Today the ideas of long life learning are not theories anymore. The changing needs of a society force many of people acquire new competencies and professional qualifications. Education is not provided for once and ever but becomes the result of a permanent learning that lasts for the rest of one’s life. The issues of professional development are solved in the context of long life learning and continuous education. Research highlights that a big impact is made on the knowledge and value formation of a social pedagogue by the new university study programmes enabling to continue studies and update one’s knowledge, update qualification and master new technologies. The graduates of the social pedagogue’s non-university study programmes are provided with the possibility to continue their studies at Vilnius Pedagogical University. The results of the research carried out for the first time to identify the needs and possibilities of the development of professional competencies could be used for constant update and improvement of study programs, it creates the prerequisites to train social pedagogues as highly qualified professionals who would meet the needs of labour market and society by being of high professional competencies. The object of the final thesis is the development of social pedagogues’ professional competencies during continuous studies. The aim of the research is to discuss the peculiarities of professional competence development and to analyse the development of... [to full text]