The education system, as it relates to very remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia, faces challenges. While considerable resources have been applied to very remote schools, results in terms of enrolments, attendance and learning outcomes have changed little, despite the effort applied. The Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation (CRC-REP) in its Remote Education Systems (RES) project is trying to understand why this might be the case, and also attempting to identify local solutions to the ‘problem’ of very remote education. The RES project is in the process of building its research program across five remote sites in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia. As the project begins, the researchers involved have begun to consider what are the assumptions behind the ‘system’ in its current form(s). The article begins with an outline of the context of remote education in Australia within a rapidly changing global environment. However, the purpose of the article is to outline many of the assumptions built into remote education and to ask what the alternatives to these assumptions might be. The authors go on to ask questions about how a remote education system would approach some of the assumptions presented. The assumptions presented are based on a reading of the philosophical bases of education. The questions are designed to prompt a deeper discussion about how the values and worldviews of those living in very remote communities might be taken into consideration and acted upon.

This study examines both the motives for and the benefits of attending a university programme for older people (UPOP) in Spain, and how they vary with the type of UPOP. Two UPOP models were assessed: The ‘Older People's Classes’ of the University of Barcelona, which is organised as a lecture course, and the ‘University of Experience’ at the University of Valencia, which is a three- or four-year variant of regular university degrees. A sample of 321 older students (mean age 67.5 years) was gathered from the two UPOPs, 161 participants from the former and 157 from the latter. The findings suggest that expressive motives such as acquiring knowledge, expanding the mind or learning for the joy of learning were the most important reasons for joining a UPOP, and that among the perceived benefits from taking classes at university featured ‘gaining more friends’, ‘enhanced self or life-satisfaction’ and ‘joy in life’. Perceived benefits were particularly high among the less educated and the older students. While students participating in the Older People's Classes were older and included relatively more women, differences between the two models in motives and benefits did not exist or were slight. These results are discussed in the context of new strategies to improve university courses aimed at older students.