The 1973 year marked the beginning of lectures in andragogy at what is now the Department of Pedagogy and Andragogy at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana (andragogy had not yet been added to the name at the time). These were also the beginnings of andragogy’s development as an independent scientific discipline in Slovenia. However, the development of adult education had started long before. It depended on the adult education organisations and institutions that were in operation, on associations active in the field, on the social circumstances, initiatives and examples, on administrative and political structures, on decision makers, on professional and other meetings and consultations, projects and actions, on movements and orientations, concepts and views, and on sufficiently knowledgeable individuals. These were the factors that either helped facilitate or impede the development of adult education in Slovenia. V letu 1973 so začeli na zdajšnjem Oddelku za pedagogiko in andragogiko Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljub­ljani (tedaj v imenu še ni bilo andragogike) prvič predavati andragogiko. To so bili tudi začetki oblikovanja andragogike kot samostojne znanstvene discipline v Sloveniji. Razvoj izobraževanja odraslih pa se v Sloveniji ni začel šele takrat. Bil je odvisen od organizacij, združenj in institucij, delujočih na področju izobraževanja odraslih, od družbenih razmer in okoliščin, pobud in zgledov, upravnih in političnih struktur ter odločevalcev, strokovnih in drugih srečanj ter posvetov, projektov in akcij, gibanj in usmeritev, koncepcij in stališč zavzetih in dovolj razgledanih posameznikov. Navedeni vplivi so delovali pospeševalno, pa tudi zaviralno, o čemer razpravljamo v pričujočem prispevku.