ABSTRACT
A new paradigm of lifelong education was introduced to the world in 1972 in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) publication, Learning to Be: The world of education today and tomorrow. This new approach placed lifelong education in a humanistic framework, emphasising personal fulfilment. The general theme was education as a means of creating self-awareness. A key follow-up report released in 1996, Learning: The treasure within, identified four ‘pillars’ of learning for supporting lifelong learning in the twenty-first century: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together and with each other and learning to be. In this report the focus on the role education plays in personal development and repeated reference to self-knowledge and self-understanding was again striking. Lifelong learning, according to the report, ‘should enable people to develop awareness of themselves and their environment and encourage them to play their social roles at work and in the community’ (UNESCO, 1996: 19).
