▲ Students receive certificate in Lifelong Education Academy. <cafe.naver.com/anesschung>

‘Humans learn from when they are born until they die and must receive continuous teaching for adaptation to social change.’ This is one of the
ideals of lifelong education. Recently, lifelong education has become a matter
of fact in the aging society of our country. As you can see, this education
divides in two: Lifelong Education License(LEL) and ‘Academy of Continuing
Education(ACE).’

The first one is known just like a license course but, most people don’t know well what they can do with it and what kind of jobs they can have with it. In case of the ACE people easily think it as a school institute. So, The Dankook Herald investigated them in depth. Let’s see these two concepts. The LEL is managed with credits so, you must complete subjects like Introduction of Lifelong Education. After completing the course, you can earn a second or third degree of license according to how many credits you obtain.

The LEL is installed in the university curriculum, and also in a Lifelong Education academy or in a cyber university through on-line classes. Therefore, it is quite similar with university education. Then, for what is this license being served? Young-Joon Choi, Prof. of Lifelong Education in Dankook University(DKU) orecasted the positive future comparing ‘Green Field.’ Prof. Choi said “People don’t know well but there are countless professions related with LEL. People can work in a division of human resources of a small or large company, in community center department, an educational institution and multi-cultural family center, a school for adult learning in the community center of a neighbourhood including the National
Training Institute of Education and Education Development. Consulting is now being hiring among Lifelong Education licensers, which in the past the company hired among professionals.

The licensers can provide job training, business counsel and education of a group development of a company. In school for adult learning they can work as an educator, teachers or administrators so, it has many possibilities. Of course, there are some students who consider the license as a ‘Spec.’ However, as you can see
above, the LEL is being of help to the employment which is a reason why
people try to get the license.”

The Lifelong Education law was enacted in 1982 as a Social Education Act and it was passed only a few years ago when it was promulgated as an independent act in 2000. However, there is a legal record which is still missing to make it a binding force. Prof. Choi said “Despite this insufficiency, the LEL has its recognition
among companies so, people can carry on right away to a job related with it.
The reason is that getting out the formal education, the LEL is an education
of life, something essential for our society. In one phrase, we can learn
wisdom for living.” Differently, the ACE provides the opportunities of learning the diverse fields we can find in daily life to us.

The diverse fields includes Health Care, Culture, Music, Arts, Dance, Making use of computers, Vocal music, Cartoon and so on. You can confuse the definition of academy of continuing education with a private educational institute. However, there are some differences between them. One of them is the educational objective. “The private educational institutes usually are operated for improving students’ grade and earning profits, unlike them, the academy of continuing education was focused on the objective of the purity of studying or teaching, this
organization is always open to everybody who wants to study in them, it also organizes many different courses,” a staff member of DKU’s academy of continuing education said.

ACE can do something more than teaching people. The elders who have deep resentment about learning are able to get a degree through the accrediting system in ACE. This system will help them to get an honorary degree the same as a master’s degree if they reach a certain standard of credit. Also there is no burden of tuition fee to get a degree so we can speak with confidence that it will help the elders’ dream come true. Students who attend class in ACE are mostly housewives but, the number of young students has increased recently.

Normally students enroll at the academy because of their will to learn or to enjoy their hobby. Also this purpose led into the job. Hyun-Ji Chung, teacher of Flower Design in ACE in DKU said “I’ve seen many students and actually, there were a few students who decided to adapt their hobby as a job. This is within the courses that can be adapted to become a job such as Point of Purchase(POP) and Barista. Flower Design also goes into this category. After they complete the course, they receive a certificate and it is acknowledged well in society that it
was received from an institute. Indeed, there are two students who got a job
with the certificate. One is working for a hotel as the flower designer and another has started an enterprise.

Of course, if we compare it with the National Examination, it is much more beneficial than the national one, but I think it is better to have for your best. It means that ‘I’ve learned something.’ If some students want to take a National Examination, we collaborate with them for the preparation of the exam.” The need of Lifelong Education will grow more and more and it will provide a second chance at life to mature people. Although it was introduced few years ago, I believe the Lifelong Education will continue its development hereafter.