Adult Education: Past and Future

REAL Conference,, University of

Stirling

March 26th 2015

The long age of enlightenment

Influential social movements

The 1919 Report

The adult education movement is inextricably woven with the whole of the Organized life of the community. Whilst on the one hand it originates in a desire among individuals for adequate opportunities for self-expression and the cultivation of their personal powers and interests, it is, on the other hand, rooted in the social aspirations of the democratic movements of the country. In other words, it rests upon the twin principles of personal development and social service.

Where we are now

• The normative expectation of permanent learning

• The erosion of electoral support for universal welfare

• Social and civic learning has moved into the ‘private’ domain

• Adult learning as a mobilising instrument – employability, family learning, social insertion

Looking forward: some ‘drivers’

• Demographic and generational change

• Migration

• Cosmopolitanism, individualisation, post-industrial values

• Higher education expansion

• The changing role and status of women

• Policy dispersal

• Computerisation, digitisation, and ‘open’ everything

Looking forward: key concerns

• Estimating rates of return

• Monitoring and accountability

• Using big data to survey the field in context

• Funding adult learning (models of co-financing are very attractive)

• Inclusion and equality

• Moving towards personalisation

• Broad adult education - la lotta continua

Some implications for adult educators

• Pressures to ‘professionalise’

• Increasing fragmentation, erosion of borders

• Weak advocacy

• Clear policy aims, uncertain means

• The search for a legitimating purpose