Retired senior citizens in Austria
Responding to rapid changes in the economy and society, lifelong learning (“lebensbegleitendes Lernen”) aims to actively deal with the dynamic of changing environments and to take advantage of new opportunities in the work, social and cultural contexts.
Through increasing differentiation of skills and globalization, it has become necessary to continually update knowledge and competences to ensure an individual’s life development and self-fulfillment. To ensure that Austria maintains its high standard of living and social cohesion, it is necessary to further enhance citizens’ high levels of qualification and to draw less educated people into the modern knowledge society.
Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture (Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur)
Austria’s Lifelong Learning Strategy is guided by five core principles: life phase orientation (all ages), placing learners at the center (flexibility of learning), lifelong guidance (facilitating the learning process), competence orientation (recognition of informal learning), and promotion of participation in lifelong learning (enhancing the motivation to learn).
Implementation by the Austrian government
The Austrian Strategy for Lifelong Learning promotes learning opportunities for persons in the retirement phase. The goal is to increase participation in education within this target group. To ensure high quality and availability of education, all educators working with older learners will be expected to obtain competencies relevant to this age-group. Also, they should provide guidance and information about educational opportunities. Education should be offered close to people’s homes, taking into account intergenerational and technology-enhanced learning.
This approach will promote innovative pedagogical models and improve the qualification of educators. Quality measures will be developed and fundamental research on the issue will be intensified.
The need for considerable investments in order to improve the existing learning infrastructure.
Any country can follow the guide in order to find similar problems experienced by elder people and address them accordingly. However, an individual approach to each region where it was applied, needs to be provided, in order to allocate the project resources in the most efficient way based on the local cultural and economic characteristics.
Copyright © 2022 DIGI-Activeing
