The document discusses the concept and definitions of adult education. It explores adult education as a practice, process, methodology, organization, science, and system. It examines perspectives on adult education as work done by certain institutions, a special learning relationship, a profession, stemming from social movements, and defined by its goals to help adults. Malcolm Knowles' contributions defining andragogy and the assumptions of adult learners are summarized. The purposes and objectives of adult education are improving job skills, literacy, and participation in society.

1. Reporter: Glenn S. Bazar

2.  Is adult education a practice or a program?
 Is adult education a methodology or an
organization?
 Is adult education a ‘science’ or a system?
 Is adult education a process or a
profession?
What is an adult education?

3.  Is adult education different from continuing
education, vocational education, higher
education?
 Does adult education have form and
substance, or does it merely permeate
through the environment like air?
 Is adult education, therefore, everywhere
and yet nowhere in particular?
 Does adult education even exist?
What is an adult education?

4. Malcolm Shepherd Knowles (1913 – 1997)
was an American educator well known for the use of
the term Andragogy as synonymous to the adult
education. According Malcolm Knowles,
andragogy is the art and science of adult learning,
thus andragogy refers to any form of adult
learning.

5. In 1980, Knowles made 4 assumptions about
the characteristics of adult learners (andragogy)
that are different from the assumptions about child
learners (pedagogy). In 1984, Knowles added the 5th
assumption.
oSelf-concept
As a person matures his/her self-concept moves from
one of being a dependent personality toward one of
being a self-directed human being
oAdult Learner Experience
As a person matures he/she accumulates a growing
reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing
resource for learning.

6. o Readiness to Learn
As a person matures his/her readiness to learn becomes
oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his/her
social roles.
o Orientation to Learning
As a person matures his/her time perspective changes
from one of postponed application of knowledge to
immediacy of application, and accordingly his/her
orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject-
centeredness to one of problem centeredness.
o Motivation to Learn
As a person matures the motivation to learn is internal
(Knowles 1984:12).

7. In 1984, Knowles suggested 4 principles that
are applied to adult learning:
oAdults need to be involved in the planning and
evaluation of their instruction.
oExperience (including mistakes) provides the basis for
the learning activities.
oAdults are most interested in learning subjects that
have immediate relevance and impact to their job or
personal life.
oAdult learning is problem-centered rather than
content-oriented.

8. Knowles (1984) provide an example of applying
andragogy principles to the design of personal
computer training:
oThere is a need to explain the reasons specific things
are being taught (e.g., certain commands, functions,
operations, etc.)
oInstruction should be task-oriented instead of
memorization -- learning activities should be in the
context of common tasks to be performed by the
others.

9. o Instruction should take into account the wide
range of different backgrounds of learners;
learning materials and activities should allow for
different levels/types of previous experience with
computers.
o Since adults are self-directed, instruction should
allow learners to discover things and knowledge
for themselves without depending people, will be
provided guidance and help when mistakes are
made.

10. Recognition of the concept of lifelong
learning as the basis of national strategy of
educational development presumes a
reconceptualization of all segments of
education, and, thus, adult education as
well. In the system of lifelong education,
adult education presents its most extensive
phase, and the way in which adult education
will be interpreted in that system is therefore
particular important.
Concept of adult education?

11. This means that lifelong education is
not a mechanical prolongation of education
into adult age, but linking of education of
children, youngster and adults into system.
This is the only way to achieve
disburdening of children and youngsters in
education and rationalization of the
educational system as a whole.
Concept of adult education?

12. Due to interdependence of all levels and
formats of learning, structural change in any of
the parts of educational systems causes
changes in other parts.
This is why changes in education of
youngsters and children have in the past
decades led to the changes in objectives and
contents of adult education, a new opportunity
for adult education have led to
reconceptualization of education of
youngsters.
Concept of adult education?

13. Definition of the concept
of adult education?
The term adult education denotes the entire body
of organized educational process whether the content,
level and method, whether they prolong or replace
initial education in schools, colleges and universities,
as well as in the apprenticeship, whereby persons
regarded as adults by the society to which they belong
develop his or her abilities and reach their knowledge,
improve their technical or professional qualifications or
turn them in a new direction and bring about changes
in their attitudes or behavior in twofold perspective of
full personal development and participation in
balanced and independent social, economic and
cultural development.

14. Objectives and Areas of Adult Education
 Compensational function of adult education
- Comprises fundamental training of adults (i.e. making up
for educational failing behind of adult persons, which are
the consequences of educational failures in their youth.
In conditions of accelerated development and globalization,
in the knowledge based society, these people have
become the most serious candidates for the class of
socially excluded people.
Every responsible government will do anything to limit
generating of such subclass.
One of the objectives of educational policy is social
inclusion of adults by means of their education. This will be
achieved by fundamental training of adults for their basic
life roles, primarily their professional qualifications.

