NIACE Annual Review 2011-12Annual Review 2011-12

Policy and advocacyJohn Hayes, then Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong LEarning, addresses the All-Party Parliamentary Group Reception during Adult Learners' Week. Copyright Positive Negatives

Advocacy is a fundamental element of what we do and a key means of achieving our charitable goals. Through our policy development and advocacy work we try to raise the profile of adult learning, among the public, as well as with government and other stakeholders, in order to ensure that the opportunity to learn is available to all adults.

Through a wide range of activities, including explaining to the public why adult learning matters, offering best-practice advice to providers and practitioners, and supporting and opposing specific policy interventions, we aim to make a positive impact on policy and practice, in order to:

  • ensure that the needs and aspirations of adults as learners are met, particularly the most vulnerable within the changing role of the state and its structures including the public service reform agenda;
  • influence decision makers and opinion shapers to promote and advance the agendas for adult learners;
  • make local accountability for publicly funded learning and skills a dynamic and viable reality for communities, learning providers, employers and local and national policy makers;
  • support national, international and local policy makers and providers to articulate and offer provision grounded in social justice;
  • secure an informed debate based on evidence of the impact of adult learning and skills and to support NIACE members to influence decisions in their wn constituencies;
  • share, celebrate and disseminate learners’ narratives of the impact of adult learning to influence ntional and local policy; and

  • pursue a long-term policy vision for lifelong learning based on the educational life-course model.

Our achievements in 2011-12

  • We published a full response to the government’s New Challenges, New Chances FE consultation, and responded to the two accompanying consultations on FE loans and informal adult and community learning. We argued that the government could do more to set out a compelling vision for the sector to address the fundamental question of how to re-balance public funding with the private contributions of employers and individual learners. We highlighted a range of key issues, outlining the purposes of further education in building social cohesion and responsibility as well as raising economic productivity, and the need to make the sector no less attractive to people throughout their lives than it is to young people completing their initial education and preparing to enter the labour market.
  • Through the publication of a dedicated Adults Learning Extra and a policy seminar, we highlighted, explored and analysed the long-term implications, opportunities and challenges of introducing further education loans in 2012 in England for adults aged 24+ learning at Level 3 and above.
  • We have a strong relationship with ministers in Welsh Government and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and have used our regular meetings to propose new ways of approaching key policy areas and to set out our concerns about issues such as equality in apprenticeships and FE loans.
  • In Wales, we responded to a range of consultations, setting out our proposals for the funding of part-time higher education provision and highlighted the important contribution adult learning could make to the Welsh Government’s flagship programme Communities First, aimed at reducing poverty. We supported a number of Welsh Government reviews and actively participated in the Stakeholders’ Forum for the review of post-16 funding and planning arrangements.
  • We produced briefngs for politicians, with accompanying promotional films, on how adult learning can help meet financial challenges in local government and on adult literacy and numeracy in Wales. We also worked with the WEA (South Wales) on a campaign pack for learners to use in the run up to the National Assembly for Wales election in 2011. It included information on the public value of learning and tips on how to contact prospective candidates, ask questions and organise public meetings and hustings.
  • At the European level we  were actively involved in decisions about adult education policy. On the world stage we supported the writing of the UK government response to a UNESCO survey on adult learning.

    What's needed now is for policy-makers, providers, businesses, unions and charities to work together to encourage more people to take up learning.

    NIACE Chief Executive David Hughes

Our key objectives for 2012-13

  • Gather quantitative and qualitative evidence of the impact of adult learning and skills and share the evidence widely and effectively through targeted campaigns and publications.
  • Support policy makers and practitioners by providing relevant evidence, commentary and analysis on changing policy - through publications, meetings and policy discussions.
  • Research and identify changing patterns of participation in adult learning and skills and use the fndings to influence policy and address inequalities.
  • Work with communities, employers and providers to help improve local accountability for learning  and skills.
  • Develop a policy paper to provide a future vision for adult learning to meet current social and economic circumstances, building on NIACE’s Learning through Life publication.

 

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