The Learning and Education of Older Adults in Aotearoa New Zealand

This chapter provides an overview of the history of learning and educational policies and programmes affecting older adults in Aotearoa New Zealand over the past 50 years. It builds on my previous work and draws on a wide body of primary and secondary sources including policy documents and reports from the New Zealand Government’s Office for Seniors Te Tari Kaumātua. The chapter outlines briefly the very large growth and diversification of formal tertiary education and trends in adult and community education over this period. It then looks in a little more detail at the history of older adults’ learning, and reports briefly on some programmes which have emerged over the years, before focusing in greater detail in the second half of the chapter on trends in government policy with special reference to the ‘New Zealand Positive Ageing Strategy’ and the more recent ‘Better Later Life’ strategy and their implications for older adult’s learning.