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Eight in Ten: Adult Learners in Further Education

The report of the independent Committee of Enquiry invited by NIACE to review the state of adult learning in colleges of further education in England

Chairman's Foreword

This Report argues the case for new thinking and new vocabulary to formulate policy and provision for adult learners. Our lives and careers are not linear. Learning for life means dumping old distinctions between initial and continuing education, accredited and informal learning. That so much of the work in the Learning and Skills sector can only be described officially as ‘other’ tells its own story.

There is a Minister for lifelong learning, but we have no strategy for lifelong learning. The Government’s Skills Strategy enjoys broad support. Investment in a well-educated workforce is now accepted as a prerequisite for economic success. But what happened to the argument for a well-educated citizenry?

In these testing times, in which affluence sits side by side with social injustice and as we struggle to achieve equality of outcomes in a diverse but divided society, we need new education strategies to help us all learn to be, as well as learn to know and to do.

I was delighted to Chair this Committee of Enquiry. The members were a formidable bunch. Our meetings were robust, lively and productive. The emergence of a consensus from this group is remarkable and adds huge weight to this report.

Many thanks to them for all their time, knowledge and creativity. And also to NIACE who initiated the Enquiry and supported it throughout. It was a delight to work again with Colin Flint, who deserves considerable credit for the final outcome.

Chris Hughes CBE

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This report is available to read online, but it cannot be printed.

Read Eight in Ten online here - [PDF file 237 KB]

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