ADULT EDUCATION “AT CROSSROADS”

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31385, 2 June 1967, Page 10

ADULT EDUCATION “AT CROSSROADS”

Adult education is at the crossroads, and it must quickly decide which way it will go, according to Dr. A. A. Liveright, director of liberal education for adults at Boston University, who is in Christchurch for talks on these trends. In more than 50 years, adult education agencies generally had progressed from so-called workers’ educational associations offering very general topics for those with limited schooling to some advanced schemes at the postgraduate level, he said. Somewhere in between, adult education had failed to attract or hold large potential adudiences, Dr. Liveright said. There was undoubtedly a need for post-graduate and similar courses to keep professional people up to date with latest developments; there was a need to help the under-privileged who (in some places) had less education than the earlier “workers"; but there was a huge middle group which should be helped to cope with the "explosion of knowledge,” with new working and living techniques, and with leisure. “The trouble Is,” said Dr. Liveright, “that there are so many demands on people’s time.” Many were heavily involved with business, social, school, church, and other activities outside normal working hours and like to spend a night off at home. They could not or would not become committed to a voluntary study course.

Dr. Liverlght said he did ■ not think anything could replace the thrust and parry of a good lecture and good questions and discusion for mental stimulation, but there were two other methods just beginning to be exploited. The first was home-study courses with which much early adult education began. . It was estimated that of 25 . million people taking adult . education courses in the ■ United States, nine million ■ were taking individual study and reading programmes at home by mail—“things like , the Metropolitan Museum of i Art course, in which litera- ’ ture, reproductions and even ; records on painting are sent to your home.” 1 This was really just “the ’ old W.E.A. box course,” ’ brought up to date, he said. The other field was mass ; media—periodicals, radio, and ' television —by which information on any subject could , also be taken into the home '• and reach vast audiences, i Dr. Liveright said univer- . slty extension studies departments and other adult education associations should be flexible, ready to change , traditional methods, and i above all, search out the gaps . in their programmes. “New Zealand used adult . education much more imagin- ; atively than we did in the i early days,” he said. "The I same dedication and devot- ■ ion are still apparent, but we ' must all use imagination to meet modem times.”