ABSTRACT
Mass unemployment presents the greatest possible challenge to adult educators. They are not currently equipped to serve the needs of adults on the scale required to make a significant difference to the lives of more than a small minority of those who are jobless, either by enhancing their employability or by offering rewarding alternatives. There are important historical and philosophical reasons for this state of affairs which are embedded in the structure and operating assumptions of the major providing agencies. Whereas children’s educational needs are determined by their elders, this cannot reasonably be so for adults whose status requires that they be heard. Yet this is not generally the case when they lose their jobs. Collective or self representation of adult educational interests is made doubly difficult by the isolating and demoralising consequences of unemployment. So the ‘needs’ of the unemployed continue to be determined by those who are in work and not by the unemployed themselves. The latter are rarely equal, let alone dominant partners in decisions about the content of learning programmes. Jobless adults do not articulate learning needs in a way that is convenient to curriculum planners or allocators of resources; and the resources which support further education and training are concentrated on the young.
