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NIACE's New Skills for Life Initiative
NIACE to spearhead new government skills for life initiative for adults with disabilities and learning difficulties
NIACE is to lead a major, new DfES-funded development programme, Learning for Living - Developing access to Skills for Life for adults with learning difficulties and/or disabilities, on literacy, language and numeracy for adults with learning difficulties and disabilities through six Skills for Life Pathfinder projects across England.
Heading a consortium of key national bodies specialising in different aspects of disability - and working in the community, colleges, prisons and the workplace - NIACE intends to ensure that all partners in the Pathfinders programme work collaboratively with teachers, managers and learners to test and develop what works best in the teaching and learning of the full raft of literacy, language and numeracy skills.
Alan Tuckett, Director of NIACE, said “Government has an ambitious target of 1.5 million people improving their literacy, language and numeracy skills by 2007. The innovative Pathfinder programme will not only identify what works, but also help improve provision - thus raising adults’ achievements. We are delighted that adults with learning difficulties and disabilities have been identified as a priority group. Investment in development can make a real difference to this often marginalised group.”
The two and a half year programme - funded by the Adult Basic Skills Strategy Unit at DfES - will run to March 2006
Barbara Waters, Director of SKILL, the national organisation for students with disabilities, said “This is a welcome development and builds on all our work in recent years. We look forward to finding out what works best for adults with disabilities learning literacy, language and numeracy.”
Commenting on the Pathfinder programme, Joyce Black of NIACE and the overall project manager, said, “We have been waiting for the chance to undertake work in this area for a long time. This project will give us a chance to get best practise shared among teachers and managers.”
| For more information please contact Narzny Khan (0116 2044293) |
Source: NIACE Press Release: "NIACE New Skills For Life Initiative" (PDF file) , released on 8 April 2004
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LSDA looks for new chief
Chris Hughes has announced that he is to step down as Chief Executive of the Learning and Skills Development Agency. The post-16 education and training thinktank will begin the recruitment process this month, with a view to selecting a new Chief Executive by early autumn. It is intended that the new appointee will start in January 2005.
Chris Hughes led the LSDA - formerly the Further Education Development Agency - through six years of rapid change, which included its relaunch and growth from an £8 million to a £36 million business. He oversaw the expansion of its activities from FE to the whole of the learning and skills sector, including work-based and adult and community learning.
Source: Adults Learning
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Threatened school survives - for now
The University of Leeds’ internationally respected School of Continuing Education has survived a senate vote on proposals to close it down over funding concerns. The senate - the university’s ruling body - unanimously agreed to a motion requesting a further paper analysing strategic options and including a number of scenarios for the future of the school, which faces a £250,000 deficit this year. It will be considered at the beginning of June.
The senate was considering plans to dissolve the 58-year-old school, which serves part-time, mostly mature, students, in favour of a new centre for part-time education. The moves would have seen the 46 full-time academics from the school relocated to parent departments elsewhere in the university. Staff at the school objected that the plans would undermine Leeds’ commitment to adult learners and have an adverse effect on research and development in adult education and lifelong learning. The reprieve will mean that the school will have more time to resolve its financial problems.
Staff received emails of support from around the country - and from as far afield as Japan and Sydney - while students turned up in force at the two-hour senate meeting to demonstrate their opposition to the moves. The Association of University Teachers estimated that 250 students and staff demonstrated outside the meeting, some carrying out a mock funeral for the death of continuing education.
Richard Taylor, Professor of Continuing Education at Leeds, told Adults Learning: ‘Discussions are now proceeding over producing revised proposals for a subsequent senate meeting. The outcome is uncertain, but the situation looks a lot better than it did a few weeks ago.’ Miriam Zukas, senior lecturer at the school and Director of the Lifelong Learning Institute, called the senate’s decision ‘a real vote of confidence for the school and for the school’s role in the university’.
Source: Adults Learning
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New resource for family learning practitioners
This month sees the launch of a new web-based help and information service
for family learning practitioners. The new website - at
www.familylearningnetwork.com
It will provide a central resource where practitioners can access
information on news and policy developments that impact on their work, as well
as key research, staff training, funding opportunities and practical advice.
Membership is free. For more information telephone Juliette Collier on 0121 643
0774 or email
jcollier@cflearning.org.uk
Source: Adults Learning
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Plans to raise school leaving age
The school-leaving age would become ‘irrelevant’ under plans unveiled by the Prime Minister. Downing Street wants teenagers either to stay at school or take another form of job training or apprenticeship, meaning, effectively, that no child will be allowed to leave school at 16.
‘Our goal is for every young person to succeed,’ Tony Blair told the Labour Party’s spring conference in Manchester. ‘No dropping out at 16, every young person either staying on in the sixth form or on a modern apprenticeship or job-related training leading to a good career.
‘In effect, we want to make irrelevant the official school leaving age of 16. We want every young person to want to stay in education until they are at least 18 or 19.’
