ABSTRACT
The idea of ‘learning how to learn’, or, more commonly, ‘learning to learn’, has been around for a long time but it has become especially popular recently because it is felt to be important for lifelong learning in the twenty-first century. The assumption is that in a rapidly developing world in which the creation of knowledge increases exponentially, the crucial resource in ‘knowledge economies’ is the ability of people to respond flexibly and creatively to demands for new knowledge, skills and dispositions in continuously changing social and economic contexts. Some of what has traditionally been learned at school may become redundant or irrelevant by the time that pupils
enter the workforce; some knowledge may even need to be ‘unlearned’ as new knowledge supersedes old knowledge. In this context, development of a capability to learn new things, throughout life, becomes essential.
