Adult Education - Report Example

Introduction

In the contemporary world, community needs have increased fervently, and the current governments have been giving little attention to the matter. As a result, many societal members have established programs meant to provide solutions to the community's needs, which unluckily have not lasted to see fruition. However, the only weapon left to solve the needs at hand is education. The latter has been described as the typical avenue that facilitates development at a societal level utilizing the adults and community members (English & Mayo, 2012). Henceforth, adult education is an exercise where adults engage in sustained and systematic self-educating pursuits to gain a broader and further embodiment of attitude, skills, values, and knowledge. Currently, adult education has been popularised by increased digitization, high migration levels, and employment changes (English & Mayo, 2012). As such, the education offered to adults in the community has helped most grown-ups cope with these changes with much ease. The main focal point of this paper is to address adult education and its role in community development.

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Types of Adult Education

According to English & Mayo (2012), adult education has been categorized into formal, informal, and non-formal education. The latter refers to any organized and structured lifelong learning perspective, which is typically institutionalized and planned by an education provider. However, in this type of adult education, no formal qualification is awarded to the learner. Thus, they cannot be recognized by any education authorities in a given country' (200). The paper sheds light on formal education, which is well-structured learning designed to take place in learning institutions, usually involving set carries credentials and set curriculum. Post completion of formal studies, adults are typically awarded a certification as a qualification recognizable by the education authorities.

Eduard C. Lindeman's Theory

Eduard C. Lindeman's theory defined learning as a lifelong process (Mayo, 2013). 'The theorist acknowledged that due to the immense changes in social life and dynamism on development from the surroundings, information and knowledge were in a constant transmission cycle which required societal members to update and supplement through learning' (45). Eduard believed that education for adults gives them a chance to work and survive in a developed world and offer enrichment opportunities (Mayo, 2013). According to Lindeman's theory, the learner's experience is the most vital resource in andragogy (exercise of adult education), which he believes is responsible for incrementing these specific people (Mayo, 2013). Besides, cultural knowledge and personal codes of conduct are slowly improved via andragogy, improving order and the social atmosphere.

However, adults, when practicing andragogy, face numerous challenges. The latter is so since they must strike a balance between responsibilities and education. As such, they face three categorized challenges; situational, institutional, and dispositional (English & Mayo, 2012). For example, situationally, adults find it hard to balance career time, education time, and family time as they all are demanding fields. 'Financing this type of education can also be challenging, given that most adults have families whose needs must be fulfilled first' (22). Dispositional factors affecting adult education include; lack of confidence and interest by the learning adult (Mayo, 2013).

However, understanding what impedes adult education can help learning institutions enroll more of them since it will be easy to find a motivating factor. For instance, informing adults of the high ability to get promotions in the workplace is likely to increase their need to advance their education. However, teachers dealing with adults should understand their students based on their learning capabilities to avoid discouraging education by teaching lessons that mainly address specific students' weaknesses.

Freirean Approach to Adult Education

Several theories have attempted to explain the principle behind adult education. Paulo Freire is a scholar who proposed the Freirean/ problem/psycho/learner approach (Mayo, 2013). In the United States of America, the theory has been used by many community-organizations for the establishment of basic English literacy in their non-formal educational programs. This vital scholar's approach emphasizes contextuality as the learning to write and read emanates from thematic discussions of vitalness to adult learners, which is usually drawn from their real-life experiences.

The theory defines the importance of formal language in adult education, which offers conceptual development a secondary role. Learners are believed to obtain writing and reading skills via an inquiry process into real-problems nature, which the learner faces. A majority of the content in education proposed by Freirean programs comes from the culture of the learners. 'Paulo believes that culture not only embodied the religious beliefs and customs that defined the identity of people but rather thought of it as a dynamic transformation process that incorporated conflicts that required solutions and decisions to be made at both the community and individual levels' (Mayo, 2013, pg. 58).

