Lifelong learning policy discourses of international organisations since 2000: A kaleidoscope or merely fragments?

This chapter aims to document what has emerged in the international arena of lifelong learning policy discourse by looking at four major international organisations-i.e. the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the European Union (EU) and the World Bank-during the post-2000 period. The chapter provides a detailed narrative of what policy discourses have been advocated by each of the four organisations and whether there have been any substantial changes as compared to those organisations’ policy discourses before 2000. To this end, the chapter delves into key policy documents during the targeted period. The narrative presented in this chapter is based on a policy-as-discourse approach to analysing the selected policy texts. After offering a detailed narrative of each of the four organisations’ lifelong learning policy discourses, the chapter concludes that lifelong learning policy discourses since the post-2000 period appear to have become a kaleidoscope.