
Filliettaz, Laurent
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Abstract
Tertiary education plays a central role in supporting worklife learning. Offered here are perspectives on how that contribution is made drawing on the experiences of working age adults. It proposes that provisions for any worklife education needs to be integrated within a lifelong learning curriculum. This is because adults experience a diversity of transitions due to changes in personal lifestyle, occupation, employment status, stage of life, relocation, and physical and psychological health. Such changes press for their learning to extend beyond what is required for work, employment and economic outcomes to broader social sustainability goals that are achievable when working age adults are employed. In this chapter, we analyse data from 66 life-history interviews and over 600 responses to a quantitative survey seeking to illuminate and elaborate how tertiary education providers can support adult workers’ learning to navigate through worklife transitions across their working life as they variously prepare for and develop further and sustain their employment and employability. It commences with a rationale for worklife learning to support life transitions and how tertiary education institutions can support workers’ learning. This rationale is positioned against the kinds of changes working adults negotiate across worklife transitions and the types of learning requirements that assist with those transitions. The findings are used to propose recommendations about tertiary education provisions for working age adults in terms of the design of courses and programs, accessibility, cost and modes of delivery. Given that learning across working life draws on the contributions of tertiary education institutions, workplaces and community spaces that workers engage with, it becomes necessary for those education providers to consider ways to recognise, integrate and support learning from these sources. Accordingly, aside from curriculum related imperatives, the kinds of support that will help adults not only learn, but also secure and sustain employment are discussed.
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Sustaining Employability Through Work-life Learning: Practices and Policies
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1st
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Higher education
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Choy, S; Le, AH, Worklife Learning: Contributions of Tertiary Education, Sustaining Employability Through Work-life Learning: Practices and Policies, 2023, pp. 261-283