More, Different and Better

Does the UK meet the priorities set out by the EU Agenda for Adult Learning?

Written by John Field, a professor in the School of Education at the University of Stirling with a research focus on social, policy and historical aspects of adult learning.

Europe has become an important player in education and training, and a conference hosted by NIACE later this month provokes us to understand our local and national practices in a wider context. The European Agenda for Adult Learning, adopted by Council Resolution in November 2011, stresses the contribution of adult educators towards Europe 2020, the broad strategy of economic growth and social cohesion. The Agenda sets out five priorities:

1. Making lifelong learning and mobility a reality.
2. Improving the quality and efficiency of education and training.
3. Promoting equity, social cohesion and active citizenship through adult learning.
4. Enhancing the creativity and innovation of adults and their learning environments.
5. Improving the knowledge base on adult learning and monitoring the adult learning sector.

The UK appears to have a strong track record on the first of these goals. Participation rates are high in comparison with most of Europe and this suggests to me that there must be a degree of efficiency in the lifelong learning system. Learner mobility, on the other hand, is heavily slanted towards youth – but that is true for all European countries and is something that can only be addressed at European level. And in recent years, some types of participation have collapsed.

What is less clear is whether we have a high quality system, judged by the extent to which it produces the high level capacities and qualifications that our lives now demand. High overall participation rates are partly a product, for example, of a system that has prioritised short episodes of learning. So the question of quality remains very much an open one.

Our system seems rather patchy when it comes to equality and cohesion. There are some clear gender effects and a very marked degree of age inequality, with participation rates tumbling among the retired. There is a strong tendency for participation to be closely linked with prior education. And on the basis of the available evidence, the distribution of skills across the adult population is marked by extreme inequalities. We clearly have much to learn still about equity from some other countries.

Creativity and innovative learning environments certainly ought to be a strength.  Government has invested heavily in recent years in estates and training, and there has been a huge growth in online and blended learning. What this has added to the sum total of creativity is less clear, not least because some programmes still fail to use interactivity.

Finally, the UK system – and England particularly – has generated an extensive knowledge base on participation and its effects. NIACE and BIS have commissioned rigorous large scale surveys of participation, and BIS publishes regular reports on participation in its funded programmes. Tom Schuller and others have analysed the cohort surveys to great effect. It is a huge shame that the Scottish Government has decided not to support similar studies, which would allow UK-wide comparisons to be made.

Although these studies have greatly enriched our understanding, the new OECD survey of adult skills will tell us a great deal more, and its findings will allow us to compare the UK with other nations. The findings are likely to be controversial, and not just in the UK.

NIACE to host the inaugural conference for the UK’s contribution to the EU Agenda for Adult Learning

I am delighted that the inaugural conference for the UK’s contribution to the EU Agenda for Adult Learning is being held in Cardiff, Europe’s youngest capital and home to one of its newest democratic institutions.

Devolution across the UK has given Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England the opportunity to develop approaches to education which better reflect the needs of each nation. Not surprisingly, therefore, there has been a growing divergence of policy on learning over the past decade, as highlighted by the recent media coverage of the future of GCSEs.

From a Welsh perspective, I view devolution as a positive development – but I do think that the Devolved Administrations have spent too much time exercising their new powers and trying to develop new and ‘unique’ solutions, and all UK nations have spent too little time on sharing and comparing approaches. In my experience this reflects zeal rather than xenophobia, but it does seem like an inefficient approach when many, if not all, of the challenges we face know no geographical boundaries. Issues such as stubborn patterns of inequality in access to education, and low levels of adult literacy and numeracy, are too important, too widespread and too difficult to be addressed by one nation alone.

The conference at Cardiff gives us an excellent opportunity to discuss what works, and what doesn’t, across the UK and indeed Europe. I expect these discussions to be open, frank and honest and I hope that, for 24 hours at least, we put to one side national pride in favour of critical appraisal and analysis.

With the support of some of the world’s leading experts on lifelong learning, we have put together an exciting programme that will interest learners, researchers, policy makers and practitioners. The aim of the conference is to contribute to the EU Agenda for Adult Learning and think about the UK’s contribution in three main areas:

• Linking adult learning to wider social and economic policy in the UK.
• Raising awareness of the value of adult learning to UK citizens.
• Increasing participation of low skilled or less well qualified adults.

The conference, however, is about more than just the event itself – it provides a platform for NIACE’s activity over the coming eighteen months in our role as the UK National Coordinator for the Agenda for Adult Learning. In that respect, I hope that delegates give as much as they gain from the event, and help us to shape our work on important areas such as: developing models for the financing of adult learning; measuring the economic and social impact of adult learning; and enhancing the employability skills for young unemployed adults.

How can we ensure people acquire the skills they need to remain employed?

