The three sections making up the main body of this publication look at lifelong education from three successive approaches at different levels. An introduction briefly reviews factors influencing the rapid spread of lifelong education: anthropological, socioeconomic, and political. Through a series of questtions emerges the idea that lifelong education involves the promotion of individual and self-education. In section 1 lifelong education is consedered as the principle of a model for planning developed with the aid of utopian thinking. Section 2 assesses the use of lifelong education as a frame of refernce for the current development (changes, reforms, and innovations) of educational systems. The final section considers lifelong education as a series of practical rules which should be applied (from ERIC database).