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Training and development, or human resource development, have long been recognized as an essential element and crucial factor for development and socioeconomic expansion. Recently, scientific achievements and modern production methods have changed the economy of communities and their interrelation such that, continuing training and lifelong learning play an important role in the process of development of enterprises, groups and individuals. Hence, the importance of a trained workforce and human resources has been the focus of attention of the majority of development programmers.

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The development of the informational society and the widespread diffusion of information technology give rise to new opportunities for learning and they challenge established views and practices regarding how teaching and learning should be organized and carried out. At the same time, globalization and the emergence of new players in the world economy have intensified competition, many countries turning production towards high value-added and knowledge-intensive products and services which request high-level skills labor force. Lifelong learning concept offers the prospect of a radical new approach especially for the higher educational process focused on the opening up traditional universities for those who want to learn lifelong. In the same time, educational institutions, universities most of all, are facing a number of challenges: globalization, aging society; growing competition between higher educational institutions both national and international, and rapid technological development. To answer successfully to all these challenges, in the opinion of most of the specialists, traditional universities must transform themselves by adopting a lifelong learning system. This system will transform how universities currently teach. To achieve this transformation, universities will have to introduce strategies and policies which implement flexible academic frameworks, innovative pedagogical approaches, new forms of assessments and institutional collaboration.

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Discussions at a European level aimed at policies of economic and social cohesion, especially those aimed at smart, sustainable and inclusive growth (Europe 2020 Strategy), provide universities an increasingly important role in achieving the link between the professional training of people and the requirements of the labor market. Given these priorities, the paper shows that efforts should be focused on education accountability, encouraging innovation and improving employment and training policies to meet labor market flexicurity. Also, a greater capacity for research, development and innovation in all sectors of the economy, combined with a good use of resources will improve competitiveness and boost new job creation. In this article is undertaken a comparative analysis of areas where action must be taken and how to be operated, pointing out some differences and performances recorded in the European Union, through the relevant indicators on employment, education and innovation, as part of the system of indicators of life quality. Providing labor market flexicurity requires major changes in the Romanian educational system, including strategies for lifelong learning, determined by the implementation of new [information technology] IT and communication technologies in all sectors. The role of educational institutions is changing, education became an integral part of the process of globalization and an economic source that can sustain a relatively long-term competitive advantage, as long as they always provide an 'update' of the information already processed by an individual.

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Training in the workplace is a key part of [vocational education and training] VET studies because it allows students to develop their skills in a work setting, and gives important information about how well VET studies prepare skilled workers. However, there is little information about factors that influence the efficacy of training in the workplace. Our aim is to evaluate the efficacy of training in the workplace, through the factors that influence training efficacy. We applied a questionnaire of 57 items (5-point Likert scale), a sample of 1,026 VET students in the area of Barcelona, Spain. The results show that the factor 'integration into the workplace' is rated more positively by the VET students (4.19), and the factors 'social attitudes' and 'individual attitudes' get a low score (3.30 and 2.93, respectively). The study allows the introduction of improvements and changes in these practices in order to improve the quality of VET.

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Lifelong learning is the lifewide, voluntary and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge for not only personal but professional reasons as well. It does not only enhance social inclusion, active citizenship and individual development, but also increases competitiveness and employability. The importance of lifelong learning has been increasing for some important reasons. These are increasing of life expectancy, increasing the 'old-age dependency' ratio, the desire for increasing the life quality, and trying to keep themselves in good physical and mental condition, by humans. Due to these reasons, the importance of lifelong learning has been increasing.

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This article shows how the teaching infrastructure used by specialists in e-learning has been renovated in order to improve educational quality and make it more adaptable to the Romanian labor market. Two partner universities from Romania and Norway had an initiative to promote the access to new and innovative methods and educational resources, but also to ensure the large implications of [information and communication technology] ICT in the educational process. The initiative is developed in the MoVE-IT project, financed by [European Economic Area] EEA financial mechanism. The validation of the infrastructure is done by delivering a number of vocational education and training courses.

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The development of qualifications frameworks has been a major international trend in reforming national education and training systems since the late 1990s. The initiative first started among English-speaking developed countries. Since the late 1990s such frameworks have also been adopted by non-English-speaking and developing countries. In March 2005, following work undertaken by the European Commission, the European Union Heads of Government requested the development of a European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning. It is planned that the countries within the European Union, and other states, align their national frameworks of qualifications with the European Qualifications Framework by 2012. The Republic of Macedonia joined the process and from May 2009 started with designing and implementation of a national qualifications framework.

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The paper presents the role of lifelong learning in improving employment and labour efficiency in general and then captures the relationship between education-lifelong learning and the labour market in Romania. The study results focus on identifying certain actions to encourage lifelong learning in Romania and to improve educational and employment policies, to improve the quality of life.

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Information, access to information, and communication technologies leading to rapid and profound changes in economic and social life make lifelong learning a must for everyone, and mostly adults. In Turkey, adult education, in terms of lifelong learning, starts in such institutions which aimed to make the individual freer, transformative and egalitarian, so-called Village Institutions in the 1940s, Open Education at Anadolu University, etc. Adult education varies all over the world. However, it has some universal goals such as managing the individual's life, self-sufficiency, learning by doing and practising. In the philosophy of adult education lies making the adults contemporary, secular and responsible citizens who quest, think, comment and try to make life easier and happier. Lifelong learning, together with the European Union Harmonization Laws, is a term widely used today in Turkey, though it was actually adopted in the history of the Republic of Turkey from the first day of national development and applied in our educational history.

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This paper aims to investigate how students perceive the service quality offered at public and private technical education and vocational training institute (TEVT) in Malaysia and their overall satisfaction. An evaluation study using questionnaire survey was employed to measure the students' perception towards 10 service quality dimensions and their overall satisfaction. The questionnaire was distributed by hand at the beginning of the selected lecture or workshop session and the completed questionnaires were collected at the end of the session. This paper discusses the students' perception in every service dimension measured and compared the similarities and differences with some previous studies.

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