Lifelong Education for Older Adults in Malta: Current Trends and Future Visions

Autor/in	Formosa, Marvin
Titel	Lifelong Education for Older Adults in Malta: Current Trends and Future Visions
Quelle	In: International Review of Education, 58 (2012) 2, S.271-292 (22 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0020-8566
DOI	10.1007/s11159-012-9282-8
Schlagwörter	Ideology; Lifelong Learning; Older Adults; Foreign Countries; Gender Bias; Rhetoric; Adult Education; Inclusion; Malta + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ideologie; Life-long learning; Lebenslanges Lernen; Älterer Erwachsener; Ausland; Geschlechterstereotyp; Rhetorik; Adult; Adults; Education; Adult basic education; Adult training; Erwachsenenbildung; Inklusion
Abstract	With European demographic developments causing a decline of the available workforce in the foreseeable future and the unsustainability of dominant pay-as-you-go pension systems (where contributions from the current workforce sustain pensioners), governments need to come up with strategies to deal with this upcoming challenge and to adjust their policies. Based on a study carried out between September 2009 and May 2010, this article evaluates the policies guiding late-life education in Malta, as well as the local plethora of learning opportunities for older adult education, and participation rates. The Maltese government is committed to supporting the inclusion of older persons (aged 60+) in lifelong education policies and programmes, to the extent that local studies have uncovered a recent rise in the overall participation of older adults in formal, non-formal and informal areas of learning. While the present and future prospects for late-life education in Malta seem promising, a critical scrutiny of present ideologies and trends finds the field to be no more than seductive rhetoric. Though the coordination of late-life education in Malta does result in various social benefits to older learners and Maltese society in general, it also occurs within five intersecting lines of inequality--namely an economic rationale, elitism, gender bias, the urban-rural divide and third ageism. This article ends by proposing policy recommendations for the future of late-life education. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10