ABSTRACT
At present, Italy has no national law with respect to the education of adults. This situation acts as an obstacle to those intending to observe or describe Italian adult education. The absence of such a law does not imply that there are no agencies, organisations or an infrastructure. Numerous private organisations, which might come from associations of any kind, are actually practising the education of adults. In addition to political, trade union, co-operative, cultural and religious organisations, there are private organisations which practise it as a commercial venture. Responsibility for training adult education practitioners falls on colleges of higher education, public organisations, particularly those involved in development programmes and civic associations. Colleges of higher education provide two kinds of preparation: the first, at university, is mainly the basic/initial training of practitioners and the second, in the professional schools with undergraduate courses, provides mainly specialist training in the art of teaching.
