Lifelong Learning, Global Social Justice, and Sustainability

For the first time in human history, with the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations in 2015, the global community acknowledged the criticality of lifelong learning and education to the achievement of sustainable development and economic prosperity (Benavot, 2018).Indeed, SDG 4 advances the conversation from one of ensuring access to basic primary education, as in the Millennium Development Goals, to one of also ensuring universal access to the knowledge, skills, and learning necessary to function and participate actively as national and global citizens.English and Mayo's Lifelong Learning, Global Social Justice, and Sustainability is particularly applicable in this context.The authors construct the history and tell a story of the UNESCO concept of lifelong education (LLE) on its transformative journey toward lifelong learning (LLL).In Chapter 1 and employing a Shakespearean analogy to set the stage for the book, English and Mayo take issue with how LLL has been increasingly serving as a shroud to camouflage a neoliberal agenda hidden beneath.By doing so, they shed light on the transition of responsibility for, and funding of, education from the state toward individual citizens.Across all eight chapters, the authors invite readers to join them on a journey as they make a case to dismantle the current conception of LLL as a conduit for employment and reimagine LLE in a way that repositions lifelong learning as a critical tool to achieve global social justice and sustainability.In its recent 5th Global Report on Adult Learning and Education: Citizenship Education: Empowering Adults for Change, the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning underscores the pivotal role of learning in citizen development resulting in benefits that "go beyond those made explicit in the SDGs" (UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, 2022, p. 17).In Chapter 2, the authors introduce the European Commission's Memorandum on Lifelong Learning, presenting it as a turning point in the evolution of LLE to LLL.The authors argue that learning underwent a transformation from once being valued as a public good (i.e., a collective and social responsibility) to being viewed as a personal endeavour with a decided focus on employability.Concomitant with this transformation, English and Mayo further contend that the evolution to LLL brought with it a commodification of education and, with it, rampant increases in tuition and other costs associated with education, resulting in learners "mortgaging" their futures and limiting their "possibilities at work and in life in general" (English & Mayo, 2021, p. 22).The authors argue that the resulting rift in the accessibility of education, a condition they refer to as "educational