Welcome

The Department of Adult and Continuing Education (DACE) is one of the largest departments of its type in the UK academic sector. Established more than fifty years ago it aims to provide learning opportunities for adults in the West of Scotland and to widen access to University education to the community at large. The programme is taught by its own academic staff and by enlisting or co-operating with members of other University departments and other qualified persons outside the University. Teaching services are provided in as wide a range of subjects to as many groups as resources allow. The Department is committed to the maintenance of University quality and traditions of excellence in all educational programmes that it offers or with which it is associated. Its staff ensure quality through their own research and scholarship and have special experience and/or training in initiating, designing, promoting and teaching courses for adults.

The Department also acts as a direct link between the University and a wide variety of external agencies, organisations and institutions involved in post-compulsory education and training.

Key areas of activity of the Department include:

• Provision of general continuing education programmes for the public
• Part-time courses for credit leading to Certificate of Higher Education
• Access courses: introduction to university study for mature students
• Outreach programmes, targeted at socially excluded groups, undertaken in partnership with a wide range of external bodies
• Postgraduate programmes in the field of adult and continuing education
• Degree programme in community development.
• Certificate in Counselling Skills
• Children's Hearings Training Unit provides training for Panel members and Safeguarders;
• STRADA (Scottish Training on Drugs and Alcohol): DACE is a partner in this with the University's Centre for Drugs Misuse Research and the organisation DrugScope
• Research in the area of adult education and lifelong learning.