The given paper highlights the theoretical and practical analysis of the motivational component creation necessity for professional growth both students and teachers. The authors determine the expediency and importance of self-education activities for forming the competitiveness and professional mobility of each specialist. It is shown that the informative content of the concepts "adult education", "lifelong learning", and "professional growth" is modified and updated according to the changes occurring at different stages of the society formation and development. The article describes the main stages of the adult education system formation; it is indicated that in parallel with the term "adults’ education" in the modern conditions the term "andragogy" is used; it is shown that andragogy is a separate branch of psychological and pedagogical studies of the adults’ education and upbringing. The authors offer a complex description of the adult education functions (compensating, developing, analytical transformative, predictive, communicative, and encouraging), describe the negative and positive tendencies of the adult education content; emphasize the informational and educational activities importance in the adult education system, which has its own specificity i.e. unprofessional orientation, orientation to the spiritual interests of different groups of the population, multidimensional differentiation of the real audience for socio-demographic, professional and other characteristics; functioning on the basis of voluntary, informal communication and amateur activities of participants in the educational process. The characteristic of the «learning society» concept is proposed in the article, its characteristic features are singled out in the context of the study. The personality qualities are defined and the criteria of their evaluation are described in the context of the person's ability to self-education formation; certain methods description is suggested that it is expedient to organize in the educational process of the future specialists professional training of the higher education institutions with the purpose of the motivational readiness formation for self-education and life-long learning