Workplace practices that support learning across working life

Authors: Sarojni Choy and Anh Hai Le
Griffith University

Edition: Volume 63, Number 3, November 2023

Introduction: In an everchanging world of work, workers are expected to maintain currency of changes through lifelong learning to sustain employment and transition into new jobs or occupations – as the need arises. Adult workers rely on affordances from societal, workplace, community and educational institution sources that offer opportunities – intentional or sometimes unintentional. Productive engagement in these opportunities lead to positive outcomes in terms of learning and employment, although adults’ personal epistemologies, agency and intentionality determine which affordances they engage with, in what ways, and for what purposes (Billett, Choy and Le, 2023). Moreover, working age adults’ learning is largely and necessarily premised on their own constructive efforts albeit with guidance from those with whom they work closely. Their worklife learning is sustained through permutations of lifelong learning and lifelong education that enables them to navigate different kinds of transitions that may arise due to institutional or personal factors such as life stages, employment status, occupations, re-locations, health and personal preference or trajectories (Billett, Choy & Le, 2023). This means that lifelong educational provisions need to extend beyond those from educational institutions to include experiences in workplaces and the community. The growing realisation of the potency and importance of learning experiences in workplaces and other social settings is now attracting a greater consideration of these sites for ongoing learning of working age adults. This calls for learning in the course of everyday work to be acknowledged and systematised around work practices.

Keywords: workplace learning, lifelong learning, lifelong education, work transitions, work-based experiences, work-based learning models

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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 63:3. The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.