Is there a theory of learning for older people?

Abstract

Mature Enterprise Support (MES) is a business devoted to helping older people in retirement or experiencing redundancy to assess their vocational opportunities in order to be financially more self-sufficient. The traditional approaches to learning for young people, based on schooling and predetermined syllabuses, are not appropriate for older people and often fail, even at postgraduate level. Older people bring a holistic approach to their learning, based on their whole life experience, and use self-assessment based on personal values to colour what they learn. Learning should improve the autonomy of the learner and offer freedom from conventional prejudices however respectable educational bureaucracies might try to make them. © 1999 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.