13.3 The potential contribution of schools and schooling to lifelong learning cannot be overstated. It is through school that children develop basic and core skills, initial standards and knowledge. For lifelong learning, it is at this stage of their life that they can also acquire two further essential characteristics. The first is learning how to learn, so that as they meet new areas of knowledge and new problems to solve they know how to set about tackling the issues. This is likely to be a central skill in a society in which new information will need to be sifted, reviewed and synthesised, when new situations are encountered and new kinds of diagnosis are called for.
13.4 The second characteristic which children can develop at school is a love of and commitment to learning. This will predispose them to look to learning as a normal part of their lives, whatever they are doing: in their personal development, in their families, in work, in the community and as they develop as citizens.
13.5 If schools add these two characteristics to the inculcation of high standards in basic and core skills and in the initial acquisition of knowledge, the lifelong learning of their children will have been given the soundest possible basis. Expectations will rise and so will lifelong involvement in learning.
13.6 Schools can support lifelong learning in other ways. A key relationship is with the parents of children and their families. Just as parents and other family members can make a large difference to the performance of their children and of the school, so too this involvement can stimulate and support the continued learning of parents and other members of the family. There are many excellent examples in the country of: "parents as partners" in learning, drawn back into learning by the stimulation provided by their children's activities and the opportunities afforded for them to study themselves.
13.7 Schools also need to see themselves as an important part of the wider network of partners we have described, and should seek to further the vision of lifelong learning and match their own activities to the core principles proposed. School governors, head teachers and teachers need to link up with other stakeholders in lifelong learning and should ensure that their own schools strive to be learning organisations themselves.
13.8 Mechanisms should be identified to support teachers in schools to develop skills to promote lifelong learning, including educational work with adults, and to support adult tutors teaching in family learning contexts.
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