ADULT EDUCATION AS A PROGRESSIVE CATALYST IN BOTSWANA ORGANISATIONAL SETTINGS

Abstract

Adult education is multidimensional and multidisciplinary, which makes it more accommodative and
more responsive to learning challenges that besiege societies, hence its multiple providers in Botswana
and other parts of the world. It is defined by (Kasworm, 2014 and Houle, 1995) as the practice of
teaching and educating adults or process by which men and women (alone, in groups, or in institutional
settings) seek to improve themselves or their society by increasing their skill, knowledge, or
sensitiveness. The adult population in almost all nations has exigencies that should be met, mostly in
the age of advanced technology and intricate challenges that require the complex decision making
processes. As noted by Frimpong (2013), adult education is huge, diverse and so broad that any attempt
to “box it in” creates more confusion and complexities. It is about anything that makes learning take
place among anybody perceived as an adult by his/her society. In the world of rapid changes in the
people’s lives on all the continents, all citizens should have an opportunity to develop themselves
through acquiring knowledge and know-how, so as to better pilot their life transition, to improve their
quality of life, to develop their potential and to experience the joy of learning (Belanger, 2011). This
conceptual paper examines the economic, social, technological and political impact that adult education
has in various organisations in Botswana. The main question that this conceptual paper seeks to answer
pertains to the relevance and aptness of adult education in the modern age.