Latest News: June 2006

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The Challenge of Inclusion

The June 2006 issue of Adults Learning reflects on the impact and continuing relevance of Inclusive Learning, the landmark 1996 report of John Tomlinson’s committee of enquiry into provision for adults and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities.

Co-authors of the report, Pat Hood and Peter Lavender, contribute reflective, forward-looking pieces, while Deborah Cooper, Viv Berkeley, Yola Jacobsen and Kathryn James consider, from their different perspectives, how far we have come in the ten years since publication – and where we now need to travel.

For Deborah Cooper, the report offers a model for learning much wider than its original remit called for, ‘a tool to ensure that for an individual, a course, an institution or a planning authority there is a match between the needs and interests on one side and the provision and support on the other’. In the preface to his report, John Tomlinson argued that everything proposed therein was ‘within the grasp of the system if we all want it enough’. But how many of us are ready to sign up to that? Cooper asks.

While there has been much to celebrate over the past decade, Pat Hood argues, there are nevertheless some worrying trends, not least where adult learning is concerned. Adult and community learning – lifelong learning that is truly inclusive, with committed staff working with some of the most challenging learners – comes last in the funding race every time. Adults’ entitlement to lifelong learning is debated as if it could be moved up and down the priority ladder, rather than being seen for what it is: ‘an absolute human right’.

Viv Berkeley and Yola Jacobsen share their insights from the field. Berkeley reports practitioners working with learners with learning difficulties feeling demotivated and tired of finding themselves and their learners bottom of the funding heap. According to Jacobsen, the Government’s policy of prioritising learners working to gain a full level 2 qualification is leading to the exclusion of people with learning difficulties: ‘Several providers have cut courses for individuals working below entry level, namely people with severe learning difficulties. This is because no matter how significant their progress in learning may be it will not count towards Government targets … there is a real danger of people with learning difficulties being disproportionately affected by the current funding pressures in FE.’

This, Jacobsen continues, is not to say that there hasn’t been real progress over the past ten years, only that those achievements need to be built on if we are not to start going backwards. As Peter Lavender argues, more joined-up government is called for – and an appreciation that education cannot play its role while funding policies ‘endlessly favour the young’ – but this will only happen once disability – long the invisible in policymaking – is made visible.

Find out more about Adults Learning here

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The Big Conversation

Now is a crucial time for the future of adult learning. One million adult learning places are threatened over the next two years and there's already been a drop of 23% of people over 60 learning. However, two in three of the jobs of the next decade will need to be filled by adults, including migrants, older people and women returners - because there will simply not be enough young people to fill their parents' shoes when finally we retire. More and more of tomorrow's jobs will require higher-level know-how. Adult learning is not an option - it's an economic necessity. Learning also contributes to community wellbeing, cultural creativity and social solidarity - in ways that can be quantified.

We've decided that now is the right time to have a grown-up conversation about grown-ups' learning. Over the next few weeks we are calling on people who recognise the vital importance of lifelong learning in joining us to question:

Learners, teachers, lecturers, college staff, and other groups and organisations in the sector are encouraged to consider these questions and report back to us and your MP before the end of June. We will collect your responses and submit a dossier of evidence, opinion and analysis to the government.

Please contact us at: bigconversation@niace.org.uk

An edited version of this appeared in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday the 13th May 2006.

It was signed by the following:

Accessible Version

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Transcripts from the John Baillie Memorial Lecture

Transcripts of the two speeches given at this year's John Baillie Memorial Lecture, held in London during Adult Learners' Week, are now available to download from this website.

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