Two statements within the Government’s recent refresh of its skills strategy – Rigour and Responsiveness in Skills – jumped out at me:

1. “If people are not able to achieve basic levels of English and maths, then they will struggle to find work of any kind.”
2. “In a competitive global market, the skills needed by workers are increasing, placing greater emphasis on the ability to learn skills and adapt.”

For many years, NIACE has drawn attention to the importance of skills for unemployed people and the Government’s acknowledgement that basic English and maths skills are now vital for employment is very welcome. As is the statement of intent in the new framework for skills and unemployed learners to ensure, amongst other things:

• Skills screening and assessment to identify claimant’s training needs at the earliest opportunity.
• Better interaction between the benefits regime and skills.
• Increased capability and partnership working.

As Rigour and Responsiveness in Skills states, colleges and training providers do already provide training designed to address the skills needs of people who are unemployed, but the system is not always effective and can sometimes act as a barrier to people getting the education and training they need. This was illustrated in NIACE’s recent publication The Work Programme: What is the role of skills?, which described helpful and effective practice alongside systemic barriers to Work Programme participants accessing fully funded skills provision, even though this provision could fundamentally change their job prospects.

The framework should go a long way to dealing with the current systemic obstacles, however, much more research needs to be undertaken to identify which skills approaches are the most effective in enabling learners to acquire sustained employment. We can readily see that sector based work academies are effective due to the direct link between the training provided and actual job vacancies. We know much less though about the beneficial impact of intensive forms of provision, embedded vocational skills within English and maths provision and employer involvement in the design of provision. A requirement for all providers to track the employment outcomes for all their learners would greatly help towards this research. Some providers are already tracking outcomes to undertake their own in-house analysis of what works best and why. Should we not expect all providers to do this?

The second of the two statements that caught my eye represents an even bigger challenge since it relates to people in employment as much as to people who are out of work. As detailed in Scaling the youth employment challenge (UKCES 2013), the balance of occupations in the UK economy is changing. Global competition and increasing mechanisation is remorselessly stripping out lower and mid-skill occupations. Lifelong (or at least recurrent) participation in learning to acquire new skills and adapt existing skills has become a necessity, yet our current skills system is primarily focused on enabling skills acquisition for initial entry into the labour market. There is little done to encourage lifelong acquisition of skills and there are real barriers in place that hinder employed people wishing to learn.

Whilst the introduction of the QCF is potentially very helpful, its inherent flexibility to allow unit-by-unit vocational skills acquisition is only permitted at present for unemployed learners, despite this being of obvious benefit to employed people who struggle to find the time to commit to a full qualification. The loss of full funding for apprenticeships and classroom-based vocational learning for employed people above the age of 24, and its replacement by loans, will inevitably risk excluding the working poor. Rather than taking a loan to acquire vocational skills to remain employed, they will have to wait until they are at risk of redundancy or actually unemployed before they are fully funded to acquire new skills.

Good progress has been made towards ensuring unemployed people gain the basic skills they need to become employed, but the next challenge is establishing a system to ensure everyone has a good chance of remaining employed.

Why adult learning’s crucial for European policy

I sometimes think of European adult education policy as a series of Russian dolls. The ‘big babushka’ is Europe2020 which has set targets for the European economy to achieve by 2020. This addresses potential barriers to growth in each country, including education and skills – the general recommendations for the UK can be found here.

Inside of this is the recently published Rethinking Education (summary here) which looks at the education system of each EU member state. It makes the case for a stronger focus on vocational learning and ‘transversal’ competencies, such as languages, as well entrepreneurial and ICT skills. Better recognition of qualifications across countries is also a priority, with consistent standards, so that a trained engineer can be recognised as such wherever in Europe they choose to work.

Then, within that, there’s the smaller, perfectly formed ‘doll’ of adult education. Last year, NIACE accepted the invitation to act as the UK National Coordinator for the European Agenda for Adult Learning, which set out how adult learning links with the big strategic goals of Europe 2020. The Agenda has five priorities:

1. Making lifelong learning and mobility a reality.
2. Improving the quality and efficiency of education and training.
3. Promoting equity, social cohesion and active citizenship through adult learning.
4. Enhancing the creativity and innovation of adults and their learning environments.
5. Improving the knowledge base on adult learning and monitoring the adult learning sector.

The work programme started last October, after an initial meeting of all National Coordinators in Brussels. NIACE’s work as coordinator is co-funded by the European Commission (EC) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and involves:

• Promoting adult learning in the UK and in particular any European dimensions
• Sharing good practice within the UK and the EU
• Sharing policy messages between member states

Working with other countries and through engagement at the European level, I have learnt that in some respects we are envied in the UK on three grounds.

Firstly, we in Britain, have a long established belief in the promotion of adult learning. We have national celebrations like Adult Learners’ Week, Learning at Work Day, VQ Day and Colleges Week.  We also have events in parliament and across the whole of the UK. These are often the envy of our European colleagues.

