U3A’s origins began in France in 1972 because unlike the U.K. at that time there were NO educational facilities available for retired people. The French idea was to provide some form of education for their older generations in that local retired people could negotiate with the local university for the use of their facilities and expertise, be taught by university staff and have the use of most other university facilities.
In 1979 this idea was taken up in the U.K. by a group of leading educationalists. It was to have been on the French style but it soon became obvious that in the U.K. “Third Agers” were perfectly capable of looking after themselves. In 1982 an experimental school was set up attended by a group of interested people and as a result several U3A’s were launched and the Third Age Trust as a charity followed in 1983.
The “Third Age Trust” is the national representative body for the U3A movement in the UK ( Reg Charity No 288007) and provides a whole range of support services to the U3As.
U3A is an international organisation and within the U.K there are over 670 groups and some 188,500 members.
U3As are autonomous, democratic, self funded, self managed organisations that exist to provide day-time education and leisure activities for retired men and women at minimal cost. They draw upon the knowledge, experience and skills of their members to organise study and activity groups in accordance with the wishes of the membership. Between them U3As offer over 300 subjects in such diverse fields as;- art, foreign languages, music, history, life sciences, literature, poetry, theatre-going, philosophy, world faiths, crafts, field studies, archaeology, bird watching and computing.