ABSTRACT
Education, often in the name of lifelong learning, is given a major significance in contemporary Western societies. Policy rhetoric stresses the importance of lifelong learning as an economic means to achieve prosperity, growth and development for nations and enterprises. It points out individuals’ personal development as a matter of policy concern. Lifelong learning is thus supposed to accomplish a whole range of public as well as private goods, or to cite Donald Dewar (1999), Secretary of State for Scotland ‘Learning is a vital element of a successful, healthy, vibrant and democratic society’. Given such prominence lifelong learning seems to be regarded as something of a miracle cure to whatever disease society might suffer, a kind of educational Viagra to create potent citizens for the so-called learning society.
