Тенденції розвитку освіти дорослих в Англії (остання чверть ХХ – початок ХХІ ст.)

The research conducted made it possible to find out that adult education in England evolved from the elementary forms (reading, writing, reckoning) to the complex ones (various forms and levels of education). That proves adult education to have become a unique system only in the second half of the XX^th century. On the basis of the investigation five main stages were pointed out, each is a qualitatively new cycle of the English adult education formation and development and is determined by the peculiarities of social, political, economical and cultural development of the given country in a definite period.

Theoretical foundations of the English adult education concept were laid down at the beginning of the XX^th century. At that time the term “adult education” was limited to non-vocational education to remain universal till 1960s.

Rapid social, economic and technological changes of the second half of the XX^th century led to reconceptualization of the phenomenon of adult learning activity to be necessary lifelong and to include all forms, types and levels of education.

Peculiarities of socio-economic transformations in the English society of the last quarter of the XX^th century which manifested themselves in industrial changes, active implementation of information and communication technologies, applying market approach to social relations and adult education in particular, led to the necessity of radical structural and contextual modernization of all adult education system branches (basic, vocational, higher, informal) that were accompanied by the transformation of its aims, strategies, contents and forms accordingly. The main tendencies of adult education development in the period described were:

- centralizing adult education system by: a) working out National Standards for basic and vocational adult education; b) applying the system of National Tests to basic adult education; c) representing National Vocational Qualifications and unique Qualifications for higher education; d) transmitting some functions of Local Education Authorities to new central government councils (financing in particular);

- developing partnership between government agencies, private corporations and community organizations by: a) new way of management functions distribution (not only between central, regional and local authorities, but also involving representatives of community and voluntary organizations, trade unions, employers an so on); b) new channels of adult education financing attracting non-governmental and community resources and money of other players; c) governmental financial support of educational institutions and consumers of educational services by introducing some tax reductions, learning loans and accounts, paid educational leaves;

- modernization of curriculum contents by: a) changing from training of monoskilled workers to polyskilled specialists (curriculum combines the elements of academic, general vocational and special vocational skills) to be highly adaptive and mobile in new contexts; b) individually designed, consumer oriented programmes which are supported by active usage of distance learning techniques, credit accumulation and transfer scheme, modular system, accreditation of prior experiential learning.

In our research we managed to outline some practical recommendations on the creative application of the English experience to reform adult education system in Ukraine: new adult education paradigm should be directed to lifelong, continuous learning activity in the context of the internationally recognized concepts of “lifelong learning” and “learning organization”; to get away from the extreme forms of centralization in adult education system management, administrative freedom in making decisions on local and regional levels; changing the financing adult education mechanism - to increase the volumes of governmental investments to stimulate participation in learning activity (especially for underprivileged groups), to attract alternative financing resources (money from private corporations, business organizations, community and voluntary organizations); to rearrange formal adult education structure to make it more flexible, to take full advantage of distance learning techniques and information technologies.

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