The concept of lifelong education broadens our conceptions of education, which in turn requires to refocus on the integration of various patterns of education as partnership between school education and adult education or between basic education and professional education. The way of integration depends upon whether the lifelong education is differentiated or not by the institutions.
This paper attempts to articulate the structure of basic education by relating social and economic developments to varying institutionalization of education. The concept of basic education would be analyzed into two patterns: The basic education in the developed areas and the fundamental educaton in the underdeveloped areas. In the former as exemplified in the United States, a new wave of criticism of school education has crystalized into “Back-to-basics” movement, whereas in the latter the fundamental education has been developed as a part of integrated projects of “community development” where all the services are united.
The accelerating pace of human affairs, the increasing accumulation of knowledge, and the impact of technological change have imposed a great need for more basic education in life span at the rising level in addition to the remedial education of school inadequacy. The handicap of illiteracy to the performance of adult roles is obvious even in the underdeveloped areas, because the basic skills or 3 Rs are of special value in intellectual developments of the people. The fundamental education has as its purpose the eradication of illiteracy and the intellectual developments supporting the social and economic developments. Both patterns of education termed as the basic education and as the fundamental education are essential to the basic skills or functional literacy necessary for survival in everyday life. Whatever the patterns, it is clear that “basic education” for the foundations of lifelong education has come of age.
