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This document reports on a project which has been investigating further education provision for older people in the State of Victoria. The project has been supported through the Active Seniors Grants Scheme of Sport and Recreation, Victoria and the Victorian Adult Community and Further Education Board (ACFEB). The project involved four major phases during 1995: 1. The creation of an annotated bibliography; 2. A series of fifteen focus groups held state-wide; 3. A survey of 580 sites providing learning programs for adults in Victoria; and 4. A symposium including older adults where major findings and potential recommendations were presented and then discussed and/or ratified. Major issues which have emerged from the study include: Relatively lower levels of funding to support older adult learning; Significant difficulties in acquiring and sharing resources; the unrecognised degree of voluntarism amongst older adults; The lower levels of participation in learning activities in some ACFE regions (particularly in rural areas); The under-representation of certain groups such as migrants, men and carers; and The need to consider how technology can be used to enhance older adults' learning. The report discusses benefits for, and barriers to, older people's participation in learning, and concludes with a model which demonstrates where barriers to older adult learning may occur. Show less

Capacity development is core to the activities supported by most development assistance agencies. However, the development of capacity is rarely evaluated. Where it is evaluated, the quality of evaluations is usually poor. Furthermore, evaluations of capacity development programs have rarely met the utility standard. In particular, they seldom provide the types of information that intended users need. Consequently, where evaluations have been undertaken, it is difficult to identify the influence these have made on program implementation or capacity development policy. The article outlines the first stage of broader research that investigates a framework for evaluating capacity development initiatives.

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This report examines the implications of an ageing population for the provision of adult education and training, and makes some recommendations in relation to future research, provision and policy making. The report is in three parts: Part one is an overview of the broad policy context of the demand and need for third age learning, including the demographic facts of life; Part two is an extensive commissioned review and synthesis of recent research and writing on issues in the education and training of older people - both Australian and international sources; Part three seeks to distil - from the literature review, from related policy developments in Australia, and from the findings of a specially convened National Policy Forum - some useful recommendations in relation to provision, further research and policy development. Show less