1. Later-life learning and a new
agenda on ageing -
perspectives from the United
Kingdom and Europe
Keith Percy
Lancaster University, UK

2. Structure of Talk
Third Age
Lifelong learning: policy development
Teaching older people
Benefits of learning for older people
Intergenerational Learning
Scholarship and Research
Active Ageing

3. UN (United Nations) Actions
• 1972 Fauré Report: Learning to Be
• 1991 UN Principles for Older People -
independence, care, participation, self-fulfilment
and dignity
• 1999 UN International Year of Older People
• 2002 2nd UN World Assembly on Ageing
Madrid: International Action Plan
• 2012 UNECE Ministerial Conference to review
progress since Madrid (Vienna)

4. Madrid International Action Plan Ageing:
Five of Ten commitments [edited]
• To mainstream ageing in all policy fields
… to achieve a society for all ages
• To ensure full integration and participation
of older persons in society
• To promote life-long learning and adapt
educational system to changing conditions
• To ensure quality of life at all ages to
maintain independent living
• To support families [caring] for older
persons

5. European Commission Actions
• 1996 European Year of Lifelong Learning
and Intergenerational Solidarity
• 2000 EU Memorandum on Lifelong
Learning
• 2007-2013 Lifelong learning Programme
• 2012 European Year for Active Ageing
and Solidarity between Generations

6. Models of lifelong learning
• Equality of opportunity or social justice
model
• Independent or self-directed learning
democratic model
• Human capital work skill development
model
[Schuetze, H (2007) International Journal of Lifelong
Learning, 25, 5—23]

7. Do older people need methods of teaching
and learning that
• fit their age
• use their life-experience
• are peer-based, not didactic
• liberate them ?

8. Physical factors affecting
learning of older people?
Sight, hearing, sleep, other
physical conditions, illnesses,
attention span, memory and
more

9. Using life experience in
teaching
Use of life-experience in teaching can
•make learning immediately meaningful
•allowing older people to find examples in
their own experience which exemplify or
confirm what is being taught
•encourage older people to compare life
experience of other members of a class

10. Teaching older people liberation
Paolo Freire said that the responsibility of
teachers was to liberate the minds of the
‘oppressed’ and prepare them for social
action.
Are older people among the ‘oppressed’?

11. Older people prefer didactic
teaching or peer learning?
If you have one person speaking for the
whole time, you don’t learn very much from
each other …[Older] People have had
enough of formal learning but they still want
to go on learning and sharing what each
other learned over the years.
Quotation from British U3A member: International Journal
of Education and Ageing, vol.2, no.1,p.2, 2011

12. Lancaster research: older
people & benefits of learning
• All said gained intellectually and university
learning added to feelings of self-worth
• All reported style and level of teaching
suited their age and cognitive abilities
• Some said teaching had helped them
understand their own life experience
• Some learned new critical perspectives on
their own social situation
• Some learned from both didactic teaching

13. Health and well-being benefits
of learning
• Improvements in health knowledge
leading to changes in behaviour eg.
smoking, diet
• Improvements in physical health
• Improvements to wellbeing and mental
health
• Improved cognitive performance
[National Seniors Australia Productive Ageing
Centre, 2010]

14. Older people learning: possible
negative effects
• Teaching styles can cause anxiety and
stress
• Education can uncover unpleasant and
stressful experiences from earlier life
• Educational activity can disrupt social
networks
• Learning usually involves transformation
where something is gained and something
lost
[Field, J (2009) Well-being & Happiness. Leicester: NIACE]

16. 2012 European Year for Active Ageing and
Solidarity between Generations
• The overall aim for EY 2012 is to promote
active ageing and to do more to mobilise
the potential of the rapidly growing
population in their late 50s and over,
across Europe.
• The year will provide a framework for
policy development and concrete action to
enable the European Union

17. Active Ageing
• Active ageing as preventative concept
• Lifelong and intergenerational
• Including rights and obligations
• Partnership between individual and
society
[Walker, A (2002) A strategy for active ageing,
International Social Security Review, 55,121-139]