5.3 If there is to be a concerted effort to create a learning culture for all in this country, we believe that the Government's principal strategic aim should be to develop a coherent system of education throughout life. The different stages, elements and levels of learning should all be compatible with each other and all be guided by the same core principles. A strategy for lifelong learning in this country should both complement and include the approach already set out by the Government in its White Paper, Excellence in Schools. Lifelong learning cannot begin post-school, post-compulsory education or post-16. It must be exactly as its name suggests: learning throughout life.

5.4 To this end, lifelong learning should embrace educational policy initiatives at school and pre-school levels, in colleges, in the community, at work, in the universities and in any locale and form where it depends upon public support and resources of any kind. This will mean building a system in which different parts of the system support and reinforce a learning culture for all, where pathways and movement from one element of the system to another are facilitated as far as practicable. No part of the system should look to another principally to compensate for its own failure to stimulate commitment to learning and promote achievement.

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