This course on lifelong learning and professional and vocational education has four broad aims: First, it explores debates about: the learning society and lifelong learning; globalisation, the ‘risk’ society and reflexive modernisation; and, the knowledge society and the knowledge economy. Second, it explores the nature of, and debates concerning, professional and vocational education. Third, it explores different ways in which post-secondary education systems can be structured and organised, the relationships between universities and colleges and how this helps to structure relationships between professional and vocational education. Fourth, it explores regulation of post-secondary education through qualifications frameworks, and considers debates about the Ontario Qualifications Framework. It explores debates about skills, employability skills, generic skills, learning outcomes and competency-based education/training. It considers the contrasting theoretical frameworks that underpin various positions in these debates.