European lifelong learning strategies: the target policies and the labour market

The Community’s institutions want to rationalize Vocational Education and Training systems, and educational and professional training: the career paths alternate with training programs that contribute to build the working portfolio that is the professional curriculum certifying skills and learning paths (Longworth, 2006). The aim is not only to increase workers’ employability, countering the obsolescence of existing skills but also to encourage active participation in the society and to promote a sense of autonomy, which are all assumptions of every mature democracy. It is in this theoretical framework, in particular in local contexts, that lifelong learning strategies become very significant (Kuhn, 2007). The paradigm shift involved in the transition from "Adult Education" to "Lifelong learning" implicates the historical perspective and the institutional dimension. The goal of social inclusion, once the core of the European policy, is closely related to the growth issue, emphasizing the radical changes of the '"European Social Model". This aspect characterizes the "active" participation of individuals in acquiring the necessary skills and in their search for a job in a more and more flexible labor market. There are new lifelong training methods and new social protection systems to be extended, in particular, to peripheral regions in order to strengthen territorial cohesion and to exploit the untapped potential of the female workforce.