Older Workers And Lifelong Learning Example

Older Workers And Lifelong Learning Example Older Workers And Lifelong Learning â€" Essay Example > Professional RequirementsCustomer inserts his/her answerCollegeOctober 14, 2011EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThis paper seeks to demystify the relationship between professional and vocational practice coupled with their requirements. In light of this, it will first synchronize the demands and contemporary requirements of either vocational or professional practice and further address the ways in which those requirements change. Demands and contemporary requirements of vocational/professional practiceThe term vocation (Dewey 1966) refers to the specified occupation practice an individual acquires through training either through formal or informal education. In light of this, vocation enables individuals meet their diverse basic and tertiary needs. For example, food, shelter, clothing and entertainment are just of the few necessities that vocation helps to mitigate. On the other hand, a profession (Brown 1992) is an academic oriented training experience that a person acquires in academic institut ions. It’s worth noting that vocations and professions are rather different in a way. Vocations are thought to be Godly given whereas professions are academically sought after. However, both the vocations and professions are characterized by demands and contemporary requirements that the perceived persons should apply in their vocational and professional practice. In this regard, the requirements continue to change with time and thus older workers primarily find themselves on the receiving end as they try to juggle between professional practice and education progression. For example, the rise of information communication technology in the modern society has perpetuated increased enrollment in tertiary institutions to effectively nourish their academic expertise with modern technology in efforts to keep in parallel with competition from others at bay in the professional environment. Lifelong learning refers to a situation whereby individuals are guided to work in a certain way as a result of continued experience on their job. For instance, the experiences of a medical practitioner in respect to a wide range of patients serve as critical avenues to propel his/her understanding of a particular phenomenon that he/she never learnt during his/her academic work. Academic expertise/highly developed skills and knowledge of the domainProfessionalism (Kizza 2010 p. 57) is the ability to use knowledge acquired through formal schooling and developed through long years of experience. In light of this, professional individuals are restricted by ethics and a wide range of requirements for one to be deemed a profession. First and foremost, the acquisition of knowledge commonly known as education is an ideal requirement in any profession. Education is essential as it serves as an integral tool for decision making involving a problem, situation or undertaking. Education is paramount in any given job discourse since it perpetuates development. In this regard, it plays a very significant role in the actualization of ideas and increases an individual’s reasoning ability. However, with progress in age, education slowly fades away thus creating ample room for older workers to engage in lifelong learning to boost their morale and scale down their dependency levels. Academic expertise is the primary objective of any human resource management panel selecting individuals for recruitment into the organization either public or private driven. It is for this reason that education merit is encouraged.