I don't think you have to choose between these in real life, you can do both at the same time. However, if someone has an education but no life skills they may be able to get a good job and even make contributions to society, but they are unlikely to be happy. So life skills would be my priority.

Life long learning is vital.:)

It depends on what we mean by education. Learning life skills are obviously better than education, if we consider education just as getting degree or certificate from any institution. But I think, education means learning something positive to broaden our understanding about life and material world for the betterment of our life. In this regard, we can consider "learning life skills" as education too. But if we think education just as a mean of achieving academic degrees, then "leaning life skills" is undoubtedly preferable.