ABSTRACT
The apparently peculiar organization of adult education in Britain appears to many to be the consequence of being a small, haphazard and under-resourced service. It accounts for only one per cent of local authority spending, and even with additional funds provided to Responsible Bodies by the Department of Education and Science, the overall picture is one of stringency. The provision of post-graduate studies and the organization and control of research by the universities is not regarded as ‘adult education’. Similarly the array of professional qualifications available to lawyers, doctors, accountants and business managers, for example, all imply specialist and advanced study in keeping with the status and decision-making authority of present and future elites. The notion that any kind of education, however pure its motives or esoteric its subject matter, can ever be considered neutral is now a difficult position to maintain.
