ABSTRACT
This chapter examines critically and discursively the main issues confronting the further education sector at the present moment. The more stringent climate in which we are having to live apply also to advanced further education or, as it is increasingly being termed, public sector higher education. The chapter highlights four other very important aspects of further education provision: adult education, the educational needs of the ethnic minorities, the area of special educational needs, and the place of women in further education. Much of the recent emphasis on the vocational role of adult education is, understandably, the product of the appalling social and economic consequences of mass unemployment. As far as the area of special educational needs is concerned, provision for physically and mentally handicapped students in further education has increased significantly in recent years and, in many cases, there is a greater awareness of their needs.
