ABSTRACT

Two factors stand out in the history of general university development in Britain in the twentieth century: the rapid growth in the size and importance of the university sector; and the ever closer relationship between the state and universities on a number of levels. Both these trends have been considerably more prominent in the post 1945 period, but, equally, both have their roots in the earlier years of this century. The orthodox view of the universities’ role in society holds centrally to a pluralist conception of that wider society. University Adult Education has developed within this overall university context, and has been profoundly influenced in terms of both its structure and its provision by the changing face of the wider university system. The case of professional continuing education is rather different: although there has been some contraction because of the recession and the cuts.