Encouragement
Learning for the 21st Century - Part 4: Section 9 - Point 2

9.3 A main focus of the Government campaign we have recommended should be to encourage all people to become lifelong learners. Families, schools, employers, unions, community groups and the media should also all encourage everyone to become and remain learners. Mechanisms for the recognition and celebration of learners' achievements should be strengthened. Through celebrating the achievements of learners and charting their involvement and progress, other potential learners can be attracted and encouraged.

9.4 Those who already understand the value of lifelong learning and engage in it can be of particular assistance in encouraging and coaxing those who lack sufficient confidence or interest to become involved themselves. Successful learners can act as mentors, role models and supporters of those whose engagement would otherwise be more cautious and tentative. Mutual support amongst learners can occur in families, communities and workplaces, in ways, which challenge the dangers of isolation and passivity in study.

9.5 Motivation and commitment to lifelong learning amongst individuals will also be increased to the extent that all organisations and bodies, whether their principal focus and rationale is learning or not, take steps to integrate into their own cultures and philosophies more opportunities for learning. They should also make explicit their recognition of the advantages of learning to the organisation itself as much as to its various members, thus aiming to become 'learning organisations'.

9.6 Government, the media of broadcasting and publishing, public authorities and other bodies, and all funders and providers of learning should give urgent attention to methods of substantially widening the demand for lifelong learning. They should help to establish a growing sense of ownership of their learning by learners themselves, with an increasing willingness on the part of those well placed to do so, for individuals and groups to share in responsibility for investing in their own learning.

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