Helena Quintas

The transition of mature students to higher education: Challenging traditional concepts?

Abstract The Bologna Process, recently implemented in Portugal, has brought many changes to higher education institutions. One of these changes refers to a law that enables mature students (23 years and older) to gain special access to higher education, taking into account their professional experience and other biographical elements. The numbers of non-traditional students are therefore increasing in our country, making our academic population more diverse. We designed a research project to investigate the special circumstances of non-traditional students in our institutions and to provide recommendations that should improve their academic lives. In this article, we describe survey results, focus-group interviews and life histories and use them to understand the transition of mature students into higher education. Our results include interpretations of the factors that students view as barriers to their participation in higher education, the importance of peer support, and reflections on life histories that provide greater insight into the transitional process. Although several barriers were identified by mature students, there is also a positive impact from transition. It is clear that transition today is no longer punctual or linear either in time or space. We should therefore challenge traditional views of the transition concept, in which students are considered to be a problem to higher education institutions, because this diverts attention away from the responsibilities of those institutions towards facilitating change.

Iniciativa Novas Oportunidades e "NOL+": dois estudos de caso no Algarve (Portugal)

The programme “New Opportunities” has been a bench mark within adult education in Portugal, introducing processes of recognition and validation of prior learning and experience to allow school certification and professional qualifying of the adults. In some adult centres the partnership New Opportunities to Read (NOL) was created aiming to improve the population’s level of literacy. We have selected two case studies to analyse the practices developed within that partnership. We gathered information through document analysis and semi-structured interviews with the centre’s directors and coordinators. Our findings show that the programme NOL improved the access to information and cultural activities, promoting literacy development and civic participation. In both centres, learning is understood as an everyday event associated with participation in collective life. We can further conclude that literacy practices, in those cases, promoted conscientization in its Freirian sense.

Will i still study ... "When i'm sixty-four"? University experiences of mature students: challenges and obstacles

In 2006, the introduction of the Bologna Process in Portuguese Universities brought significant changes in the academic world, opening new doors to adult students in order to (re) join (again) in Higher Education. Returning’s to school has become, a difficult task due to a number of obstacles and difficulties that exist in the academic career (eg, reconciling family and professional lives, the understanding of specific programs contents, etc.). In this article we intend to explore the academic experiences of mature students when they decide to enter in Higher Education. What are main motivations and barriers during the academic career? What are the relationships established between teachers and other traditional students? What are the expectations for the future?