학습사회는 지속적인 경제 성장과 고용에 결정적인 영향을 미치고, 공동체 형성으로 삶의 질을 향상시킨다. 본 논문은 성인학습에 초점을 맞추어 우리의 평생학습의 현재 위상과 향후 정책 방향을 OECD 주요국과 비교를 통하여 제시하고자 하였다.
우리나라 성인의 학습 참여율은 주요국가와 비교하여 절반 수준에 그치고 있으며, 그 결과 문해력도 최하위 수준에 머물고 있다. 학습참여율은 국민소득과 .664의 정적인 상관을 보이고 있으며, 학습 참여율이 1% 증가할 때마다 1인당 국민소득은 332달러 증가하는 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 실정임에도 우리의 경우 학습 참여를 촉진하기 위한 재정 지원 체제도 갖추고 있지 못하여 성인학습은 전적으로 개인의 몫으로 돌리고 있다. 이미 평생학습의 내적 수익률이 높음이 입증되고 있으며, 각국은 고용주, 개인뿐만 아니라 정부가 공동 부담하는 제도를 갖추는데 정책적 관심을 기울이고 있다. 평생학습을 촉진하기 위하여 성인계속교육으로의 정책이 전환되어야 하고, 성인기초교육에 대한 국가의 책무성이 강보되어야 하며, 학교밖에서도 학습할 수 있는 제도적인 장치를 갖추고, 기업과 비영리 민간단체의 지원을 통하여 평생학습의 기능을 제고할 필요가 있다.

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Lifelong learning will be essential for everyone as we move into the 21st century and has to be made accessible to all. It is difficult to evaluate the implementation of lifelong learning because strategies vary across countries and measuring implementation is complex. This paper takes stock by constructing indicators on the basis of the best available international data.
The International Adults Literacy Survey (IALS) items was implemented for 20 OECD countries. In the background questionnaire, there was a question on the participation in any continuing education and training(CET). Based on the facts that Scandinavian countries with high literacy proficiency showed more than 50% of CET participation rate and that most of IALS participating countries showed about 35.6% of participation rate, the participation rate in CET in Korea measured in 17.2% only.
In Korea, the adults showed highest mean scores for quantitative literacy and lowest mean scores for document literacy. The proportions of adults at or above level 3, which is the minimum level of competence needed to cope with the complex demands of everyday life, are 48.3% for prose document, 34.3% for document literacy, and 56.5% for quantitative literacy.
In general, the literacy level in Korea in each literacy domain was appeared to be low, just as other participated countries in IALS. Even in the Scandinavian countries which showed the highest level of literacy, about a quarter of total adults scored level 1 and level 2, which are under the minimum level of competence needed for the everyday life. Considering the fact that about three quarters of adults scored level 1 and level 2 in the lowest performing countries , the levels of literacy in Korea were somewhat low even with the high educational attainment levels of adults. Especially, the document literacy level was among the lowest countries.
In conclusion, this paper derived following propositions based on the research findings.
First of all, the issue of literacy and the education of literacy should be re-recognized in the context of national policy-decision level. Also, international criteria for literacy should be adopted and periodical surveys on literacy status as a part of population census should be implemented. Along with these, the financial support for literacy education facilities and the specialization of literacy education should be pursued aggressively. Also, the rate of illiteracy will be decreased if we provide the financial support and official commendation to the educational facilities with enough years of history and numbers of graduates.
A culture of learning is important for promoting adult learning. Such a culture has to be embedded in the whole society and not only confined to the educational system. An important determinant of this culture of learning is the degree to which governments and the social partners are convinced of the importance of the need to refresh and upgrade adult skills.

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