Britain’s record on school drop-outs is one of the worst in the industrialised world. At present, nearly a third of children leave school at 16, and, among 17-year-olds, Britain is placed 23 out of 30 countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Source: Adults Learning
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Language ladder - and some missing rungs
The BBC has suspended the commissioning of new language programmes on television for adult learners, provoking accusations that it was undermining its capacity to contribute to the Government’s national languages strategy by promoting language learning.
News that the corporation had no plans to commission new language programes for the next two years came as the Government announced a new scheme - to be known as the ‘language ladder’ - through which people of all ages can get recognition for their language skills. The DfES has commissioned the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) to develop tests to assess language skills, with pilot schemes - testing speaking and reading in French, German and Spanish - to be launched this year, prior to a national roll-out in 2005.
Mike Kelly, Professor of French and Director of the LTSN Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies, at the University of Southampton, said that the BBC’s decision marked ‘a fundamental shift in policy’, not a short-term measure: ‘It is surprising and shocking that this flagship programme area is to be discontinued. It will gravely reduce the BBC’s ability to promote language learning, at a time when the Government is developing its National Languages Strategy. The BBC’s language programmes have been an important contribution to public education over 40 years and it is regrettable that production should now be abandoned.’
The BBC will continue to repeat existing series on BBC2’s Learning Zone, while its language strategy is reviewed. The languages website will also continue, but will not be enriched by material generated by new TV series. A spokesperson for the BBC said that having ‘invested heavily’ in language programming in recent years, BBC Learning would be ‘concentrating on new ways of promoting language learning’, using its ‘strong family of multi-media language learning material’. It remained ‘strongly committed’ to language learning, and planned, among other efforts, to work ‘with the Learning and Skills Council on a project to raise awareness of language learning and to incorporate BBC material into blended learning packages.’
Source: Adults Learning
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Hallett makes history
Christine Hallett has been appointed the new Principal of Stirling University, succeeding Colin Bell who died suddenly last April. Professor Hallett, who had been acting principal, becomes the first woman to head a pre-1992 university in Scotland and only the third to be made principal in Scotland. A Cambridge University graduate who worked for the Department of Health and Social Security before moving into higher education, she became reader in social policy at Stirling in 1989, conducting research in the fields of juvenile justice and child welfare.
Source: Adults Learning
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Learning can make better parents
Getting involved in adult learning can lessen the stresses of bringing up children and help people be better parents, according to a new study from the Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning at the Institute of Education. The report also found that adult learning could improve relationships with partners and parents.
The research team carried out 45 in-depth case studies of learners aged 16 upwards in three UK locations to discover how learning affects well-being and social and family relationships. Interviewees reported that their courses made them more confident in their ability as parents, more able to communicate with their children and more understanding and patient. They acquired skills that helped them in a practical way and became more open to other people’s approaches to parenting. They became more able to see things from a child’s point of view and to understand the child as a member of a peer group.
However, the team also found that adult learning could place a strain on family relationships, for example, where family members are seen as obstructive to or negative about learning. It can also result in beneficial family break-ups, as when a woman gains the strength to leave an abusive relationship.
Cathie Hammond, a co-author of The Benefits of Learning, said: ‘Taking courses changed women’s attitudes, hopes, plans, social circles and self-perception, sometimes causing difficulties in their relationships with their parents and other relatives. On the other hand, some relationships improved as a result of learning because there was more to talk about and the partner respected the learner’s commitment and achievements.’
The Benefits of Learning: The impact of education on health, family life and social capital is published by RoutledgeFalmer, priced £21.99. Read Alan Tuckett’s review in the June issue of Adults Learning.
Source: Adults Learning
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New toolkit for black VCOs
Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail, a NIACE toolkit to assist black voluntary and community organisations in obtaining funding and better accessing strategic information, will be available in late May 2004. The toolkit will provide advice and information, as well as examples of good practice to show that black organisations can sustain their services in the long term.
Its completion will coincide with a number of dissemination events, in London, on 25 May 2004, in Birmingham, on 26 May and in Liverpool, on 27 May.
For further information contact Lenford White at lenford.white@niace.org.uk or visit www.niace.org.uk/bpln .
Source: Adults Learning
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Promoting learning in the Health and Social Care Sectors
The National Health Service University (NHSU) will be a new kind of university. It aims to improve patient care by offering learning opportunities to staff working in health and social care. NHSU is a key sponsor of Adult Learners' Week - a UK wide initiative to increase adult participation in learning. Adult Learners' Week is a great chance to find out just what learning opportunities are out there for staff at all levels. NHSU is working with NIACE and the Campaign for Learning, to celebrate, promote, motivate and advance all forms of adult learning in the health and social care sectors. Look at www.alw.org.uk/health to find out more!
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Hands up if you hate maths!
Posters targeting people who hate maths will go up in over 1,000 railway stations in England as part of Adult Learners’ Week (15-21 May 2004). The Numbers in Everything campaign, which is supported by the Adult Basic Skills Strategy Unit and the European Social Fund, aims to address some of the issues raised by recent findings on numeracy. The posters show people how to do their nine-times table using their hands.
NIACE is encouraging providers to organise Adult Learners’ Week events with a maths focus. It will support providers with materials and ideas for running events and a new website, www.numbersineverything.org.uk , will offer the latest news and help.
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