1. CRADALL Seminar Glasgow University 2 June 2010 (Re)invention of tradition: adult education in contemporary higher education Professor Maria Slowey Dublin City University

2. ‘All too often the practice and conventions of our own day are influenced by a faulty view of the past’. For example, it is widely assumed that universities have always:  Had rigorous entry requirements  Been governed by an academic elite  With serious, scientific research at the core  That doors were only opened by establishment of welfare state  ‘Yet none of this is true’  Robert Bell and Malcolm Tight (1993) Open Universities: A British Tradition? p12

3. (2005) 2005 University of Glasgow 2005 ‘ Adult students are neither school Children nor University (undergraduates). Often it is necessary to evolve new techniques to teach subjects in different ways and to move to the hinterland between specialised subjects.’ West of Scotland Joint Committee 1947-1948 Annual Report

4. Schofer and Meyer (2005) The World-Wide Expansion of Higher Education, CDDRL Working Papers 32: Stanford University

5. CONTEXT OF GROWTH FROM ‘MASS’ TO ‘UNIVERSAL’ SYSTEM  Pace of technological change  Pressure of social movements  Demography  Rising levels of initial education  Knowledge Economy  Globalisation  Policy borrowing- role of international and intergovernmental agencies

9. Source : UNESCO (2009) Global report on adult learning and education

10. Source: Schuller and Watson (2009) Inquiry into the future of lifelong learning, NIACE

11. Human capital Equity Social engagement Personal development Social cohesion Demographic Contested conceptions of lifelong learning over 1990s-2000s

12. Higher education and lifelong learning: longitudinal comparative study Europe: Ireland, UK, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Portugal North America: USA, Canada Pacific area: Australia, New Zealand, Japan View from middle income countries from the ‘south’ H.G.Schuetze and M.Slowey (2000) Higher education and lifelong learning: international perspectives on change. Updated 2010

13. Conceptualising lifelong learners in higher education Life stage of student Mode of study Types of programmes Organisation of provision

14. Adult education in contemporary higher education Interdisciplinarity Civic and regional engagement Translational research Knowledge exchange Widening access Partnership with public, private and NGO sectors Connecting with alumni Lifelong learning

15. A University is a place where enquiry is pushed forward and discoveries perfected and verified, and rashness rendered innocuous and error exposed by the collision of mind with mind and knowledge with knowledge