Lecture 2 - Meaning and Scope of Adult Education (Part 2) : Lecturer: Dr. Yvette Ussher

ADLT 101
INTRODUCTION TO ADULT
EDUCATION
Lecture 2 –Meaning and Scope of

Adult Education (Part 2)
Lecturer: Dr. Yvette Ussher
College of Education
Department of Adult Education and Human Resource Studies
2020/2021
Lecture Overview
• In this lecture we will continue with the discussion what
is meant by adult education.
• We will continue with the discussion by explaining now
what is meant by is adult education, as we touch on
various definitions of adult education
• We will also discuss the context/scope of adult education
• During this lecture, we will also examine the core
assumptions of adult education
Slide 2
Lecture Objectives/Goals
• By the end of this lecture, you should be able
to:
–Define adult education
–Identify the various context of
adult education
–Explain the core assumptions of
adult education
Slide 3
Lecture Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are
as follows:
• Explanation of adult education
• Various context of adult education
• The core assumptions of adult education
Slide 4
Some Definitions of Adult Education
Watch the following videos
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfNSJKlRnAs
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tzz-yDaLU0
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcUA_3EdxoA
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC82Il2cjqA
Slide 5
Various Context Adult Education is
Used
According to Knowles (1980, p. 12), “Adult education is a

complex mosaic of unrelated activities and processes that
permeate almost all the established organizations in our
society.”
• Knowles explains further that the term adult education has
been used in literature with three meanings:
Used
1) As a field of operations: all the organized activities in which
mature men and women engage for the purpose of learning,
usually under the auspices of an institution. It is all those
organised, purposeful activities engaged in by adult learners in the
society. This includes all education endeavours of agencies and
organisations that are aimed at helping adults to improve the
quality of their lives. This includes the work of institutions like
the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Commission on Civic
Education (NCCE), Commission on Human Rights and
Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Non-Formal Education Division
(NFED) of the Ministry of Education and the Ghana National
Road Safety Authority
Slide 7
Used Cont’d
2) A process of self-directed inquiry through which

individuals systematically learn from their daily
experiences and other resources in their environment.
Used Cont’d
3) A social movement: is the whole spectrum of mature
individuals learning in infinite ways under innumerable auspices
the many things that make life richer and more civilized and is
dedicated to the improvement of the process of adult learning, the
extension of opportunities for adults to learn and the advancement
of the general level of our culture.
Adult education has been identified with social movements all
over the world to make things better for communities and
underprivileged groups of people. Such social movements include
self-help projects for community development like building
schools, roads and markets. It also includes political activities for
more girl-child education, human rights, freedom, gender equality
and trade unionism.
Slide 9
Other Various Context Adult
Education is Used
• As an academic discipline – This is easy to understand. You are
now studying adult education as an academic discipline at the
University of Ghana. One attributes of a discipline is that there is a
specialised body of knowledge to be taught and learned by the
student. You are now learning an aspect of the discipline of adult
education.
As a profession: - The second aspect is that of profession; this
emphasises training and preparation. I trained to be an adult
educator to enable me practise adult education. If you develop
interest in the subject, you may study it at a higher level and
become a professional adult educator
Other Various Context Adult
Education is Used Cont’d
• A special kind of relationship – Adult education could be
differentiated from learning that is done in everyday life,
learning that is not planned but incidental.
– Adult education is a relationship between adults in which
one adult (the educational agent) deliberately assists others
to consciously make an effort to learn something. This
could take place in an educational institution or outside the
school system, such as a health education workshop.
Scope of Adult Education
Adult Education in the Formal Education Sector
• Some adult education activities provide parallel or
alternative programmes to formal education. Remedial
classes have become common. Such classes offer
opportunities to mainly school leavers to remedy what
went wrong with their school examination results.
• Some such classes have grown into schools that provide
formal education for adults at the basic and secondary
levels, such as the Ideal College and Talents Restoration
Academy.
• The University of Ghana established Workers’
Colleges in all regional capitals in order to extend its
activities to adults who could not attend school on
full-time basis. The classes prepared adults for the
G.C.E ‘O’ and A’ Level examinations. It also run an
External Degree Centre at the Accra Workers’ College
for degree level programmes until 2004 when it was
upgraded into a full-fledge Accra City Campus of the
University of Ghana.
Slide 13
• Distance Education is another means through which
adult workers are provided opportunities to acquire
formal education. Public universities in Legon,
Kumasi, Cape Coast and Winneba now provide such
courses for adults at the degree level
Slide 14
Other Practices in Adult Education
• Adekanmbi and Modise (2000) in Nafukho (2004) provide a

list of adult education practices in Africa as evening classes,
library services, extra-mural education, trade union
education, secretarial training and popular theatre. They
add the following practices that are considered adult
education:
– Prison education
– non-formal education
– experiential education
– human resource development
– AIDS awareness education
– herbalists’ education, and
– birth attendants’ education
Other Practices in Adult Education
• Training workshops and public education on safe driving,

combating crime, civic education, environmental sanitation, public
health, TB prevention and cure, conservation of electricity,
education of parents in their responsibility towards their children,
gender equality and girl child education.
• The list can be as long as adult learning needs. All these forms of
adult education reflect the wide scope of adult education in Ghana
and elsewhere.
• Most of these other adult education provisions are non-formal in
nature. Though they are organised with the purpose of bringing
knowledge and skills to the learners, they are aimed at specific
sub-groups in the population.
Core Assumptions of Adult
Education
There are four core assumption of Adult Education. These are:
Adult education can be used to improve society

In adult education, we believe that whether a society is basically good
or inherently flawed, it can be improved. There is no perfect society, a
society in which all things work without any defect. As such adult
education has a role to play in improving both good and flawed
societies. Every society needs improvement, and adult education can
be a means to achieve this. Adult education can play a major role in
this effort.
Education Cont’d
Education is lifelong
• Learning must continue throughout life. We must learn as we
grow, learn to manage our adult roles competently and manage our
ageing situations. Education should not be conceptualised as
something that takes place in pre-adult years. Thus, education
is for both pre-adults and adults. Indeed, adult provides
immediately useful knowledge, skills and attitudes since the adult
is already playing a role in society and need not wait to get a job
before applying what has been learned.
Education Cont’d
Adult are capable of learning.
• Human beings are not made to stop learning at any
stage of their lives. Adults can learn and will learn
better if we treat them with respect and do not laugh
at them. If you encourage them and provide a
congenial learning environment, you will be surprised
about the amount and level of their learning
Slide 19
Education Cont’d
The relationship between teachers and learners in adult education is
horizontal
• The context of adult education differs substantially from the context of pre-
adult learning. The context or environment in which adults learn should not
be one in which they are considered subordinate to the teacher. The
relationship between the teacher and the learners should be one of equality.
The two should respect one another to achieve positive results for their
efforts.
• In some cases, the adult learner knows more about the topic than the adult
educator. In such cases, the adult learner should become the teacher who
then teaches the teacher. The adult learner has a lot of experience and can
even teach the teacher some things.
THANK YOU
HOPE YOU WILL

ENGAGE IN
FURTHER READINGS
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ADLT 101

Lecture 2 –Meaning and Scope of

Lecturer: Dr. Yvette Ussher

According to Knowles (1980, p. 12), “Adult education is a

2) A process of self-directed inquiry through which

• Adekanmbi and Modise (2000) in Nafukho (2004) provide a

• Training workshops and public education on safe driving,

Adult education can be used to improve society

HOPE YOU WILL

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