A Phenomenographic Exploration of Key Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Lifelong Learning in Higher Education in Ireland

For the last several decades, lifelong learning (LLL) has been widely promoted on the international stage as a means of achieving both economic and social benefits including enhanced employability and human capital, active citizenship, social cohesion, individual and societal well-being. However, the practice and implementation of LLL has been less than cohesive with varying degrees of success across the world. As regards approaches to implement the concept of LLL in higher education (HE), differences at national level are perhaps even more explicit. In the Irish case, which is the focus of this study, relatively little research exists on the theme of LLL in HE. This is a gap that this research hopes to address as it encompasses the first wide-ranging exploration of the perspectives of key stakeholders involved in setting the course for LLL in Irish HE. Through a research design underpinned by critical theory and framed in a phenomenographic research approach, this study explores how LLL is conceptualised among senior stakeholders within the Irish HE sector. It assesses levels of difference between the perspectives of key stakeholders and identifies three distinctive ways that the participants in this study conceptualise LLL in the Irish HE sector, namely an idealistic values-focused conception, a pragmatic operations-focused conception, and a narrow labour market skills-focused conception. Moving from the research participants’ perspectives on the current state of play of LLL within Irish HE, this study also examines how they imagine the way forward for LLL within the sector. It discovers three distinctive visions of the future held by the research participants including transformation, adaptation, and continuation as regards LLL within the HE sector. This paper then culminates with the presentation of one of this work’s key outputs which draws on findings from both the primary and secondary research conducted throughout this study - a framework for enhancing LLL in HE in Ireland which could potentially form the basis for a renewed commitment for the HE sector in Ireland to fully embrace the international LLL agenda. With the needs of learners as the central focus, this framework offers key recommendations to both the HE sector and the Irish government. It also highlights key enablers, inhibitors, risks, as well as guiding values for the framework. It is my fervent hope that this study can at least ignite the spark for change to enhance LLL in Irish HE for the benefit of all of Irish society.