Celebrating lifelong learning

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Thursday 24 September 2015

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On October 1, we celebrate Older People’s Day, dedicated to recognising our older generation and the contributions they make to our society. The awareness day aims to address the stigma and negative stereotypes around our senior citizens.

The UK has an ageing population; over-65s now outnumber children under 16 for the first time ever. This is thanks to breakthroughs in medicine and science, and increasing awareness of diet, health and lifestyle.

This comes with its own challenges, however, as skills gaps can be created by more people retiring than those reaching working age. The knock-on effect is the raising of the retirement age; research we carried out with people over 45 showed that 20% are worried they’ll have to work past the national retirement age. Furthermore, 10% expressed concern that they’ll have to change careers before they retire.

Learning a new skill can also help older people contribute to society and feel valued. As people live longer, they also live healthier for longer and retirement can come too soon for some. Many retired people now use their free time to volunteer.

Education is still important to many older people and attitudes towards lifelong learning are changing; 94% of the over-45s we surveyed said they’d be happy to take an adult education course and, although online delivery of qualifications is a relatively new phenomenon that our 45+ audience hadn’t experienced during their school education, 25% would like to do their course online.

We believe that lifelong learning is vital to a society that is not only ageing, but prosperous, successful and happy. Adult learning opportunities are vitally important to help adults adapt to, or prepare for, a career change. Education can also be used recreationally to help people learn new skills for a hobby or day-to-day life. Learning opportunities should be readily available and can only benefit society.

On October 1 we’ll be joining the celebrations of our older generation – will you?

Tags:

lifelong learning

Authors

Lindsay Plumpton

Communications Leader
96 posts
David Grailey

Chief Executive
79 posts
Andrew Gladstone-Heighton

Policy Leader
75 posts
Esme Winch

Managing Director
35 posts
Michael Lemin

Policy and Research Manager
25 posts

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