On The European Union Lifelong Learning Policies

With the advent of the era of knowledge economy, economic globalization and the information society gradually deepened. The technology knowledge develop rapidly and international competition become more drastically. In response to the crisis and to meet the challenges, many countries take lifelong learning as a guiding principle of education reform in the 21st century and a long-term strategic choice. Faced with rapid changes in society, work and life of the new period, people must update knowledge and acquire new skills promptly through lifelong learning, in order not to be eliminated by the rapid development of society. Lifelong learning has become a motive force that promotes the development of education around the world and become a guiding principle of education reform and an essential part of people’s lives.Europe is the birthplace of the idea of lifelong learning. From the earliest eternal education, recurrent education, to the latter lifelong learning, Europe always walks at the forefront of the world. After the establishment of the European Union, it continuously developed and implemented a series of lifelong learning policies on the basis of the other countries’experience, therefore the current practice of EU lifelong learning policy is more perfect and systematic. Although there are great differences in real situation between the EU and China, from the point of the science in policy-making and the effectiveness during the enforcement of the educational policy, the concept of lifelong learning which guides the UN is worthy of our learning and using for reference.The first chapter explains the background and significance to study the EU lifelong learning policy. It defines the core concepts of the European Union, lifelong learning, the EU lifelong learning policy and so on, explains the method that adopted in studying the subject.In order to seize the context of the overall development of EU lifelong learning policy and summarize the law of development better, the paper sorts the evolution process of the EU lifelong learning policy in the second chapter. The development process of the EU lifelong learning policy can be divided into four stages. It analyzes and summarizes the social background, content, features, influences and other factors of education policy of the different stages, so as to reflect on the past, figure out current position and guide future.The third chapter is based on the research on the evolution of the EU lifelong learning policy. It points out the characteristics and practice results of the present EU lifelong learning policy. The policy characteristics makes a analysis mainly from three aspects, the policy objectives, policy content and the safeguard mechanism of policy implementation. The practice results analysis are based on the concepts, policies and practices.The fourth chapter, comparing the situation of P.R. China and the EU, the EU lifelong learning policy formulation and advancing measures are put forward for the reference value of our country. Mainly from five aspects to summarize, including the deepening understanding of the concept, accelerate the formulation of laws and regulations, the action plan to promote the implementation of the policy, taking into account the overall planning of local characteristics and establish a sound protection mechanism.In a word, by studying the development history of the EU lifelong learning policy, this study summarized the EU lifelong learning policy development law and experience, so as to provide inspiration and references to build lifelong learning system of our country.