Sustainability of lifelong education development: trends and problems

A transformation from an organized education system to an unorganized and diverse synergetic system of lifelong education is taking place nowadays. This system transformation requires fundamentally different methods of management, realization, and results’ assessment. Though the system of continuous education is effectively functioning and it has acquired signs of maturity, its theoretical and methodological foundations cannot be considered fully developed. The third decade of the 21st century sees the aggravated contradiction between variability, stochastic nature, high level of entropy in the development of continuous education and the emerging trend of sustainable development, which applies to all aspects of human activity, including the educational sphere. This contradiction can be considered a synthesis of a number of contradictions typical of modern continuous education. Despite the contradictions, continuous education in the third decade of the 21st century shows signs of stability, primarily due to its development entering the mature stage. The article aims to characterize stability as a development trend of continuous education in the third decade of the 21st century. The modern trends, problems, and features of continuous education are considered through the lenses of sustainable development. The author identified the features and criteria of development stability of continuous education.