What is the justification for further education services offered by universities?

• Ari Jolkkonen Joensuun yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33336/aik.96843

Abstract

This article looks at the issue of how further education centres are able to adapt themselves into traditiona! universities as mediators between science and the practical world. !n return for the university status recognized by representatives of the sciences, further education centres offer the materia! and non-material recognition of the outside world. The worth of this recognition is heightened by the fact that the activities of further education centres, despite their mundane nature, appear to support the achieving of major societal goals such as coping with structural changes and the establishing of an information society. Although acceptance by society has become increasingly important to universities, the representatives of the science find it difficult to accept further education centres on equal par as they fear that non-university nature of the the activities of further education centres will gradually eat away the respect that people have for science.