WORKSHOP LEADER
Giulia Forsythe, President, Ontario Council for University Lifelong Learning (OCULL)
The workshop series International Dialogue on Education Berlin is a joint initiative of the British Council Germany, the German Academic Exchange Service, the German-American Fulbright Commission, the Australian Group of Eight and the Canadian Bureau for International Education in Berlin.
Through the contributions of international participants the series aims to enrich the debate on science, research and higher education policy in Germany, to place German perspectives in a global context and to learn from positive examples from other countries.
Workshop 2 - Canada
Lifelong Learning in Post Secondary Institutions: A Canadian Context and Perspective
This workshop broadly outlines the theories, policies and practices that dominate the vast landscape of continuing education in the post-secondary education system in Canada.
This will include an examination of mission statements and implementations at Canadian Universities and the various existing relationships with continuing education and lifelong learning in general.
Canadian examples will show how the autonomy and academic freedom of University faculty can be respected and research can be integrated into continuing education programs as a form of scholarship of engagement, even in a demand-led market. A variety of Canadian examples of faculty incentives, funding and governance models will be presented.
Discussion will also include the inherent challenges that arise from balancing the needs of a diverse population in terms of fair access, social justice and equity with those of the private sector seeking to be internationally competitive.
Participants will have opportunities to critique and debate the strengths and weaknesses of these variety of approaches and perceptions of lifelong learning as rich and diverse as the population and geography of Canadian universities.
