The First Year Experience in Continuing Education

A selection of conference papers presented on 24/5th April 2006 at University of Stirling

The onset of the twenty-first century has brought a marked change in the role of Lifelong Learning/Continuing Education. As higher education has adapted to meet increasingly diverse demands from a more heterogeneous student population, lifelong learning departments have been required to adopt a wider institutional role enabling diverse learner needs to be met through enhanced flexibility of provision in its widest sense. This flexibility incorporates recruitment strategies, support mechanisms, modes and methods of delivery and assessment, and a range of exit strategies. Departments and schools delivering lifelong learning have thus adopted an expanded role both across campus and within the community at large, a role which has evolved alongside widening participation strategies and changing recruitment patterns such as increasing numbers of working and mature students.