Kovalenko S. Tendencies of adult education development in England (the last quarter of the XXth - the beginning of the XXIst century).

In the thesis the dynamics of adult education system development in England is studied, the main tendencies of its modernization and improvement in the last quarter of the XXth - the beginning of the XXIst century are analysed. The research conducted made it possible to find out that adult education in England evolved from the elementary forms (reading, writing, reckoning) to the complex ones (various forms and levels of education). That proves adult education to have become a unique system only in the second half of the XXth century. On the basis of the investigation five main stages were pointed out, each is a qualitatively new cycle of the English adult education formation and development and is determined by the peculiarities of social, political, economical and cultural development of the given country in a definite period. In our research we managed to outline some practical recommendations on the creative application of the English experience to reform adult education system in Ukraine: new adult education paradigm should be directed to lifelong, continuous learning activity in the context of the internationally recognized concepts of "lifelong learning" and "learning organization"; to get away from the extreme forms of centralization in adult education system management, administrative freedom in making decisions on local and regional levels; changing the financing adult education mechanism - to increase the volumes of governmental investments to stimulate participation in learning activity (especially for underprivileged groups), to attract alternative financing resources (money from private corporations, business organizations, community and voluntary organizations); to rearrange formal adult education structure to make it more flexible, to take full advantage of distance learning techniques and information technologies.