Episode 84. The Vital Message: Continuing Education in Cambridge

SYNOPSIS

Adult Education has been described as a dense jungle. Extra mural studies, otherwise known as continuing education, developed its own particular terrain within universities but at a remove from the faculties which served undergraduate students. Cambridge University in particular benefited from the prestige of its nineteenth century extension lectures, which was the precursor of the “Great Tradition” of adult education that developed after the First World War.

The episode discusses the Cambridge University tradition of continuing education, concentrating on its later flourishing, between 1945 and 2010. During that time the Board of Continuing Education both established local centres in its heartlands of East Anglia, Essex and Hertfordshire and purchased Madingley Hall, a residential centre four miles outside Cambridge.

The discussion covers the main characteristics of continuing education, its interdisciplinary nature and the slightly defensive attitude of the teachers who developed its curricula and wrote its history.

GUESTS

Following his discussion with Dr Simon Machin about the pageant in an earlier episode, Professor Mark Freeman returns to discuss his 2023 book, The Vital Message about Cambridge University continuing education. Mark Freeman is Professor of Social History and Education at The Institute of Education, University College, London.

Simon’s interview with Mark Freeman was recorded at University College London on 17 April 2026.