Adult Education
Adult education,
sometimes known as continuing education, is any type of learning done or
supplied for adults. Adult education was defined by the National Institute of
Adult Education (England and Wales) in a 1970 report as "any sort of
education for persons who are old enough to work, vote, fight, and marry and
who have completed the cycle of continuous education, [if any], that began in
childhood." Adult education encompasses a wide range of activities, including
self-directed study with or without the assistance of libraries, broadcast
programs or correspondence courses, group discussion and other "mutual
help" learning in study circles, and more: full-
or part-time study in classes or courses in which the lecturer, teacher, or
tutor has a formal leading position; and full- or part-time study in classes or
courses in which the lecturer, teacher, or tutor has a formal leading function.
Adult
education types
Adult education can be categorized into the following
categories:
1. Training in vocational, technical, and professional
skills. (This type of education may be designed to prepare an adult for their
first or next career, or to keep him informed about current advancements in his
or her field.)
2. Health, welfare, and family living education (This type
of education includes health, family relations, consumer purchasing, planned
parenthood, hygiene, child care, and other topics.)
3.
Civic, political, and communal competence education. (This type of education
involves everything from governance to community development to public and
international affairs to voting and political participation.)
4.
Education for "self-satisfaction." (This includes all types of
liberal education programs, including music, the arts, dance, drama,
literature, and arts and crafts, whether short or long-term.) These programs emphasize
learning for the sake of learning rather than attaining the other groups'
objectives.)
5.
Basic and literacy education in remedial education. (Such education is
certainly a precondition for all other types of adult education, and so stands
apart from the other types of adult education as a category.)
6.
In relation to the sixth category, adults usually have to compensate for
previous educational deficiencies. If these deficiencies are not addressed,
they will prevent access to "adult" types of education—adult in terms
of complexity in modern society rather than age. Such remedial education is
especially important in countries that are rapidly transitioning from a
subsistence to an industrial economy while also changing politically and
socially. In these Asian, African, and Latin American countries, mass literacy
takes on new significance, and universal primary education becomes a societal
need.
Governments
must try to provide parallel facilities for adults to avoid a "generation
gap" in reading abilities and education while an effective school system
is being developed for the young. Even in countries with well-developed early
education systems, however, possibilities for higher or even secondary
education are unequally distributed among different geographical, occupational,
and socioeconomic groups. As a result, adult programs exist to help adults
finish high school or prepare for exams typically administered at the end of
secondary school.
Adult education institutions and agencies
Given
the tremendous variability observed not only among nations but also within
single nations, any classification of agencies and institutions participating
in adult education must be arbitrary. The general types are as follows.
Folk
high schools, which originated in Denmark and are now found in every
Scandinavian country, are residential institutions where young people who have
completed formal schooling and usually have some work experience pursue at
least six months of study. The study seeks to foster moral and intellectual
growth as well as a better awareness of local and national customs and
conditions. Although they were once independent or separate institutions,
communal boards of education now routinely encourage or support them. Folk high
schools have impacted the development of residential forms of adult education
in nations as different as Canada, Kenya, India, and the Netherlands, despite
their little success in its pure form.
Organizations
such as "workers' academies" in Finland, "people's high
schools" in Germany and Austria, "adult education centers" in
the United Kingdom, and "people's universities" in the Netherlands,
Italy, and Switzerland represent nonresident adult-education centers, which are
the most widely distributed specialized institutes for adult education. These
institutions are distinguished by the fact that they are, at least in terms of
programming, independent of the general education authorities; that student attendance
is voluntary and part-time; and that teachers and administrators are either
volunteers or professionals providing primarily part-time services.
Traditionally, these schools do not provide test preparation or advanced
occupational skills training.
Practical
and domestic crafts, fine arts, music and theatre, familial and social problem
solving, and modern languages, as well as instruction geared to supplement
primary and secondary education, are typically included in the curriculum.
Agricultural
extension services, while virtually entirely an American invention, are carried
out on a large enough scale to merit special mention. The US Department of
Agriculture's extension service runs agricultural, home economics, and even
public affairs programs in every county in the country. It was particularly
important in the development of "demonstration" as an adult teaching
method and in promoting the adoption of new farming practices.
The
Open University, a relatively new British institution, is notable for its novel
dimension and stark departure from prior adult degree programs.
Adults
have long had the opportunity to pursue part-time education leading to
university degrees in some educationally advanced countries, such as Australia,
New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, but these programs have typically
been carbon copies of programs offered to regular undergraduates. In theory,
the Open University seeks to provide universal higher education. It is designed
for mature or older adults who are studying part-time; there are no defined
entry requirements; and it combines diverse educational technologies and
techniques—correspondence instruction, mass-communication media, personal counseling,
and short-term residential courses.
For
adults seeking some type of vocational qualification, commercial enterprises
have given correspondence courses or class instruction part-time or full-time (but
who knows, maybe they're just looking for "self-improvement," like
speed-reading programs). State agencies may regulate or supervise such
institutions (as in Sweden and the Netherlands), or they may be self-policing
through accreditation groups. Some schools are charitable institutions.
Both
public-school programs for adults and the university extensions mentioned
previously are examples of extension services. The school programs are run by
public school systems, and they are commonly referred to as "night
schools" since they are usually held in the same school buildings as
school-aged children during the day and some of the same teachers are involved.
(However, topic specialists who are not engaged as schoolteachers undertake a
lot of the teaching.) Many of these programs today cater to the same variety of
interests covered by the "nonresident adult-education centers"
mentioned above, despite their origins in efforts to cure or complement
insufficient childhood education. They frequently keep components of vocational
training at a less specialized level, usually for younger persons, such as
commercial and trade skills.
There
are two types of extension services provided by higher education institutions.
In most Commonwealth countries and former colonial areas, the British tradition
has stressed the provision of noncredit "liberal" studies courses.
Credit programs that duplicate courses offered to normal undergraduates are
more important in the North American tradition, which can be found in countries
affected by the United States and Canada.
Such
programs are available on television, via mail, or at different urban colleges.
Both traditions appear to be changing, with the British moving toward more
credit-earning and vocation-related refresher courses and the North American
moving toward a wider embrace of general liberal studies for the general public
and specialized vocational groups. Universities are clearly taking on
increasing responsibility for the continuation and renewal of education for the
highly educated.
In
addition to the institutions and programs described above, there are a plethora
of organizations that provide training or leisure activities for adults but are
not specifically focused on adult education.
The Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, political parties and labor unions, women's organizations, and temperance organizations are among these organizations. Adult education is a linked rather than major duty for libraries, museums, botanical gardens, and other organizations. These organizations not only provide resources for individual self-education, but they also commonly promote group activities or make their facilities and resources available to adult-education organizations. Finally, numerous social and welfare institutions provide advising and educational services in the areas of health, safety, marital counseling, and family planning, among other things.
