The document advocates for academics to reclaim their societal voice to enhance lifelong learning and self-determined education for all. It discusses the challenges and barriers faced in promoting lifelong learning and stresses the responsibility of academics to engage with the public, bridging social gaps through communication and shared knowledge. The author highlights the decline in the democratization of education and calls for proactive involvement from academics to maintain their influence in society.

1. Academics need to reclaim their voice in society
A lifelong learning society needs us
Inge (Ignatia) de Waard

2. Synopsis
Academics should reclaim our societal voice, in order to
support self-determined learning opportunities for all !

3. Discussions happen… to improve knowledge!
Cartoon by Nick Kim: http://www.lab-initio.com/

4. Lifelong learning learning
• “One core difference is that we are much more explicit in the
assumption of human agency as a universal human
characteristic.”
• “Information is now available to just about anyone with the right
technology.”
But human agency, media & technology is laden with symbolic,
cultural capital (think Bourdieu, Sandra Harding, McLuhan, Bandura)
(citations from Stewart Hase on self-determined learning for
lifelong learning:
https://heutagogycop.wordpress.com/2015/12/05/self-directed-
learning-and-self-determined-learning-an-exploration/ )

5. What are some of the lifelong
learning boundaries?
• Technical & media elements: tech is not without
assumptions and embeds regional powers (mLearning)
• Individual characteristics: self-esteem, identity, socio-
economic background, birth region and status, gender
• Organising learning: depends on learning skills, daily life (2
jobs to pay the rent?)
• Context: gatekeepers say which content rules, curated
content by ‘top’-uni’s, cultural convention, Northern
references, colonialism
• Individual or social learning: preferences, societal
acceptance, language

6. This is not about critical science, this
is about history …Carl von Ossietzky
When German democracy was coming under siege (1924):
• “Whoever has learned from the events of the past five years
knows that it is not the nationalists, the monarchists who
represent the real danger, but the absence of substantive
content and ideas.”

7. How can we ensure lifelong learning, with
the absence of substantive content and ideas?
Lifelong learning means you need to get the message
across to all families (however organised) to allow lifelong
learning skills to grow.

8. Do all citizens, from birth, have the
agency to self-determine their
learning, their life long?

9. If we as academics really think that education can save the
world, than we need to put ourselves out there. In the media,
on the internet.
We as academics have a responsibility to global citizens, to
bridge gaps by providing nuance, by sharing our thoughts and
intellect to reignite conversations between all citizens.
Action and communicating across media is urgently needed.
Education for all?
How serious do we take this idea?

10. This is a call to (diversified) action for all
academics!
• We, the intellectuals, are the brain of society
• We know facts, we are active thinkers, we
make nuances
• If we fail, societies brain fails

11. Are we academics slowly socialised
into the no-argument Age?
Where is our voice?

12. Kardashians: Age of nonsensical opinions
Social media defines some of the facts… in a non-factual way
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/12/how-technology-disrupted-
the-truth

13. 1968, almost 60 years ago
• University professors, students, citizens entered societal
debates
• Where are we – the academics, the professors - now?

14. Divide and conquer academics?
The need to create stepping stones, in between
ourselves, and towards all layers of society.

15. We – Academics are at risk
• Buried by increased paperwork: trying to get funding and
writing reports validating expenditures
• Precarious jobs: 1 year contracts or early researchers (early
is flexible term)
• Decreasing budgets: more people for less project money

16. Precarious academic jobs

17. What do we earn?
• Zero hour contracts (UK, the Guardian), teaching paid per hour.
• See here http://gawker.com/the-horrifying-reality-of-the-academic-job-
market-1776914525 and http://gawker.com/the-misery-of-adjunct-
professors-keeps-higher-education-1772267323

18. When academics loose impact,
society and education looses
democratisation
The Democratisation of education is in decline (Dutch:
Luc De Schepper, dean of University of Limburg, Belgium)
(OESO reports) 1980’s 2016
Uni students from parents who have 1
diploma of secondary school
51% 40%
Uni students from parents without a
secondary school diploma
30% 22%

19. Change does not happen overnight? But
by being ferociously present in society
Macro-level influencers: Rosa Luxemburg, Nelson Mandela,
Susan Sontag, Paulo Freire… writers, public persona, thinkers

20. Making our voices heard …
vibrating society in our new role
Teachers/professors Guide-on-the-side
Societal presence
supporting learning

21. Learning in open range or fenced land?
Lifelong learning needs lifelong academic action.
We must reclaim and regain our place at the core of society.
Stepping up to our role as Masters of the Mind.

22. Questions? Remarks? Contact? …
22
E-mail: ingedewaard (at) gmail.com
Blog: ignatiawebs.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Ignatia
Papers: https://open.academia.edu/IgnatiaIngedeWaard
Presentations/workshops:
http://www.ingedewaard.net/pubconsulpres.htm
Presentations: http://www.slideshare.net/ignatia
linkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ingedewaard