The Knowledge-based society is the society with a high emphasis on knowledge. It
focuses on accumulation, creation, sharing, and delivery of knowledge. As university
adult education plays an important role in promoting social progress and development
by creating and delivering knowledge, it has the indispensible relationship with the
knowledge-based society.
The shift of Korean society to the knowledge-based society brings about dramatic
changes in higher education system. The percentage of adult students out of the total
number of students in the university is increasing rapidly. In this knowledge-based
society, the role and function of universities should be expanded. In specific, there
needs a grand paradigm shift in which university adult education should be given more
responsibilities.
In this study, First, I looked into the definition and major concepts of university
adult education. Second, I divided university adult education into a traditional type and
a newly developed type and explored the development of each type. Third, I
investigated how the function of university adult education has been changed. Fourth, I
examined the changing functions of university adult education in the six areas of cyber
learning, profit-oriented management, equality in educational opportunities, human resource development, social transformation, and lifelong learning. Lastly, based on my
examination. I discussed the problems in function transformation and suggested the
future direction of university adult education.