ABSTRACT
The provision of self-help education for older adults during the last quarter of a century began to develop in a very unplanned way while at the same time being widely regarded by those concerned as an integral part of the quality of life of older people, especially those in the Third Age. There were at least four reasons which led to this motivation towards education for older people. There has been an increase of popular awareness in the 1970s of the demographic factors which had contributed to an increasingly ageing population, with all the implications which that involved, and the potentially yawning vacuum of leisure time which the majority appeared to be facing. Additionally, the 1950s and 1960s saw the beginnings of the pre-retirement education movement. British Universities had been involved in adult education for over a century through the medium of university extra-mural and adult education courses.
