This Hot Topic paper returns to a central theme for PASCAL, which is the development and implementation of lifelong learning.    Unlike earlier HTs on the theme, Jarl Bengtsson is concerned less with the concept of lifelong learning but much more with those factors at national level which need to be addressed if substantial progress is to be made in making a reality of the widespread policy commitments which are in place in most EU countries and amongst OECD member countries around the world.

A rapid response in the provision of high quality education at all levels is urgently required of educational communities and governments. Hence, universal primary education has been registered as a top priority on the agenda of the international community in the modern era. To this effect the United Nation’s goal is to ensure that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality (Unesco, 2000).