Knowles andragogical model focuses on the fundamental aspect of education that focuses on the adult or the so called nontraditional students especially in higher education. With the enrolment of the adult students on the rice, continuing or higher education programs have been increasing therefore the need to address the issues on accessibility, accountability on the higher education and affordability of the program as some of the challenges faced by the institutions. This paper will focus on the relationships between adult higher learning principles and the barriers to this faculty while applying my own experience as a student.
The schools find it difficult to establish a budget and a timetable that would work for all the adult learners due to the adults’ challenges in balancing their school, work and family issues. Majority of students in an attempt to make both ends meet often have to commit to full time school as well as full time work while also raising their kids at the same time. Although I wasn’t one of the students who experienced this case scenario, I admit that observing this through them, I can safely conclude that it was a challenge. I considered them super students as majority of them managed all these roles and still passed highly in their classes. Despite these constraints on the administrative budget in an attempt to find a better schedule that works for the students, most students in these campuses learnt more about their campus resources and what their school had to offer. They build scholarly network as well as learnt a lot during school and their college lives.
Another problem that the school had to deal with is making these students acquainted with the work load and be able to handle their pressure from both school work, attending to the family and their work gracefully. When they got poor grades, the school administration notably teaches had to embark on series of guidance and schedule review to help them handle their workloads with ease and perform in school as well. Making them know that getting poor grades makes it much difficult to succeed in the future thus the need to struggle and understand the class coursework. This helped students build relationships as they sought for help in the hard classes as the teachers best knew how to best help them and enable them be successful in their ever crowded schedule. In addition, the school had to know that one of the primary roles of these students was never being a student but also other third jobs in addition to being there to their families and making sure their kids never slept hungry.
One other major challenge to the nontraditional students remains the ability to complete school. Majority of them have served in different capacities with the real world experience and the thinking of acquiring a degree in a certain age makes them have sleepless nights as committing to the years they got to acquire the degree at the slow moving pace often gives them lots of thoughts to think of other avenues. Through conquering these challenges with the help of school and applying the solution to go though their undergraduate program. Making them feel that they are building their career and professionalism make them going from one semester to another as they grow the self esteem and be able to conquer the world as well.
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