Current trends and priorities in Canadian adult education

Canadian adult education is predominantly institutionalized and professionalized, oriented more towards individual rather than societal needs, and marked by competition rather than cooperation among its providers.

Since the 1960s there has been a definite thrust towards motivation and education of underprivileged groups in society, among these those with low schooling, the poor, and ethnic minorities. Considerable strides have been made in the education of women. Retired people are another population group which made an impact on adult education in Canada. The use of broadcast television in adult education thus far is not widespread, but there is a growing use of tele‐conferencing for professional development. Most recently there is a growing interest among adult educators in non‐traditional clientele and forms of adult education, but very little show of interest and support by the governments. The two major competing thrusts in Canadian adult education are the further vocationalization and institutionalization of adult education, and the shift from adult education to adult learning which could lead to further individualization of adult education. It is too early to tell yet whether either one of these opposing thrusts will become dominant in the future and, if so, which one.     

Carnival visions: digital creativity in teacher education

This paper is a theoretical and analytical account of a digital video‐editing project with student teachers. The work was part of a wider study known as ‘Creative Teachers for Creative Learners’, and investigated how creativity could be integrated within existing structures and courses of initial teacher education. The paper draws on notions of multimodality to explain how resources such as gesture, image, speech, narrative and music were used by student teachers to create meaning within video productions. Participants noted that the digital video project allowed them to think about how to use these resources in formal schooling contexts and how this could contribute to further work on introducing creativity and agency into their teaching practices.     

终身教育与个性化教育

个性化教育成为当今世界各国教育改革的一个重要趋势 ,而终身教育更能促进教育的个性化发展 ,探讨个性化教育思潮、终身教育与个性化教育的关系 ,以及世界各国对此作出的实践应答 ,有助于我国教育改革的发展。     

Language education of adult immigrants in Greece: current trends and future developments

The increasing number of immigrants living and working in Greece has proven to be a challenge for the social as well as educational policy of this country. In order to help adult immigrants to integrate into society and facilitate their access to the job market, the Greek state has introduced special language education programmes. This paper discusses the current trends in Greece regarding immigrant language education and presents findings of a survey which aimed at exploring immigrants’ language needs and preferences. The results of this survey indicate a high interest by immigrants in learning Greek but a very low level of enrolment on and attendance of language courses. As a knowledge of Greek is necessary to improve immigrants’ socio‐economic and professional status, it is suggested that cooperation between immigrant associations and educational policy‐makers is necessary for the design of successful language programmes and the promotion of Greece’s policy of integration.     

Lifelong education and philosophy of education

Problems of scale lead to the use of lay tutors in education for trade union members. These tutors need support from their organization. The design of this support is far from easy. A Dutch research project reveals some of the problems of providing support for these educational volunteers. Some results of this research are reported in this article. First, attention is devoted to some ideas about trade union education, based on British and Dutch literature. Second, the article concentrates on the investigated practices: local trade union education in the Netherlands, lay tutors and their tasks. In order to decipher the role of support activities, the elements of a model of volunteer activities are proposed. With a view to the diffusion of Dutch experience, a model of the support activities of trade unions related to the tasks of lay tutors is described. Five support environments for lay tutors are subsequently sketched.

Although some aggregation has been achieved, the level of knowledge remains quite low. Fundamental knowledge on support does not, as yet, exist. Knowledge is still far too limited to be able to provide advice on which environment to choose in a specific situation. Creating finely tuned support for lay tutors cannot be reduced to making a choice or to the combination of certain elements. If creating support is not the same as making a choice, this implies a design task. To assist efforts in designing support activities for lay tutors ten recommendations are made. Finally, their quality is briefly discussed.     

终身教育与现代远程教育

终身教育概念是进入２１世纪的关键所在。远程教育作为终身教育体系的一个组成部分,有它自身的特点和优势,在教育发展中起着越来越重要的作用。     

Lifelong education in Yugoslavia

Conclusion Notwithstanding the weaknesses noted in theory and practice, tangible results have been achieved in Yugoslavia in the domain and policy of permanent education. Many obstacles stood in the way of this progress and resistance was encountered on various sides to the introduction of lifelong education. This resistance was overcome by the adoption of the Resolution on the Development of Education on an Autonomous Basis which is deeply permeated by the ideas of lifelong education, thus opening broad avenues for its development in Yugoslavia.     

