Today I stumbled upon the term recurrent education, while searching for literature about academic development as form of in vivo learning. Duke (1992: xiv) explains recurrent education to mean "alternation of education with employment, leisure and other activities throughout the lifespan instead of completing all formal education before entering fully into adult life". He proceeds to indicate that educational resources often favour the young (and the richer) over the older (and poorer) and states that recurrent education "is a policy proposition to support livelong learning and site a 1973 document of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The word recurrent intrigued me. According to Dictionary.com, it means "recurs; occurring or appearing again, especially repeatedly or periodically". There is something amiss—surely there is growth, one never return to where you were?
The word current, according to Dictionary.com, means "prevalent; customary; the most recent". Surely the aim of lifelong learning is to 'equip' people with the prevalent knowledge. I would therefore suggest the improvement of the term by adding a hyphen: re-current education/learning.
Duke, C. 1992. The learning university—towards a new paradigm? Buckingham: SRHE & Open University Press
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