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Commentary - June 2006

All that way for this?

With many adult students facing course cuts and higher fees, and teachers suffering redundancy, the time has come for a serious public debate about what adult learning is for and how it is funded, writes ALASTAIR THOMSON

The fact that public spending on adult learning is higher than ever before is of little comfort to adult students facing less choice and higher fees or to teachers facing redundancy. People are confused and frustrated about what’s happening. This week alone, news has come through about a £1.5 million cut to Liverpool’s adult education budget and £1 million in Norfolk. And they are not the only ones suffering.

Numbers of students are falling too. In October 2005 overall numbers of people aged 19-plus in publicly funded English further education were down nine per cent (to just one and a half million) on the previous year. Every age cohort over 30 decreased, most steeply among over-60s where numbers were down by 23.8 per cent.

This is not how we thought it would be. This is not what we want.

When the new Labour government published The Learning Age in 1998, many educators were inspired by the assertion that ‘we need the creativity, enterprise and scholarship of all our people’. It also recognised that adults benefit from learning not only as members of the workforce but also as parents, citizens and members of communities.

For two or three years, money seemed to follow the rhetoric – remember the Adult and Community Learning Fund? Remember when widening participation for all was encouraged? Professor Bob Fryer joked that ministers were not allowed out unless they had a new initiative to unveil! In retrospect though, expectations may have risen too fast and not enough attention been given to the sustainability of development.

The reversal (in England, though much less so in Wales) began in 2001 with a secretary of state whose passions never ran to lifelong learning and a new Learning and Skills Council that embraced the contract compliance culture of Training and Enterprise Councils more than that of the Further Education Funding Council. Despite the enthusiasm and genuine commitment of junior ministers, there seemed insufficient political momentum to argue the case for a broader vision with the Treasury and within the cabinet. As a consequence, policies and targets narrowed to what could most easily be counted – qualifications and tests.

The Government’s twin focus upon maintaining economic prosperity and combating social exclusion through improved work-related skills is well understood. There is a broad consensus both that work is the most effective anti-poverty strategy and that it is imperative to improve productivity in the face of increasing global competition. In the world’s fifth largest economy though, there is also an often unspoken wish that the Government should better consider quality of life and not neglect community wellbeing. In the words of former US Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich: ‘... our life’s worth isn’t synonymous with our net worth … the quality of our society is different from our gross national product’.

The frustration that many students, teachers and organisers now feel seems to find an echo among Labour’s backbenchers. In a recent parliamentary debate (May 16), Helen Jones, MP for Warrington North, stressed the need to create demand for learning and drew ministers’ attention to the unintended consequences of current priorities. She noted that ‘we are losing many courses that bring people back to learning in the first place’, that ‘it could be that while targets are being met, some of those who are most in need are being neglected’ and that ‘sometimes what happens is not necessarily what those in Whitehall think happens’.

Gordon Marsden, MP for Blackpool South, another member of the Education and Skills Select Committee and chair of the all-party skills group, explored the issues in more detail at a NIACE policy conference held during last month’s adult learners’ week. His words are worth quoting at length:

‘If we are talking about getting adults to return to skilled work the sort of skills they will require, whether we call them “gateway” or “enabling” ones, are not linear or narrowing but clustered … They will be ones that either enable them to adjust to rapid change in the workforce or their employment, or give them the qualifications to cope and, where necessary, move on. But these are precisely some of the skill courses that appear to be being put at risk by a combination of LSC rigidity and centralism in the wake of new Government guidelines, perhaps sometimes an over-hasty drawing-in of horns by some colleges (but who in an age where financial management is a supreme virtue can entirely blame them for caution) and in some cases by the guidelines themselves.’

This willingness to think carefully about what adult learning is for as well as how it is best funded extends across the political spectrum. In a recent meeting with Conservative FHE front-bencher John Hayes MP, I was surprised by a willingness to consider levies and licences to practice as options to ensure that employers meet their responsibilities to train their workers.

There is a growing recognition also that adult learning contributes to community well-being, cultural creativity and social solidarity as well as to productivity. The question is how it is paid for.

NIACE is seeking to stimulate reflection and debate among its members and friends through a Big Conversation. In a letter published by the Daily Telegraph, along with the National Union of Students, NATFHE, Unison and the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, we asked:

Please tell us what you think, either as an individual or as part of a group. We will present a dossier of evidence and analysis to government this autumn and will be working to help ministers and officials to make the best possible case for effective and increased public investment in self-directed adult learning.

Alastair Thomson is NIACE’s Senior Policy Officer  

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