Improvement of the National System of Lifelong Learning

The aim of the article is to update the current state of the national lifelong education system and to formulate proposals for its improvement through the wide involvement of higher education institutions (HEIs) in this process. On the basis of the analysis, systematization and generalization of official documents that in recent years regulate the sphere of lifelong education in Ukraine, also the plans on the part of the national state-based structures for the further development of the direction of «Adult Education», the main problem areas, the current state and vectors of development of this sphere are identified. As a result of the study, it is proposed to develop the system of adult education in Ukraine, including through the creation of creative hubs in higher education institutions, accessible to different categories of the adult population (by age, level of previous education, skills). University hubs as centers of creative entrepreneurship should be built on the interaction of human creativity, ideas, knowledge, technologies, protection of intellectual property; they should gradually alter the economic life and social climate of local communities for the better through joint intellectual, emotional, and material practices. At that, university creative hubs as centers of cooperation between institutions and individuals will contribute to the formation of practices of openness, trust, and the development of professional associations of local communities. The prospect for the development of creative hubs of HEIs is the impact on other spheres of public life, such as employment policy, social, humanitarian policy, Euro-Atlantic integration (through advanced training and retraining of the population, promoting its employment, better informing communities, opening new opportunities for representatives of business, public organizations, etc., international cooperation, and so on). Therefore, further research in this direction should be the development of practical recommendations for the formation of a platform for horizontal economic and social interactions of the university creative hub with the local community.