Organisation and Policy: Influencing Public Policy: Archive
[Up]
Learning Is For Everyone: LIFE
A NIACE Cymru response to the Welsh Office Green Paper
Published: July 1998.
General Comments
1. NIACE has long made the case that Lifelong Learning policies are key to solving some of our Country's deep-rooted problems and to achieving its most cherished aspiration, and we are happy to support the aspirations of the Government in LIFE. It is an ambitious and far-seeing document.
The NIACE Cymru response to the LIFE consultation:
 | warmly welcomes the vision set out in this first Lifelong Learning Green Paper for Wales and especially the recognition that, as well as securing our economic future, learning "shows clear benefits to our wider civic and cultural life" |
| accepts much of the analysis in the paper of the challenges facing us if we are to become a learning country |
| welcomes the commitment that Wales will play its part in the Government's plans for an extra 500,000 people in further and higher education |
| endorses the seven policy principles on which the paper's vision is based |
| better education and training and lifelong learning for all |
| creating policies designed to benefit the many not the few |
| emphasising standards, results and outcomes |
| putting people first (we regret the lack of commitment to equality of opportunity) |
| achieving world class standards and value for money |
| working in partnership |
| recognises the potential of the major initiatives announced in the Green Paper: the University for Industry, Individual Learning Accounts, a Single Post-16 Credit Framework, Widening Participation, Learning Development Plans and Adult Guidance. |
University for Industry
2. The University for Industry (UFI) has the potential to contribute to the achievement of the vision, and to extend and widen participation in learning. It will be able to draw on the experience of broadcasting in mobilising people to take up learning (e.g. the BBC's 'Computers Don't Bite' and 'Family Literacy' campaigns), as well as exploiting the potential of the new technologies. It will also benefit from developments in the creation of local learning centres, and from the experience of national guidance helplines. Its success will, we believe, rely on its effective development of the role of learning broker - matching need and aspiration with supply of learning opportunities.
Individual Learning Accounts
3. Individual Learning Accounts (ILAs) have the potential to stimulate increased investment in learning by individuals, employers and the state, and offer a mechanism for state support to be differentially weighted in favour of under-represented groups. At their best they should offer a wider population the benefits that well run and supported Employee Development Schemes offer to many people at work.
Credit
4. NIACE welcomes the strong commitment in LIFE towards implementing a single, unitised credit related framework for further and higher education. Adults need to study incrementally and credit fits naturally with the unitisation of study. We recommend:
| a framework in which Open College or other module based credits are available in addition to the qualifications listed |
| that the continuum envisaged should include measures to ensure access to and progression from unaccredited, informal learning into the credit framework |
| an enabling approach to mode of study: adults learn in different ways to achieve the same results |
| that opportunities for the accreditation of adults' prior experience and learning are built in |
| that the framework be accompanied by a coherent network of local advice and guidance provision for adults to enable them to make informed learning choices. |
Widening Participation
5. NIACE strongly endorses the commitment to widening participation regardless of individual circumstances as reflected in the National Learning Strategy for Wales and the targets it features. NIACE believes that to break the cycle of educational and social disadvantage and to achieve greater participation by those who have been excluded will present a severe challenge to existing ways of planning, resourcing and facilitating learning.
Learning Development Plans
6. NIACE is convinced that local authorities have a pivotal role in securing a learning society as multi-purpose, democratically accountable local agencies, as important employers, and as opinion formers. We welcome the clear statement, in LIFE, of the roles of local authorities (we prefer this to reference to local education authorities) as strategic planners, partners and providers of adult learning. For too long the LEA duty to secure adequate facilities has been treated as if it were discretionary. We have prepared a detailed comment on the Plans and the role of local authorities in the Appendix to this response.
Guidance
7. NIACE welcomes the emphasis on information, advice and guidance for adults as a core element in the Green Paper. We believe that the contribution of Learning Direct in ensuring the success of UFI will be strengthened, in Wales, by a delivery model based on local multi-agency networks to facilitate intelligence gathering, referral and responsiveness to different client needs. The task will be to ensure consistent quality and coherence between the range of initiatives and players- UFI, Learning Direct, New Deal, The National Grid for Learning, the Adult Guidance initiative, TEC and Employment Service activities and adult guidance available through Careers Companies, further and higher education and local authorities- in a planned, co-ordinated approach. An Appendix to these comments considers these issues further.