According to Freire, unjust social conditions are the most compelling factors causing illiteracy (Mayo, 2013, pg. 23). Adult education is a vital occurrence in grown-up lives as it enables learners to free themselves from the unfair conditions that oppress them. Two features that define the Freirean approach to adult education include dialogue and problem-posing. The former describes a relationship between two beings, where a student possesses their cultural identities as teachers possess the writing and reading concepts. Besides, the education advocated by this approach is said to be problem-posing, as a teacher asks a series of open-minded questions from short stories, pictures, and comics derived from the cultural beliefs of their students (Mayo, 2013). Discussions from the students regarding the imposed questions will evoke the need to write, which develops these adults' writing skills in a slow process. In light of this, the Freirean approach is best known for teaching learners based on the problems they are facing, as previously mentioned in the paper.

Challenges Facing Andragogy

Despite the numerous advantages that adult education imposes on society as a whole, as seen in the paper, several challenges face andragogy, which affects the involvement in the type of education. 'High financial, political, and administrative vulnerability' (23) affects lifelong learning altogether. In the contemporary world, the political and administrative sector is highly dynamic, which, as a result, imposes a permanent threat to programs and policy continuity. The changing policies affect the financial resources set to champion lifelong learning continuity to benefit adults. According to Mayo (2013), the latter is proven by the amount of budget allocated to adult learning in Brazil, which equals less than 1% of the total educational funding. In addition to the financial constraints experienced by learning adults due to responsibilities, lifelong learning becomes a challenge, and this needs to be addressed to ensure the continuity of education.

Secondly, there has been low attention allocated to the professionalization of adult educators in the modern world. Teachers of andragogy have been known to exist in the most inadequate conditions while receiving exemplary weak training. Besides, adult educators are usually exposed to terrible working conditions, which significantly affect their delivery. The training of adult educators is short, and its deficits are portrayed by the indigenous educators who advocate for intercultural programs that are bilingual. With the advancement of technology and the development of numerous computer-mediated communication devices, adult educators' professionalization has grown extremely unpopular. The latter is so since digitization has enabled adults' online learning, which a majority of grown-ups use. However, developed western countries have upgraded the requisites for adult educators to exercise complete professional teacher training. Besides, age discrimination has been felt by adult learners in the contemporary world (Mayo, 2013). 'Currently, there is a trend that aims to offer educational priority to younger adults exercising andragogy (that is less than 40 years). As a result, this leads to discrimination, which has offset many adult learners who might be willing to be educated but surpass the prioritized age limit' (24). Educational opportunities are segmented by age in a majority of countries. However, countries like Uruguay and Cuba have prioritized adult education, which is reflected in society's development.

Thirdly, there has been continued neglect of indigenous people. According to Mayo (2013), adult education targets four groups of people: peasants, indigenous, women, and youth. In light of the latter, both women and youths have been prioritized while peasants and indigenous people have not. 'Racism has been considered the factor is leading to the discrepancy where research has it that the national illiteracy rate stood at 8.4% in Mexico, whereas the illiteracy rate of black people in the country stood at 36.1%' (24). As such, the indigenous and peasants' adults have been facing discrimination despite the anti-discriminatory laws and regulations that have been stipulated by the United Nations to foster equality. This scenario should be eliminated, and all people, regardless of their age, should receive education to remain competitive in the labor force.

Conclusion

Many problems exist in modern-day society settings. Adult education has been known to solve the formerly mentioned problems since it initiates community development. The latter has been defined as a process in which the societal members come together to ensure they implement by taking action on what is extremely vital to them. The core beliefs that the community holds dear is access to wellbeing, health, opportunity, justice, and wealth (Mayo, 2013). The main objectives of community development include: motivate and educate societal members to aid self-help, establishment responsible leadership programs to help, mentor, and mold young people, initiate self-sustaining and self-generative growth process. Besides, community development aims at enabling individuals to maintain harmonious and cooperative relationships within society. Adult education fosters community development by aiding the accomplishment of the discussed societal objectives.