tional circumstances. The BeLL study shows the wider ben- efits of general education and shows how skills, learning and participation in a broader sense are linked to each other and how important it is to look at life in all its dimensions. Per- sonal life and work should always be in a balance. Focus on life and work When we mention life, then we have a very holistic view. It is life in its totality – youth, adults and the elderly, all genders and generations, lifelong, life-wide, and life-deep, being healthy and happy, or not, performing in functions and roles which we like, or would like to change. And when we look at work, we mean all kinds of jobs, but we hope for decent work. Thus it is our attempt to grasp a deeper understanding of knowledge, competencies and skills for citizenship and employability. We learn as we live, and this learning can be associated with all kinds of formal education on different levels, or schooling, colleges or universities, or non-formal education in community learning centres, vocational or professional training institutes, or through the growing options via informal arrangements using media and information technologies, often combined with face-to-face arrangements. However, more and more, even with the improvements of better technical and vocational training we realise that especially literacy and other basic skills, transferable or trans- versal skills are needed to comply with the needs of the indi- vidual in the community or society at large and to accord with employability-related competencies and skills. Recent research and policy development tell us also that knowledge, competencies and skills in the narrow sense are not enough. We need, maybe more importantly, to also look at values and attitudes, especially when we want to contrib- ute to sustainable development. “It is most critically about making sure that individuals acquire a solid foundation of knowledge in key disciplines, that they develop creative, critical thinking and collaborative skills, and that they build character attributes, such as mindfulness, curiosity, courage and resili- ence.” (Schleicher & Tang 2015: 9) Agenda 2030 With this issue we will try again to provide follow-up on an earlier edition of Adult Education and Development where we looked at the Post 2015 process towards implementation of Education for All (EFA) as well as the Millennium Develop- ment Goals (MDG), which were both declared to run for 15 years in the year 2000. The World Education Forum in 2015 came up with an Education Agenda 2030 Framework for Action. The Incheon Declaration was included as Goal 4 into the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This overarching goal is to: “Ensure inclusive and equita- youth and adult literacy – all in a dimension of gender parity and equal access for people in vulnerable situations. In de- scribing these targets there is a very interesting note in the context of our discussion: “A narrow focus on work-specific skills reduces graduates’ abilities to adapt to the fast-chang- ing demands of the labour market. Therefore, beyond mas- tering work-specific skills, emphasis must be placed on de- veloping high-level cognitive and non-cognitive transferable skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, teamwork, communication skills and conflict resolution, which can be used across a range of occupational fields. Moreover, learners should be provided with opportunities to update their skills continuously through lifelong learning.” (UNESCO Education 2015: 15) Finally, there is “Goal 4.7: By 2030, ensure that all learn- ers acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sus- tainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable life- styles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and culture’s contribution to sustainable development.” (UNESCO Education 2015: 18) Reading this, it becomes quite clear that engaging in human rights or peace, and leading a sustainable lifestyle requires more on top of knowledge, competencies and skills. We need to look at attitudes and values in all educational processes of lifelong learning. Rethinking and re-skilling UNESCO, as the UN organisation for educational, social and cultural issues, has kept its role as a think tank, engaging in generating ideas, orientation and reflection, and also provid- ing opportunities to participate in debates, meetings, and studies. Landmark publications carry titles like The World Educational Crisis by Philipp Coombs in 1968, Learning to Be in 1972 by Edgar Faure, or the Delors Report Learning the treasure within in 1995. Rethinking Education. Towards a global common good? is the most recent in this series, and carries a very interesting note for us: “Knowledge can be understood broadly as encompassing information, understanding, skills, values and attitudes. Com- petencies refer to the ability to use such knowledge in given situations. Discussions about education (or learning) are ha- bitually concerned with the intentional process of acquiring knowledge and developing the ability (competencies) to use them. Educational efforts are also increasingly concerned with the validation of knowledge acquired. However, discus- sions about education and learning in today’s changing world need to go beyond the process of acquiring, validating and using knowledge: They must also address the creation and control of knowledge.” (UNESCO, Rethinking 2015: 79). We thus have come very close to what the British phi- ble quality education and promote lifelong learning opportu- nities for all”. It is followed by specific targets that are related to early childhood education, primary and secondary schooling, universities, technical and vocational training, losopher Francis Bacon wrote in 1597, claiming that “knowl- edge itself is power”. This, together with the Brazilian thinker Paolo Freire and his “no education is neutral” argument, shows us it is important to continue examining critically the 83 2016 Skills and Competencies | Conceptual diversity 33