Integration
8. These proposals are inter-linked. Each, we believe, relies on the others for the vision in Learning Is For Everyone of a society where individuals and communities are able to make use of learning opportunities throughout their lives to foster economic prosperity and social cohesion, and to enable personal and community development to be realised. The development of the University for Industry as a national tool for stimulating demand, and matching need with supply, backed by ILAs, as a mechanism for supporting individuals, and ideally groups, to resource their learning; where study can be pursued in bite-sized chunks, with credit accumulated over time, and in different places, backed by responsive and supportive providers, resourced adequately to secure progress for learners is, we believe, achievable.
Challenges and Risks
9. There is a danger that the same initiatives that might lead to a more inclusive society where everyone feels able and confident to learn, could be developed in a way that increases the learning divide that characterises Britain now. Short term pressures, and the real need for skills for industrial competitiveness in international markets may lead the UFI to focus too narrowly on a skills based curriculum. The practical challenges to be overcome in introducing ILAs may make them more accessible to people already comfortable and experienced as adult learners - reinforcing the exclusion of those who do not have access to learning opportunities now. The delicacy of inter-agency negotiations on credit and qualifications may leave us without the necessary framework for an inclusive, user-friendly system, arrangements for access to information, advice and guidance may not synchronise and financial pressure on providers may deny learners the support needed to follow recruitment with improved retention and achievement.
10. NIACE is excited by the possibilities the Green Paper suggests, but we believe that the Government missed an opportunity to sketch out how its grand design would work. Had it done so, we believe the Paper would inevitably have recognised the dangers of reinforcing the exclusion of those who have benefited least from post-school education and training. Whilst the Paper explores welcome practical steps to be taken to raise standards of achievement, and to revitalise Wales` skills, it provides few details about how learning that fosters citizenship, or respects and celebrates cultural diversity, can be developed.
11. Learning Is For Everyone has almost nothing to say on the different challenges facing the country in meeting the learning aspirations of people living in its valley or rural communities, although these will significantly affect the delivery of UFI; it has little to say about the contribution to be made to the achievement of the vision by its black communities; or about the challenges facing people with learning difficulties in securing an adult curriculum that will support them in exercising their rights and duties as citizens in an informed way. It does not say enough about the learning needs of older people.
12. More importantly, it is because the different needs of different groups are not adequately recognised, that there is a danger that the short-term developments of the paper's big ideas will not be sufficiently inclusive, and may not deliver opportunities to those whom the Government wishes to support. It is, in our view, essential that UFI has a brief to widen participation as well as to build skills in small and medium sized enterprises; that pilots for the introduction of Individual Learning Accounts include under-represented groups; and that moves to put greater choice in the hands of learners are accompanied by measures to secure stable, confident and skilled supply in LEAs, in colleges, in universities, and in the voluntary and private sectors.
Citizenship, Creativity and Culture
13. NIACE recognises that technological and social change are having a significant impact on our understanding of our relations with each other, and with the state. As much of our lives becomes increasingly private, we see declining levels of formal participation in voting and in other communal activities. The process of constitutional change the Government has instigated needs revitalised tools for the expression of democracy - focus groups measure what people think whilst deliberative polling and liberal adult education in their different ways foster people's learning about public policy, and the role they might play in it. NIACE believes the Government should make a commitment to adult citizenship education to complement the work of the Crick Committee - to engage people in remaking the forms of active democracy.
14. What is needed overall is a strategy to support learning for cultural change: change that respects and celebrates difference; that supports the articulation of the hopes of people currently marginalised, and that delights in creativity. If the major initiatives the Government introduces adopt that strategy then they really will make a difference.
Voluntary Organisations
15. Yet much more remains to be done to foster active citizenship. The Green Paper concentrates on individual aspiration at the expense of what we learn together. It gives too little priority to the important role voluntary organisations can play in the evolution of a learning society. Voluntary bodies like the WEA, the National Federation of Women's Institutes and the Pre-School Learning Alliance have proud records in creating and sustaining new forms of learning. But so, too, do the development agencies and environmental groups that have pioneered approaches to sustainable development, to take just one example. In 1919, the Board of Adult Education of the Ministry of Reconstruction recognised the important role of voluntary agencies in its distinguished report. It argued:
"In a modern community, voluntary organisations must always occupy a prominent place. The free association of individuals is a normal process in civilised society, and one which arises from the inevitable inadequacy of State and municipal organisation. It is not primarily a result of defective public organisation; it grows out of the existence of human needs which the state and municipality cannot satisfy. Voluntary organisations, whatever their purpose, are fundamentally similar in their nature, in that they unite for a definite point of view, a common outlook, and a common purpose which gives it a corporate spirit of its own. This corporate spirit is, perhaps, the most valuable basis for group study. It is to be found in trade unions, adult schools, co-operative societies and other bodies. Voluntary organisations, consequently, form the best nucleus for adult classes."
