The rapidly changing economic, financial and social conditions require new knowledge and competences in order to be able to understand them, adapt to the new requirements and remain competitive and successful in the globalised social environment. Widening the access to lifelong learning is one way in which this could be achieved. A special role in this process is given to universities as promoters of lifelong learning. E-learning is a means of promoting the changes in academic studies and providing an opportunity to integrate non-formal and informal learning elements into formal education. Individualisation, learning opportunities flexible in time, as well as the e-environment can facilitate the development of students' competences. This article presents a study conducted during the implementation of an inter-university master's programme, ‘Educational Treatment of Diversity’ (in Spain, Latvia, Germany and the Czech Republic) in 2008–10. The research question was: which challenges for widening of opportunities were secured in e-learning in order to promote students' generic competences as a learning outcome?

The purpose of this chapter is to conceptualize e-learning as a socio-cultural ecological system and to explore the empirical evidences of the objective and subjective conditions for using this concept in practice for increasing the participation in higher education. The components of this new concept are a systemic-constructivist competence, pedagogical leadership, life- and workforce learning, and self-evaluation. The objective conditions for its implementation are the integration of informal knowledge of information and communication technologies, implementing pedagogical leadership in tandems for developing students' intrapreneurship, self-evaluation, and self-enhancement. The subjective conditions are personal involvement, supportive social climate, and eagerness for transforming challenges into new learning opportunities. E-learning as a socio-cultural ecological system fosters students' and faculty staff's participation, producing new knowledge and pedagogical solutions that create synergy between science, education, and politics. This enhances economical growth and sustainable development that benefits the whole ecological system in local, regional, national, European, and global socio-cultural contexts.

After regaining the independence and entering the market economy the Baltic states went through the neo-liberal changes resulting in some new developments in adult education taking the main direction in mobilizing people for transforming learning into a desirable consumer commodity. Active citizenship has been operationalized in adult education largely through developing citizens’ entrepreneurial attitudes and ability to be less dependent upon the state. The recent trend in adult education is promoting educational opportunities for developing job skills and work-embedded learning, non-formal and informal education as the means to proactively advance competences through project work, voluntary activities, self-employment and enabling the validation of competences learnt at job situations in formal adult education institutions. As a new direction, adult educators in the Baltic states have started to practice sustainable and holistic approaches in adult education practices that highlight personal self-development besides their employability goals. In this chapter, we explore how changes in adult education in the Baltic states appear at micro level, focusing on three dimensions of active participatory citizenship in the observed educational programmes and among the programme stakeholders’ reflections. We posit that holistic approaches in adult education may be illustrated through three dimensions of active participatory citizenship concept – politico-legal, socio-cultural and socio-economic.

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