Education for older adults in Malta : current trends and future visions

Abstract

The purpose of this article was to evaluate the policies guiding late-life education in Malta, as well as the local plethora of learning opportunities for, and participation in, older adult education. The government in Malta is committed to supporting the inclusion of older persons in lifelong education policies and programmes, to the extent that local studies uncovered a rise in the overall participation of older adults in formal, non-formal, and informal areas of learning. Whilst the present and future prospects for late-life education in Malta seem promising, as implied by the increasing opportunities and rising participation rates, a critical scrutiny of present ideologies and trends finds the field as being no more than seductive rhetoric. The coordination of late-life education in Malta results in various social benefits to older learners and Maltese society in general, but it also occurs within five intersecting lines of inequality - namely an economist rationale, elitism, gender, the urban-rural divide, and third ageism. This article ends by proposing policy recommendations for the future of late-life education.