16. The Green Paper is not sufficiently clear about the vital and imaginative role voluntary organisations can play in widening participation and providing a means through which individuals and groups can play a part in civic and cultural life. Many of these organisations suffer a precarious financial base, often going from one short-term grant to another. We should like to see a much greater commitment being given to the creation of a stable base for community initiatives. Research shows that those undertaking voluntary and community work learn organising and political skills, with considerable numbers having their first taste of participative democracy and active citizenship as elected committee members. And they learn personal and social skills which build confidence and which are transferable to further learning and to paid work.
Trades Unions
17. There is a failure to recognise the role of Trades Unions in Lifelong Learning in the Paper, nor any development funding identified for this work, yet there is a clear need for more exploration how best such agencies, together with further and higher education colleges can contribute to revitalising learning and active citizenship.
The Welsh Language
18. The proposals in LIFE for learning through the medium of Welsh, while sensitive and enabling, understate the links between the language, active citizenship and the development of Welsh culture.
Arts and Crafts
19. Another area for connectedness in government thinking, to support the realisation of Learning is for Everyone, is in the field of the arts and the encouragement of creativity. In practice, local adult education services have long combined a variety of roles to support participation in and appreciation of the arts and helped to create conditions for practising artists to do their own work by offering some financial security through part-time teaching. Classes in the arts and crafts offer learners the chance to develop as practitioners, and liberal studies foster an appreciation of the moral, spiritual, and aesthetic challenges great art confronts us with. It is no accident that the Arts Council, like the British Film Institute, grew out of NIACE: the arts have a central role in the learning we do to make sense of our lives and to express ourselves fully. Yet such work has been squeezed through the 1990s. It needs encouragement.
Broadcasting
20. The curriculum range of studies which encourage critical understanding, active citizenship and a lively engagement with difference is immense. It finds expression nowhere so well as in broadcasting. The UK retains an intelligent, wide-ranging and inclusive public broadcasting milieu - which plays a leading role in informing understanding of public affairs, in stimulating curiosity and extending access to the arts and sciences. This inheritance grew out of the obligations on all broadcasters, which held until the 1990 Broadcasting Act, to educate, inform and entertain. The obligation to educate was removed from independent television franchise holders in 1990. Yet terrestrial television has a continuing and unparalleled capacity to promote participation, as e.g. 'Computers Don't Bite' and Adult Learners' Week. NIACE is convinced that all terrestrial broadcasters need to be accountable (after the event) for the contribution they make to the cultural changes necessary to achieve the learning society. We are convinced too, that motivation is a key to success in that change, and that the broadcasters have a vital role in motivating people to participate.
New Technology
21. NIACE recognises that the Green Paper contains the most positive statement by any government about the use of new technologies to support learning, but is concerned that the paper does not fully answer how provision can be scaled up, to implement and deliver learning through the use of new technologies. Most of the adult population are not confident users of information and communication technology (ICT), and have doubts about its relevance for them. Most teachers and trainers need support to use ICT effectively with learners. Most open and distance learning materials are currently paper based, and the firms with skills in developing computer based learning materials lack the resources for short-term substantial growth. In addition, we need to know more about how to deliver quality learning materials to a wide range of learners through telecommunications.
Finance
22. None of this can be achieved without money. NIACE welcomes the commitment in the Comprehensive Spending Review to secure greater investment in education. We endorse the view of the finance and funding task force of the National Advisory Group for Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning that 'the most pressing need for greater public investment lies with those who benefited least from initial education, and are currently not participating.' We agree that 'to meet their needs will require a further shift in the balance of public investment,' to be balanced by an increase in other funding streams. We welcome the evidence that this commitment is reflected in LIFE, but are cautious about the implementation of this intention.
