1.1 million extra learners due to Transformation Fund Tuesday, September 7, 2010 - 10:50

Transforming Lives is a summary report marking the end of government's £20 million Transformation Fund, charting its legacy and illustrating how the transformational power of informal and community learning can be sustained.

The summary report outlines the diverse outcomes of the Fund, by charting the different approaches to adult learning explored by over 300 government-funded projects. It also highlights how informal adult learning can be sustained, the learning that follows and how it contributes to the government's ‘Big Society' initiative. The summary report - to be followed by a full report - primarily concludes that:

• relatively small injections of funding can galvanise voluntary organisations, community groups and local education providers to work in partnership to make learning available in new places and for new kinds of people who may not have benefited before;

• voluntary, public and private sector partnership-working produces good outcomes for learners, can provide value for money and can facilitate future planning. For example, the Nottingham Loves Learning project established a county-wide partnership which delivered informal adult learning across public, private & voluntary sectors. Through partnership working the project was able to open up 50 new venues for learning and engage 5,000 learners;

Informal learning organised by local communities to meet their own needs takes a very diverse range of forms, but has a common outcome - a sense of inspiration and achievement and produces an increase in community wellbeing.

Peter Lavender, Deputy Chief Executive of NIACE

• workplaces can benefit from incorporating informal adult learning with learning at work, which traditionally is orientated on gaining skills. Find Your Roots - a partnership between Flesh and Bones Family History, Norse Commercial Services and Royal Mail - engaged employees and their families in family history workshops. The informal learning approach proved popular with the employees, most of whom had not engaged in learning since leaving school, who said they are now more likely to take up workplace learning offers;

• the ethos of volunteering and volunteers themselves have a crucial role in bringing communities and local groups together. Mining Durham's Hidden Depths, made County Durham's mining heritage accessible to adult learners through its use of volunteers. Volunteers were supported and trained to develop digital copies of mining archives and to in turn engage with local history and mining heritage groups, adults with learning difficulties / disabilities and care home residents; and

• many funded projects reported that learners gained in happiness, self-esteem, confidence and well-being.

The launch was attended by John Hayes - Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, BIS - whose full speech is available to read online.

Peter Lavender, Deputy Chief Executive of NIACE, said:

"Informal learning organised by local communities to meet their own needs takes a very diverse range of forms, but has a common outcome - a sense of inspiration and achievement and produces an increase in community wellbeing. These are the key lessons highlighted in Transforming Lives, the report of the government fund to stimulate innovative adult education. NIACE was proud to coordinate it."

The summary report is also accompanied by nine supplementary papers highlighting individual projects that addressed the following themes: arts and culture, broadcasting and technology, citizenship, disabled learners, education for sustainable development, health and wellbeing, older learners, supporting families and young adults.