The second area where the UK succeeds is that we try to understand the nature of participation and learning. Of the home nations England, is particularly strong with the government’s Department of Business, Innovation and Skills clearly wanting to better understand the nature of participation.  Without a body of evidence, it’s very difficult to make an intervention. To a lesser extent, I think that’s supported in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, but it’s sad that the National Adult Learning Survey is not UK-wide anymore.

The third area where we are seen as a leader in Europe is in trying to understand the impact of adult learning, not just participation. For many years NIACE has been prioritising the study of the wider benefits of learning. Part of this is about quantifying the benefits to your health through participation in education.

However, we still have a lot to learn from other parts of Europe. NIACE is involved in a number of pan-European projects, where we are sharing case studies of good things happening in the UK, but also learning from what others are doing. We are heavily involved in the European Association for the Education of Adult (EAEA) with its 122 members across 43 countries – not just the member states of the EU. We’re also involved in European Basic Skills Network (EBSN) which focuses on literacy and numeracy across Europe. It’s integral to our work to learn from practice in other countries.

We will be meeting with colleagues from across the UK and Europe in Cardiff at the end of this month – if you would like to be part of this conversation join us on the day.

Both women and men are crucial to resolving gender imbalances

So, we come to the end of our series to mark International Women’s Day, but not the end of the issues which affect women all over the world. I must thank friends and colleagues from India, South Africa and Sierra Leone, as well as the UK, for their informative, thoughtful and challenging contributions. The messages from around the globe are clear:

• Learning, and literacy in particular, is a vital tool in addressing gender imbalances whether in the industrialised north or the developing south.
• Literacy for functional purposes – to gain skills for a trade, access to health or improve qualifications – is vital if the potential of women is to be realised for personal and collective benefits.
• Lifelong learning policies must be in place – there are no ‘quick learning wins’, learning support must be available long-term.
• Learning for empowerment is even more important than for function, if we are to address both domestic and systemic violence. Support women to participate as active citizens and allow them the same rights as men.

But the issue which emerges most strongly for me in these guest posts is that of the role of men in the gender divide. Education, training and empowering women seems to be only one part of the story. The barriers they face from the power of men at work, in politics, in bringing up children and in violent behaviour will continue if men are not also involved in education to raise awareness of their attitudes, behaviours and values. The evidence from Judith Swift  about gender comparisons in the work-place, the report from South Africa  on learning and leading and the research from India  on the barriers women face, point to ‘man power’ as a key challenge in gender inequalities. Every country needs women to contribute their skills, knowledge and values in work, in communities and in politics. Industrialised and developing countries alike, need their children to be nourished, healthy, supported and educated. Violence against another human being is an abhorrence.

Gender imbalances are about women and men, not just women. We can work to empower and educate women, but without addressing the real barriers a lot of this effort can be wasted. Children are the product of two people – men and women should be able to share their care. Economic success derives from women and men contributing their abilities, skills and knowledge. Social harmony arises when people feel able to live fulfilled lives.

Last Tuesday an All Party Parliamentary Group met to discuss inequalities in relation to education and the post-Millennium Development Goals – a fundamental key to success of future goals and policies is the willingness of men to reflect, learn and change. Many of us advocate strongly and urge politicians, organisations and agencies to ensure that women, and girls, have their due rights: access to learning, health, participation and work. I have spent many years working alongside women, arguing for their rights to learn, writing articles and speaking on platforms, but I fear that all our advocacy will fall on arid soil if the men who hold the power do not rise up with us to help stop the inequities women face.

International Women’s Day provides us with the opportunity to share stories, speak out and sing the strengths of women all over the world. We have done that in 2013, but we must not stop here. The work continues and I firmly believe that it must be women – and men – together, who make a difference.  There must be individual, collective and political will to turn dreams and words into actions and make that change a reality.

Revisit the entire series of blog posts leading up to  International Women’s Day 2013 and beyond:

One Billion Rising – Jane Ward, NIACE Programme Manager

Women leading and learning - Professor Shirley Walters, Director, Division for Lifelong Learning, University of Western Cape, South Africa

The role of learning in ending violence against women - Carol Taylor

Education and women’s lives in India - Malini Ghose and Disha Mullick, authors of ‘Empowerment in Educational Processes: Feminist Re-appropriations’, in More Powerful Literacies (2012)

Women learning literacy for health - Janet Solla – Director of the Community Health and Learning Foundation

Breaking free, finding independence in Sierre Leone - Feed the Minds

Women and skills at work - Judith Swift MBE, Union Development Manager

Is family communication primarily considered a female responsibility? - Tricia Hartley, Chief Executive of  Campaign for Learning

What skills do women need to bring about change in their communities? - Amanda Wait, ‘Welcome to Bolton’ Co-ordinator, WEA North West Region