Question:
I know there is a dedicated adult education newsgroup, but I fear it's infrequently visited so I post here. Apologies if I'm gate crashing a bit. I'm looking into adult education because I feel like doing it as a job.
Let's assume that the history of what adult education is has been that it was a first seen as correcting a deficit of schooling, then as tackling disadvantage and about some kind of social change/transformation, and is now seen as the promotion and acceptance of diversity.
Flowing from that we see that in general an Adult education syllabus would start out as orthodox, after all adult education was about correcting a deficit of regular schooling. But, what syllabus would attach where adult education was seen to be about disadvantage and social transformation? What was the the general adult syllabus between the late 60's till the late 80's? As for today, the notion is that adult learners are more free to decide on their own learning, well what can you say about todays adult education syllabus? That it's heading towards being indefinable?
Can you grant me any insights on the syllabi of Adult education?
Answer:
What I'm actually trying to comprehend is how true is it that education available for adults conforms to an ideolgy or philosopy.
When you examine compulsary education it's easy to see whose ideology is responsible for the kind of education that is given and how easy it is to ensure everyone is touched by that ideology (learners have no choice they have to receive the syllabus).
So a good question would be, can anyone think of any post-compulsary education that is completely free of an ideology behind it? You have to be careful, because if those that offer education can only offer it because they meet some requirement or other, or are taking advanyage of a business opportunity, the education might in fact be complient with an ideology
There is no general adult education syllabus. Each adult is free to take any college course, full or part-time. It entirely depends upon what the adult wishes to learn or how they wish to progress. Some may wish to improve their general literacy or numeracy, some may wish to take a degree. The point of adult education is that it can be all encompassing.
