1. LIFELONG LEARNING AT UCT –
“bringing the outside world inside"
A presentation about research in progress towards a masters dissertation
Janet Small
University of Cape Town
28 October 2006

2. My research questions
What are the different understandings of ‘lifelong learning’ at UCT?
What factors have shaped the development of these different understandings of ‘lifelong learning’?

3. My purpose personal purpose - motivations of the researcher
practical purpose - “accomplishing something”
research purpose -“understanding something”
Maxwell (1996)

4. My purpose
as an adult educator working in higher education, I am interested in gaining greater understanding of the particular context of the institution where I am working, so I will be better able to design programmes for continuous education at UCT (ie. accomplish something).

5. Research method Qualitative – interpreting meaning and context
Secondary data - documentary material about UCT’s policies and practices relating to lifelong learning to be analysed
Primary data – interviews with key informants who are working in educational provision which provides for lifelong learning opportunities

6. Challenges
But what do ‘lifelong learning opportunities’ at UCT look like?
And what exactly is lifelong learning…
and what is not?

7. Commonest theme – time dimension “throughout life”
Definitions
Vast literature, many interpretations…
Commonest theme – time dimension “throughout life”
Greatest divergence on ‘purpose’
(Abukari:2005)

8. Indicators of education ‘throughout life”
Age – older, mature students
Working while studying – part-time and occasional students
Returning to study – continuing education and professional development
Short courses – diverse target audiences, levels and purposes

9. Looking for useful indicators
 Age – not reliable because of particular social context of South Africa (Buchler et al, forthcoming)
  Working while studying – but couldn’t use only the criteria of part-time. Incomplete data on this at UCT (Hendry:2006)
 Returning to study – continuing education an emerging category at UCT
 Short courses – encompasses many of the above features (mostly older, mostly working, many returning to study)

10. Challenge 1 – where do I look for LLL?
Informants should be involved with short courses, continuing education courses or part-time courses aimed specifically at working people.

11. Challenge 2 – what is LLL exactly?
I wanted to find out what my interviewees thought...
But I needed a framework for constructing simple “codes” or “categories” for the analysis of the results… (Ensor & Hoadley: 2004)

12. Constructing a simple model from the literature

13. Interviews – gathered data
Interviewed small number of key informants across the faculties at UCT
Gathered comments on the model – from the perspective of their learners

14. Changing the model

15. Illuminating or obscuring?
Much more complex model emerging …
but will it provide an adequate structure for the discussion of the results ?

16. And now what?
Use model to plot where the different understandings of LLL lie – individual and institutional
Reflect on macro influences (global trends in higher education and learning) on LLL discourses
Discuss results in relation to micro influences (the institution’s particular context) on LLL discourses at UCT

17. And then…
I may be able to answer the research questions…
What are the different understandings of ‘lifelong learning’ at UCT?
What factors have shaped the development of these different understandings of ‘lifelong learning’?

18. The end for now
…for you
Thanks for listening.