15. This could be manifested in;
ocompletion of their primary education,
oacquisition of functional literacy,
oacquisition of initial training unskilled persons,
oretraining of unemployed people who cannot employ in their
vocations because of their being a surplus,
oprofessional training for women whose knowledge and skills
have, due to their being unemployed for a period of time,
become out-of-date.

16.  Function of further continuous education of adults
- Comprises of new knowledge, skills and values, attitudes
and habits, which will enable adults to successfully cope
with new demands, which stem from the scientific,
technological, social, political and cultural development.
- The most important fields of further education of adults in
Europe are further vocational training, education for
development of civic society, a part of which is education for
peace, citizenship and democracy, education for
environment protection, foreign languages learning,
education for preserving health, elderly people education,
education for integration of disabled persons.

17.  “The notion of a lifetime employment is being replaced by
the notion of lifetime employability”
 The focus of adult education is being transferred from
compensational to further continuous learning.
 The main objectives of adult education are the same as the
ones characteristics for education of young.
 Sustainable development depends more on the value
orientations of adult population than on education, which
sheds some light on the importance and contents of adult
education.
 Adult education in 21st
century has to be significantly more
value saturated than it is now

18. Institutions for Adult Education,
Technology and Legislation
o Contemporary school system is primarily aimed for the
education of children and youngsters, but it conducts
programmes of the same kind for adults as well.
o Beside by regular school system, adult education is being
provided by educational institutions which are specialized for
adult education in local communities.
o Educational centers in bigger firms and companies.
o Private institution for adult education
o Voluntary organization
o Technology of adult education
o Adult education activities should be appropriately legally
stipulated

19. Just how are we to approach adult education if it is
everywhere and nowhere? Courtney (1989: 17-23)
suggests that we can explore it from five basic and
overlapping perspectives. Adult education as:
o The work of certain institutions and organizations.
- What we know as adult education has been shaped by
the activities of key organizations. Adult education is, thus,
simply what certain organizations such as the Workers
Education Association or the YMCA do.
o A special kind of relationship.
- One way to approach this is to contrast adult education
with the sort of learning that we engage in as part of
everyday living. Adult education could be then seen as, for
example, the process of managing the external conditions
that facilitate the internal change in adults called learning.
In other words, it is a relationship that involves a conscious
effort to learn something.

20. o A profession or scientific discipline.
- Here the focus has been on two attributes of professions:
an emphasis on training or preparation, and the notion of a
specialized body of knowledge underpinning training and
preparation. According to this view ‘the way in which adults
are encouraged to learn and aided in that learning is the
single most significant ingredient of adult education as a
profession’
o Stemming from a historical identification with spontaneous
social movements.
- Adult education can be approached as a quality emerging
through the developing activities of unionism, political parties
and social movements such as the women’s movement and
anti-colonial movements (Lovett 1988).
o Distinct from other kinds of education by its goals and
functions.
- This is arguably the most common way of demarcating
adult education from other forms of education. For example:

21. Adult education is concerned not with preparing people
for life, but rather with helping people to live more successfully.
Thus if there is to be an overarching function of the adult
education enterprise, it is to assist adults to increase
competence, or negotiate transitions, in their social roles
(worker, parent, retiree etc.), to help them gain greater
fulfilment in their personal lives, and to assist them in solving
personal and community problems. (Darkenwald and Merriam
1982: 9)
Darkenwald and Merriam combine three elements. Adult
education is work with adults, to promote learning for
adulthood. Approached via an interest in goals, ‘adult’
education could involve work with children so that they may
become adult.
As Lindeman (1926: 4) put it: ‘this new venture is called
adult education not because it is confined to adults but because
adulthood, maturity, defines its limits’.

22. Adult education is instructional and related
support services for adults who are not enrolled in
secondary school, who lack the educational
foundation expected of a high school graduate; and
whose inability to speak, read, and write the English
language, and compute and solve problems
constitutes a substantial impairment of their ability to
obtain, retain and/or function on the job, in their family
and in society commensurate with their real ability, to
achieve their goals, and develop their knowledge and
potential, and thus are in need of programs to help
eliminate such inability and raise their level of
education and self-sufficiency.
Definition of Adult Education

23. "All people will be literate, lifelong learners who are
knowledgeable about the rights and responsibilities of citizenship
and able to contribute to the social and economic well-being of
our diverse, global society."
Adult education programs provide adults ages 16 years
and older who have less than a high school education with
opportunities to acquire the skills necessary to function more
effectively in society and the workplace of the 21st century.
Through these programs a student may accomplish the following
goals:
o Acquire the basic reading, writing, and math skills
necessary to obtain or advance in a job.
o Meet entrance requirements for vocational training
programs.
o Study to pass the GED examination, a nationally
recognized test for a certificate of high school equivalency.
Purpose of Adult Education

24. o Attain high-level employment skills.
o Obtain the skills needed to become a better parent.
o Acquire the skills needed to be a functional, contributing
member of society and a wiser consumer.
o Learn English as a Second Language (ESL) and
citizenship skills.
o Earn high school credit toward a high school diploma.
o Obtain an alternative high school diploma.