Role of higher education in lifelong learning

Extensive socio-economic and technological changes have shown a potent effect on educational systems in industrial countries. Concepts and statements such as the Information Society, the Knowledge-Based Economy and the Learning Society has now become prominent characteristics in the main path of political-educational and governmental issues and the importance of learning is vastly distinguishable in each stage of human development. Universities and higher education institutes are nowadays considered as the key places of developing the lifelong learning. The purpose of this review article was to evaluate the lifelong learning and the role of high education in its development. Lifelong learning can be proposed to high education institutes as a set of guidelines instead of an excess topic. Institutes have to develop organized awareness, analyze internal relationships among their different organizational levels and comprehend the manner of these factors’ dependence on cognitive and emotional interactions of learning in order to create and develop lifelong learning in high education. Lifelong learning follows the general aims such as generalization of education regarding both quality and quantity and is the expresser of the genuine learning principle in obligatory education and the facilitator of advancement from education to work. National certainty is needed in society and high education institutes for this purpose and this attitude should become a belief and reality in individuals’ minds all over the society.