23. The experience of the Government's approach to the New Deal illustrates the challenge. The introduction of a Gateway preparatory study period for the New Deal for young people has been widely welcomed. Yet the 25+ New Deal, which targets people out of the labour force for extended periods, and overwhelmingly the least qualified and educationally confident, has no such preparatory period, apparently because of cost pressures. There is plenty of experience of how to contest social exclusion successfully - but it does not come cheap.
24. New money is needed, but new money alone will not meet the scale of the challenge. An active learning culture will need to draw on our collective capacity to generate resources (of imagination and creativity as well as cash) and use them effectively to make possible the tasks beyond the reach of the public purse.
Comments on Detailed Measures
"Our aim is to establish Wales as a learning Country, one in which people enjoy high standards of education and training; are committed to self-improvement; have high expectations of what is achievable through learning and are able to learn throughout life".
25. NIACE Cymru believes that if this vision is to be realised, the Government needs to address a number of key issues. In particular:
| part-time students need parity of treatment with full-time students. A learning society in which all can participate will not be able to afford to continue to discriminate by mode of study; NIACE recommends that parity of treatment in financial support for students be achieved within the lifetime of one Parliament, and that moves to harmonise student support in further and higher education be introduced by 2002; | ||||||||||||||||||||
| proposed Learning Development Plans cannot be achieved until Government and the Welsh Local Government Association agree a mechanism to identify clearly the adult education element in standard spending assessments against which to benchmark planned spending by local authorities to ensure a minimum platform of provision; | ||||||||||||||||||||
| there should be a review of the effectiveness of these arrangements in local authorities after three years; | ||||||||||||||||||||
| the duty of the Further Education Funding Councils to secure adequate facilities for further education for adults should also be clarified, and that clarification should take into account the important proposals made in the two FEFC(E) reports 'Inclusive Learning' and 'Learning Works', and in particular the proposal for the introduction of a New Learning Pathway; | ||||||||||||||||||||
| the Government should establish a mechanism to review the coherence and adequacy of the offer made as a result of LEA, FEFC and TEC decisions; | ||||||||||||||||||||
| the Government should accept the key recommendation of the Kennedy Report, endorsed in the Fryer Report, that it should establish a lifetime entitlement to education up to NVQ level 3, or its equivalent, which is free for young people and those who are socially and economically deprived. NIACE recognises that this is an economic challenge, but believes that the Government needs, as a minimum, to declare an intention to achieve this goal over time. At the same time as we are having difficulty with this proposal, the Norwegians are preparing legislation to offer everyone of any age the right to free higher education; | ||||||||||||||||||||
| the Government should accept the Fryer Committee's recommendations on a voluntary code of practice for learning in the workplace, and should review the success of the voluntary approach after three years. NIACE has long believed that participation in developing the skills for people at work should be as necessary for employers as securing health and safety at work. However, we recognise that the Government is committed to trying to make the voluntary route work. We recommend the proposals developed by the National Advisory Group for Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning in achieving that end. Participation in IiP, participation by temporary and part-time workers, and provision for the least qualified and skilled should all be measures in the review; | ||||||||||||||||||||
| the Government needs to give greater recognition to the need to promote participation in learning, to motivate those groups of adults currently under-represented to join in. This issue is partially addressed in the proposals for the University for Industry, but is inadequately addressed in the policy overall. NIACE's experience in Adult Learners' Week and Ford's in the EDAP provision illustrate that targeted promotional measures can mobilise under-represented groups, while Open College Networks` research has shown that untargeted, local expansion of demand replicates the socio-economic profile of existing students; | ||||||||||||||||||||
| the Government should reintroduce a statutory obligation on all terrestrial broadcasters to include promotional and educational programming on mainstream mass audience channels, and to include such programming in peak viewing periods. The BBC Family Literacy advertising campaign and Adult Learners' Week show the potential of broadcasting in mobilising people. The arrival of digital channels will offer rich new possibilities, but will not replace the role of mass viewing channels in stimulating people to join in; | ||||||||||||||||||||
| the Government needs to give priority to the specific needs of groups currently
under-represented in education and training, and in particular to:
|
Addressing Specific Barriers
26. Whilst LIFE makes a strong general case for learning opportunities to be available to all, it is weaker in NIACE's view on the specific barriers to be overcome for different groups if the system is to be really accessible.
