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This paper explores the impact of changing higher education policies and funding on university adult and continuing education in England and Aotearoa New Zealand. It discusses some of the contextual factors contributing to sustaining continuing education in New Zealand, against the tide of developments elsewhere, and in spite of its subjection to the influence of neoliberal policies since the 1980s: an ethos of public knowledge dissemination, acknowledgement of the universities' role as 'critic and conscience' of society, a broad commitment to educational equality and a strategic as well as pragmatic approach. The paper describes developments in one New Zealand continuing education department as it experiences institutional and political change. The author concludes that, in spite of demonstrating considerable resilience, the structures and activities of continuing education departments in New Zealand are as fragile as they have been in England. 'Radical hope' is advocated as the university-based adult educator's response in difficult times. It involves challenging the assumptions of neoliberalism, and reaffirming the political nature of adult education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores recent changes in tertiary education policy in New Zealand, which are designed to address legitimation deficits. By offering an analysis of the making, and the subsequent unmaking, of quasi-markets in tertiary education, this paper attempts to describe how the state dealt with legitimation deficits resulting from providers' of tertiary education use of the adult and community education funding category to increase their revenues. In providing this description, the paper helps to provide a way of understanding how the state in New Zealand has responded to legitimation deficits by introducing a new regime of governance. The paper concludes by arguing that, in terms of its treatment of category 5.1 funding, this regime is supportive of neo-conservative goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the transition from school to further and higher education in New Zealand following the recent implementation of the National Qualifications Framework. While a genuinely ‘seamless’ interface is emerging between upper secondary schooling and further education in the context of vocational programmes, the transition from school to university has been made more complicated owing to the complexity of the redefined university entrance requirements, and comparability issues arising from the existence of the two different kinds of curricular delivery and assessment modules that are in use (unit standards and achievement standards). The paper highlights the continuing anomaly of the possibility of entry to university degree programmes from the penultimate year of secondary schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]