Education and old age : a critical analysis of Malta's University of the Third Age

Abstract

Albeit my interest in adult education dates back to my pre-graduate years, I never envisaged that my Masters' degree would be in the sociology of older adult education. The inspiration to embark on such an endeavour came when I perused Prof. Alfred Cuschieri' s (1996) address to an international conference on older adult education entitled Education and the Elderly : Right and Obligation (organised in November 1995 by the University of the Third Age in Malta). He commented that, in spite of the "impressive growth" of membership in Malta's Third Age University (U3E), "most of the 50,000 elderly people in Malta do not avail themselves of educational facilities. Do these 99% of elderly persons not feel a need of education? Are they not aware of the available facilities? Or, is the University of the Third Age not providing the right type of education to appeal to the majority of elderly persons?"