Lifelong learning: Universities and adult education

This paper argues that the driving force of social change in the contemporary world is economic globalisation, which has demanded and more highly educated work force. It discusses six major changes that are occurring in traditional university education, as a result, and notes that universities have now become a site where adults learn. Universities are becoming institutions of lifelong learning. In the final section traditional adult education is reviewed, which is also becoming lifelong learning, and the education of older adults is discussed.     

The response of higher education to older adults: A federal perspective

This article examines and describes the responses of higher education institutions in meeting the needs of older people. Specifically, the article describes the concern of the Federal Council on the Aging for increased educational offerings for older people at American universities and colleges. It provides an overview of the demographic factors creating a graying society, discusses the challenge that aging presents to higher education, and cites, with examples, steps to be taken by higher education institutions to directly or indirectly benefit older persons.     

Current status of learner support in distance education: emerging issues and directions for future research

This study examines the literature on learner support with the aim of helping institutions of higher education plan and implement support services for distance learners. The following issues emerged as areas of particular importance to future research in distance learner support: 1) the lack of research on cost-effectiveness; 2) the lack of empirical research; and 3) the need for a learner-centered approach in designing and implementing learner support. These issues are discussed in detail to enhance our understanding the role of learner support in post-secondary level distance education programs. It is further argued that future research should focus more on developing and refining methods for cost-benefit analysis of learner support, developing a general framework of the learner support model in dual-mode institutions, and developing systematic methods to identify, analyze, synthesize, and assess the needs of distance learners.     

Education for older adults

The developments and changes in the concept of ‘education for older adults’ during the last two decades are reviewed in this article. The origin of the terms ‘third age’ and ‘educational gerontology’ are discussed also and the issue of non-legitimation is raised.     

Long-term effects of leisure education on leisure needs and stress in older adults

We examined whether a 12-week leisure education program could promote leisure autonomy and leisure competence and reduce stress in older adults. Forty subjects were randomly assigned to either an experimental group or a control group. Before the experiment, pretest data were collected using leisure autonomy, leisure competence, and stress scales. After the experiment, posttest data were collected using the same scales; follow-up test data were collected a year later. These data were evaluated through an analysis of covariance. The results indicated that the average posttest and follow-up test scores of leisure autonomy and leisure competence in the experimental group were significantly higher than the corresponding scores in the control group and that the average posttest and follow-up test scores of stress in the experimental group were significantly lower than the corresponding scores in the control group. In the experimental group, the average posttest and follow-up test scores of leisure autonomy and leisure competence were significantly higher than the average pretest scores of leisure autonomy and leisure competence, whereas the average posttest and follow-up test scores of stress were significantly lower than the average pretest scores of stress. Therefore, health care practitioners should adopt the provision of leisure education as a priority to promote leisure autonomy and leisure competence and reduce stress in older adults.     

Lifelong education and the workplace: a critical analysis

This paper contains an analysis of policy formulations which underlie the work of the ‘Leeds Adult Learners at Work’ project (1991‐93). The overall aim of the project was to assess the contribution that broadly based Employee Development training schemes organized through the workplace can make towards achieving the internationally recognized goal of ‘lifelong learning’. The paper follows Ball (1990) in seeing policy as a contested arena in which different actors struggle to impose their views. This involves an analysis of competing discourses. However, the discourse interfaces with a socio‐economic system in which individual adults find their day‐today lives increasingly constrained. First, an analysis is made of the economic context of education and training policy in terms of the international division of labour, the apparently contradictory processes of deskilling and reskilling, and mass unemployment. A critical analysis follows of the rhetoric which identifies education and training as a panacea for economic crisis, extending into the field of adult education and training for employed people some of the insights gained by policy analysts in the school and further education arenas. It is argued that there are indeed a number of significant interventions in the field (e.g. by educational institutions, employers, trades unions, TECs) but that there is a distinct lack of overarching policy direction. It is concluded that there is a need to develop a policy discourse which locates paid work as an important arena in which lifelong learning can be developed, while recognizing the complex divisions of labour within society and the learning needs of people largely excluded from paid work.     

埃塞俄比亚职业技术教育的现状及其发展方向

埃塞俄比亚位于东非之角,2004年其总人口为 69 127 0(X)人,是非洲大陆仅次于尼日利亚的第二人 口大国。土地面积113万平方公里,具有三千年的文 明史,也是非洲历史上没有被殖民统治的两个国家之 一,首都亚的斯亚贝巴是非盟和联合国非洲经济委员 会的总部所在地,号称非洲之