Session 6: Social Education and Adult Learners

Kathy Munro - Mature Working Adult Learners in Higher Education - A South African Experience
Director, Wits Plus, Centre for part-time Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

The University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg established a Centre for part-time studies (called "Wits Plus") in November 1999, with a view to opening up degree studies to the "non- traditional learner" by offering on-campus, evening courses in a flexible cross- faculty enterprise. The objective of the programme was to break through conventional barriers, achieve economies of scale in a four-faculty co-operative project, attract mature working people (many of whom had been massively disadvantaged educationally during the past apartheid decades), grow student numbers through attracting these non-traditional students in the face of declining overall student numbers and achieve clear financial viability for the programme. The programme was created at a time when the national higher educational landscape was rapidly changing as a result of new policy directions, new market demands, the entry of "foreign" universities (internationalisation) and private colleges into the South African market and the trend towards on-line learning, "e-universities" or distance higher education. During the same period the University of the Witwatersrand has undergone radical structural change in an effort to respond to many of these challenges. This paper seeks to contextualise the experiences of one South African urban university (liberal, English-language, comprehensive in academic and research interests) addressing issues of social purpose, transformation, demographic change and financial sustainability in the area of adult learning against the back-drop of international, national changes and local pressures. The paper examines the experiences gained from the first two years of operation from an institutional, structural , staff and student perspective. The central questions to be asked: has the quality of the learning experience been of value to the individual learner and what have been the obstacles to study for such students. The paper reports on ongoing evaluation and research into the project and sets guidelines for future research. The paper seeks to raise discussion about the South African higher education landscape in the area of adult learning.

Abiodun Ogunyemi - The Relevance and Limits of Social Education in Nigerian Universities
Faculty of Education, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria

The idea of Social Education is to make school learning relevant to the society where it takes place. Experience in Nigeria, and indeed, other colonized countries, is that formal education had its roots in external needs and not those of the target learners or their society. Such educational system could therefore not have served the purpose of advancing the course of its clientele and would pass for irrelevance. As part of efforts to reform Nigerian education, the General Studies (GS) programme was introduced in Nigerian universities as from the 1960s following the country’s political independence from Britain. The introduction of the GS, among other things, was to imbue Nigerian university undergraduates with Afrocentric sentiments and arouse their interest in the overall development of their society. These are clearly evident in the array of courses usually specified in most university GS programmes approved by the Nigeria’s universities commission. While a close study reveals the concern for making university education relevant to the Nigerian society, however, several impediments often work against successful implementation of the designed programmes of learning and activities in the specified General Studies curricula. Prominent among these are the problem of large classes, shortage of teaching and assisting personnel, and lack of automation in most Nigerian universities. This paper undertakes an overview of the General Studies programme in Nigerian university education with a view to highlighting its relevance and limits. The paper conceptualizes social education with reference to social capital formation and the emergence of GS. It examines the state of university education in Nigeria and possibilities or otherwise of an effective GS programme. It is submitted that while its relevance cannot be disputed, substantial improvement in GS teaching and learning could only be brought about within the context of overall improvement in university education in Nigeria.

Heather Pudner& Colin Trotman - Countering Social Exclusion: Local Solutions through Adult Education Development Projects
Heather Pudner is a key worker on an anti-social exclusion HEFC(W) project in the Penderry Ward of Swansea
Colin Trotman is Head of Department in the Department of Adult Continuing Education, University of Wales Swansea

This paper will present case study evidence from a four-year community education development project. The project aims to counter social exclusion by increasing participation in higher education.

The discussion will highlight the crucial significance of long-term community based education programmes of development and delivery. It will show that indicators of social exclusion are only the starting points for developing participation in adult continuing education. Evidence will be presented suggesting that in negotiating learning adult educators must consider the social/economic circumstances that people are compelled to 'live-in.'

Download Full Conference Paper -