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Commentary - September 2007

Too important to lose

Too great a focus on skills policy is being paid for at the expense of the wider functions of adult learning, writes ALAN TUCKETT

There are three key dimensions to adult learning, each of which can make a reasonable claim on publicly funded support. First, there is the intrinsic value of learning something you didn’t know before – whether that is how to bake a different kind of cake, to play a Bach sonata, or plaster a wall well. In his address to this summer’s Institute for Learning conference and in an article for this issue of Adults Learning, Dennis Hayes chides NIACE for not doing more to assert the merits of learning for its own sake, and I, for one, feel suitably chastened. Luckily, the new Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, John Denham, has made a point of recognising the sheer delight adults can take in mastering a new skill or understanding things better, in his early speeches in the job.

The Conservative Shadow Minister for Vocational Education, John Hayes, has also become a stout defender of adult education. The trick now will be to turn that recognition and sympathy on the front benches of the major parties into measures that foster revitalised services of liberal education for adults. That will be no easy task, given the pressure to shift even more public money to vocational education.

Can fees make up the difference? In personal and community development learning the experience is mixed – with a tailing off of takers for information and communications technology courses, evidence of significant cuts in volume in many colleges, and some evidence of a mixed economy proving resilient in local authority programmes.

The second major reason for adult participation in learning programmes is utilitarian – notably to get or keep a job, to seek promotion, or to get a qualification that opens the door to further study. This, of course, is the reason for learning most beloved of policy planners. Courses aimed to meet these aspirations have always attracted significant public support, more so since the adoption of the skills strategies.

It has, though, been a matter of embarrassment for the Government that its flagship programme for bringing skills to the workplace, Train to Gain, has attracted far smaller numbers than were predicted or budgeted for; that initial contact has translated into fewer course starts than anticipated; that dramatically fewer course starts have led on to qualifications gained than expected; and that so many of the qualifications that have been awarded should merely be assessment and confirmation of skills already held.

By contrast, the equally utilitarian Skills for Life programme has more than met the targets set, in terms of qualifications gained, and has at the same time supported a wide range of literacy, language and numeracy students whose learning aims have not fitted neatly into the framework assessed by the national tests. Indeed, the programme has been so successful in attracting adults needing English for Speakers of Other Languages that provision has been rationed, and fees introduced. Both Train to Gain and Skills for Life have seen budget growth, at the expense of liberal adult education. The Comprehensive Spending Review settlement, coupled with Gordon Brown’s commitment to increasing per capita spending on schools, the Government’s response to the Leitch Review, and commitments to expand Train to Gain into higher levels of study, look set to ensure that the shift of funding away from learner-chosen courses, outside of the vocational area, continues apace.

Meanwhile, NIACE’s research suggests that, at the very least, the balance of Government efforts to strengthen skills may be unhelpfully skewed. It shows that people with jobs like best to learn by doing the job; next best is to learn from a colleague; then a superviser. Courses come only fourth on the list, and some way behind. And, despite the Government’s belief that everyone (state, individuals and employers) should invest more in learning, there is little evidence to date of previously sceptical employers investing significantly in developing the skills of their workforce.

Furthermore, any analyst looking at the skills needs of the UK economy over the next decade, alongside the changing age profile of the UK population, must surely be puzzled that so little attention is currently paid to the needs of older workers. Few of them need ‘first full-fat level 2 qualifications’. Many hold qualifications gained a generation ago, the currency of which has eroded over time. Most have rich experience garnered in the workplace, and from their wider experience. A skills strategy fit for purpose would be capable of responding to their needs with advice, customised updating programmes, and opportunities to re-skill to continue working life.

The third key benefit of participation in adult learning is catalytic. As research into the wider benefits of learning shows, participation in learning has positive health effects, and whilst that may be the explicit goal of many keep-fit students, it is for learners of all sorts a welcome, if unplanned for, benefit of participation. Other benefits include increased racial tolerance, greater civic engagement and positive feelings of wellbeing. These catalytic benefits are of particular importance to key groups – among them older people and adults recovering from mental health problems – and in addressing wider government social policy goals. Too great a focus on skills policy is bought at the expense of this wider function of adult learning. As Government reviews the learning landscape in the light of changes in the machinery of Government, it could usefully review how each of these dimensions of adult learning can contribute to creating a society at once economically prosperous, and at ease with itself.

Alan Tuckett is Director of NIACE

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