If anything of real significance has been said to this point, it surely is
that one of the most exciting uses higher education is making of television
is in extending education, literally making the classroom walls fall and
reaching out to men and women in their homes, community centers, and
work places. It may be helpful, then, to place television-based instruction
within the larger context of the worldwide distance education movement,
particularly as it affects adult learners.

As indicated in a preceding chapter, the success of the British Open
University (BOU) encouraged adult educators in both developed and
developing countries to establish distance and open learning systems. ¹
We have already seen how some U.S. institutions tried with little success
to adapt BOU teaching materials to their own quite different institutional
contexts. Despite the bandwagon enthusiasm that led some U.S.
educators to ill-advised attempts at direct importation of materials, the
BOU example did stimulate productive thought about adult and
continuing education and, above all, about the special problems of adult
learners. At least, "it . . . prompted many to reconsider previously
unquestioned notions as to the form university-level education should
take, who is entitled to it, and when in life it should be experienced." ²
That is, is it acceptable any longer that higher education be tailored
primarily to the needs of young adults with the leisure to devote all their
time to it, even though more and more adults beyond the eighteen- to

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