Knowra Adult education Adult education Adult education comprises organized learning opportunities for adults beyond initial schooling, including basic skills, professional development, and personal enrichment.
Adult literacy : The development of reading, writing, and related communication skills among adults. Literacy programs help adults build foundational skills often missed or insufficiently developed in initial schooling.
Andragogy : A theory and practice of teaching and supporting adult learners. Andragogy explains how educators adapt instruction to adults' experience, goals, and self-direction.
Popular education : Educational practice developed with and for ordinary people, often connected to social and political participation. Popular education shaped traditions of accessible learning outside elite institutions.
Formal education : Structured education delivered through recognized institutions, curricula, and qualification pathways. Adult education can be formal, but also includes learning outside credentialed systems.
Human capital : The knowledge, skills, and abilities that contribute to individual and economic productivity. Adult education is often justified as an investment in skills and economic capacity.
Workplace learning : Learning that occurs through work, workplace training, and professional development. Employers use adult learning to develop job skills and adapt workers to changing roles.
Experiential learning : Learning through reflection on direct experience and subsequent experimentation. Adult education often builds on practical experience as a source of knowledge.
Mechanics' institutes : Institutions founded to provide technical and scientific education to working people, especially during industrialization. They established an early model of organized learning for adults outside schools.
Non-formal education : Organized learning outside the formal education system, usually with more flexible structures and credentials. It overlaps with adult education but describes a mode of provision rather than an age group.
Educational attainment : The highest level of education an individual has completed. Adult study can change qualifications and expand access to further education or employment.
Show all 26