Narrowing Participation for Adults Thursday, May 7, 2009 - 17:01

The annual Adult Learners' Week survey of adult participation in learning of all kinds shows a sharply widening gap between the educationally privileged and the educationally excluded.

The survey - Narrowing Participation - published by NIACE on Friday 8 May - shows that the proportion of adults currently learning, or having done so in the last three years, has risen by one per cent from 38 per cent in 2008 to 39 per cent in 2009.

However, the proportion of adults currently learning in the UK - 18 per cent - is at its lowest level since the Labour government was elected in 1997.

The widening learning divide is illustrated by the following findings:

• ABC1s are at least twice as likely to be currently learning than those in the poorest groups, DEs (25 per cent ABs and 23 per cent C1s are currently learning, compared with 11 per cent of DEs);
• current or recent participation by DEs has fallen to a 10-year low at 24 per cent, compared with 53 per cent for ABs;
• 20 per cent of ABs say they have done no learning since school, compared with 55 per cent of DEs;
• current or recent participation by C2s has fallen back to 33 per cent - the level reported before 1997 
• people in full-time (47 per cent) and part-time (49 per cent) work are more likely to be learning than unemployed people (40 per cent), those not in paid employment (27 per cent) or retired people (16 per cent);
• the older you are the less likely you are to take part in learning, adults aged 20-24 (61 per cent) are almost twice as likely as those aged 55-64 (31 per cent), and more than three times as likely as adults aged 65-74 (18 per cent);
• adults with no Internet access are three times less likely to take part in learning (just six per cent reporting current participation) than adults with any Internet access (22 per cent currently learning).

Alan Tuckett, Chief Executive of NIACE, said:

"At first glance this survey offers comfort to government after months of criticism about the balance of its investment in adult learning opportunities. However closer attention to the survey's findings tells a different and more worrying story."

"These findings are sobering for a government that has invested 52 per cent more in real terms in post-compulsory education and training since its 1997 election. After impressive gains in its first five years in office there has been a marked decline in participation since the adoption of its skills strategies in 2003, 2005 and 2006."

"Overall, the survey suggests that the time has come for government to consider the price paid, in England at least, for its skills strategy. It is clear that the opportunity to gain a first qualification for a small cohort of the least qualified is bought at the expense of engagement by large numbers of others from the same groups."

"A decade ago, Helena Kennedy summed up educational opportunity after school in Britain by arguing, ‘If at first you don't succeed, you don't succeed'. For far too many people in the UK that remains true - and the price is paid in restricted opportunities for them, for their children, and for our community life."

"No one should be denied access to learning in a civilised society - and to meet needs we have to have breadth as well as depth of opportunity, the chance to sate curiosity as well as the chance to achieve and progress."

Narrowing Participation, the NIACE 2009 survey on Adult Participation in Learning, is available from the NIACE Book Shop.

This survey, undertaken for NIACE by RSGB, interviewed a weighted sample of 4,917 adults, aged 17 and over, in the UK in the period 18 February-1 March and 11-15 March 2009.