Viewpoint: Lifelong learning ‐ a practitioner response

The paper gives an account of a focus group meeting set up to discuss and respond to the DfEE Green Paper The Learning Age. The participants, professional trainers and human resource managers, welcomed the government initiative in principle and approved of its agenda in general. As practitioners operating outwith the educational establishment, however, they had constructive criticism to make on both the implementation of the plans in detail and on the implicit and perhaps unintended messages which might be received by the target groups within the current and prospective workforce.