Abstract
The publication attempts to analyze complexly both theoretical and practical aspects of education as a tool and object of a social responsibility. Herein lifelong learning is characterized as a conceptual change of the educational system where all the sorts and possibilities of learning are taken as a single interconnected complex which allows various and countless transfers among educational, professional and private activities, the benefit of which is a possibility to gain identical qualifications and competencies any time within the course of one's life and in many different ways.
These can be reached not only in the formal educational system, but also in the non-formal and informal ways of learning. The particular authors complexly follow the analysis and ystematization of various segments of educational theory and praxis from the social policy point of view.
The current trends, based on which the authors often project the future progress prediction, are also mentioned, frequently in the context of expectations in the field of the political and economic development.