27. Developing a positive and inclusive response to the ageing population is a major policy challenge in all areas of Government, and calls for a coherent response to the learning needs of those in the later stages of their working lives as well as those who have fully or partially retired. On grounds of equity they deserve more attention than LIFE recognises, since this is the group who benefitted least from initial education, and who participate least in learning now. Furthermore, education can enable older people to make a more active contribution to society, and can reduce the costs of health and welfare services by stimulating them both intellectually and physically.
28. Older people have a claim on learning in exercising their rights and duties as citizens. Government should make explicit the need for planned provision for older people to be an element of Local Development Plans and introduce a national development programme to stimulate local initiatives for the over 45's. NIACE`s "Older and Bolder" programme would be a useful starting point for targeted development.
29. In addition:
| the Government should recognise the importance of successful orientation to learning as a success factor in its New Deal programme, and extend Gateway provisions to participants over the age of 25. As we argue above, NIACE is concerned that the adult New Deal may become a pale shadow of the provision made for younger people, weakening the impact of the programme overall; |
| the Government should advise the FEFC(W) that initiatives designed to increase access (e.g. basic skills summer schools or childcare funding) should be available to learners taking further education courses wherever they are learning. |
| the Government should also recognise the risk of initiative and bidding fatigue among providers, as initiatives pile up. An excess of competitive bidding rounds can privilege the bigger and better resourced organisations, and exclude smaller agencies, however good their ideas; |
| the Government should instigate a range of pilot programmes to ensure that education for citizenship gets the practical development LIFE calls for; |
| the Government should introduce programmes to stimulate developments in family learning and in work with disaffected young people post 16; |
| the Government needs to ensure that staff development and training is available to all part-time and full-time staff working in post-school education and training organisations - and NIACE recommends a minimum of five days release each year for full-time staff, and one hour in twenty for hourly paid staff to that end. There is a need to strengthen the role of training in local authority provision and to use the emergent NTOs to ensure comparable access to professional updating for teachers throughout post-compulsory education. The recent OHMCI report (Quality and Standards in Further Education in Wales, FEFC(W), 1998) comments on the wide variation in the achievement or colleges in developing sufficient flexibility in programmes to attract adult and other part-time students. They note that some institutions have been slow to identify those members of communities who are not taking advantage of further education and on the "limited" links between community provision and mainstream provision in colleges. They are concerned that links with non-Schedule 2 adult education provision are often undeveloped. While students on college sites might have access to crèche or childcare provision, OHMCI observe that these are not generally available in outreach centres. Value added general education remains undeveloped. To build on the success of colleges in Wales in increasing participation, especially by part-time learners in the last five years, these areas of concern need to be addressed. NIACE Cymru would be keen to be involved in a programme of development; |
| the Government should ensure that planning for lifelong learning should take place at neighbourhood, local authority, regional and national level. This issue is explored further in an Appendix to this response; |
| the Government should commission studies on the rate of return of investment in further education and in community based provision. Few data are available on the economic case for investment in lifelong learning; |
| the Government should consult with providers and their representatives to ensure that data collected on participation, retention and achievement are consistent across institutions and sectors. Analysis of these data should inform future policy and planning; |
| the Government should increase the research investment in lifelong learning, to include longitudinal studies so that the present dearth of research evidence on what works best can be overcome in time. |
30. NIACE urges the Government to ensure that widening participation and higher standards are pursued hand in hand, and that its policies on lifelong learning cover learning at all ages. Work is needed to improve the dialogue between its schools and post-schools work.
An Independent Learning Trust for Wales
31. There is much to commend in the proposal for an Independent Learning Trust Fund for Wales "backed by corporate funding" which could be used to sponsor "innovative and fresh approaches to improve standards and achievements pre and post-16". Our detailed comments on the Fund are appended to this response.
International Expertise
32. Finally, there is little in the Paper that recognises Britain's place as a member of a global community. The EU, OECD and UNESCO have all highlighted the importance of lifelong learning, many countries are currently engaged in policy debates on this issue, and several EU members have recently published policy papers on it. The UK is an effective and active contributor to transnational debates, as it demonstrated recently during its Presidency of the EU, and could benefit from active sharing of ideas and experience. NIACE urges the Department to ensure that policy development in Wales is informed by the best of international practice.
Appendix1 : Information, Advice and Guidance for Adults: an appendix to NIACE Cymru's response to LIFE and advice to the Education and Training Advisory Group (ETAG)
Appendix 2: Partnerships and Srategic Planning for Lifelong Learning:
Appendix 3: Learning Trust Fund for Wales:
___________________________________________
