Older Adult University Programmes (OAUPs) in Spain: a socio-educational and political challenge in the context of lifelong learning

Abstract

Forty-seven universities currently offer OAUPs in Spain. 31 of them belong to AEPUM (http://www.aepumayores.org), which represents the public and private higher education institutions that have developed specific university-level teaching programmes for over-50s following the lifelong learning approach. These teaching programmes, which date back to the 1990s and do not exclusively pursue professionally-oriented goals, emerge within the university context with the following priority objectives: personal development; removal of technological and cultural barriers for the senior population; and encouragement of an active citizenship through lifelong learning. The universities that have met this social demand within their educational policy have started a joint, shared task to unify efforts with the objective of converging in academic and quality aspects related to these teaching programmes. The result of this effort has been the AEPUMA3 project, within which a significant effort has been made to analyse and evaluate these teaching programmes. 19 universities have been involved in this research project, which has reviewed the reality of these programmes in Spain at all levels, i.e. sociological, academic (contents, methodology and assessment), administrative and financial, and has ultimately led to specific proposals for the regulation of these programmes by the Ministry of Education, at a time during which the Reform of the Organic Law of Universities is under way, and in which universities are immersed into the convergence processes foreseen within the EHES. The analysis, conclusions and proposals have been structured in these headings, which are those brought to this International Conference on Learning in Later Life: - The aging of Spanish population. Sociodemographic analysis and specific training demands of older adults. - Current state of events in the training of older adults in Spain. - The internationalisation of this training as a consolidation factor within the university framework and on the path towards European convergence. - Legal proposals in Spain for the regulation and consolidation of teaching programmes for over-50s.