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Some file on this page are PDF files. Commission of Inquiry calls for evidence on workplace learning
The NIACE Commission of Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning is putting out a call for evidence on learning in the workplace. Interested individuals, businesses and organisations are invited to submit written evidence to the Commission by Tuesday 27th November 2007.
In particular, the Commission is most interested in evidence which focuses on the following areas of interest:
 | What sort of learning do employers invest in and why? |
| What evidence is there on the returns to workplace learning? |
| What role do qualifications play in the workplace? |
| What are the future skills needs in the workplace? |
| What impact does work organisation and leadership have on the development of adult skills? |
| How do funding structures and regulation affect opportunities to learn in the workplace? |
| How does each of the above vary by sector, region and age of employee? |
All information will be analysed by a team of researchers and added to the wealth of evidence already submitted to the Commission which will eventually formulate a national strategy for lifelong learning.
Submissions by email are preferred (as attachments in Word) and should be emailed to lifelonglearninginquiry@niace.org.uk . Unless submissions are short, they should be accompanied by a summary outlining the key points.
Please ensure that you include your relevant contact details. Evidence should be attributed and dated, with a note of your name and position, and should state whether it is submitted on an individual or corporate basis. Please indicate clearly that the evidence is being submitted in response to the call for evidence around learning in the workplace.
The purpose of the Commission of Inquiry into the future for lifelong learning is to identify best practice in the UK and internationally across each of the key arenas in which adult learning makes a significant contribution, to identify the values, principles and practical steps needed to give life to life-long and life-wide learning for all communities of the UK.
To find out more about the Commission of Inquiry, visit: www.niace.org.uk/lifelonglearninginquiry
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Commission for Disabled Staff – responses to interim report sought
The Commission for Disabled Staff in Lifelong Learning aims to identify the experiences of and issues relating to the employment of disabled staff working in lifelong learning.
Gathering evidence since May 2007 of both positive and negative practice, the Commission - led by NIACE - will be making recommendations for positive change in its final report due in March 2008.
The Commission wants to hear from staff working at all levels in the lifelong learning sector (further and higher education, adult and community learning and work based learning) and has recently launched an interim report which is out for consultation until 7 December 2007.
Those with an interest in disability issues in the lifelong learning sector are urged to respond to the consultation to advise whether the Commission has identified the key issues affecting disabled staff and what other issues should be explored and highlighted. To find out more and to respond to the interim report consultation, visit www.niace.org.uk/commissionfordisabledstaff
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New multi-agency quality guide launched
People working with families and parents will benefit from a new guide being published today - Tuesday 16th October 2007 - by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE). Quality Matters: Think Family – to be launched by David Lammy MP, Minister for Skills - has been developed in collaboration with experts from across the family learning and working with parents sectors to link and make sense of the quality agenda in multi-agency settings.
Quality Matters: Think Family provides a single reference point to support all families - especially the most vulnerable families - to receive a good quality learning experience at every family learning and parenting skills session, irrespective of the location or practitioner group. It links all the frameworks and guidelines to a basic set of building blocks of quality that can be used in any setting.
David Lammy MP, Minister for Skills, said:
“It is critical that when we are funding learning programmes for some of the most vulnerable families in the country, that we know that they will receive a high quality learning experience the first time they walk through the door.”
Penny Lamb, Development Officer for Family Learning at NIACE, said:
“We are delighted that David Lammy, the Minister for Skills, is joining us for the launch of Quality Matters: think family. This simple guide will support organisations to embed quality in teaching and learning for those providing parenting skills and family learning sessions. One of the key challenges of multi-agency working is to enable practitioners to talk the same language and join up the different advisory and regulatory frameworks. We hope that today we are moving this agenda forward by reinforcing the message of the need to Think Family rather than agency. We are also pleased to be joined by key national partners who are supporting this work."
Sue Egersdorff, Parenting Commissioner for Cheshire, said:
“The Guide will help us enormously to move to a more integrated approach that has they concept of Think Family at its heart, but also works to make sure that the programmes we do offer parents have got a consistency around quality.”
| Read more about the Guide here |
| Quality Matters: Think Family can be purchased from our online bookshop, priced £19.95 |
Download podcast: Quality
Matters: Think Family - [MP3 file]
If the file does not automatically open in your browser,
save it to your computer and open it in your usual media player.
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FE in the 21st Century – What works for Adults
NIACE Triad of Conferences
Further Education for adults is now quite clearly at a crossroads. After two years when a million adults have been lost from public sector funding, there is a new institutional landscape. But how can the sector adapt at what is surely a pivotal time?
Can the widening participation agenda for adults be reconciled with Foster's 'clarity of purpose' for colleges?
Will Leitch's emphasis on economically valuable skills, demand-led by employers, extinguish the spirit of the Learning Age?
Do globalisation, technological change and a continuing European emphasis on Lifelong Learning present real opportunities for innovation?
NIACE is holding a triad of conferences, sponsored by the TES FE Focus - with a view to the past, present and future - to explore these and other issues:
| Learning from the Past Decade (1997-2007): what to adopt and what to avoid - 8th November 2007 |
| The Present (2007-2008): what to cherish and what to ditch – 29th November 2007 |
| Preparing for the Future (2008-2015): what to work for and what to resist – 17th January 2008 |
These conferences will
| assess how well the FE system currently works and has worked for adult students; |
| reach recommendations for future FE provision; and |
| strengthen the links between NIACE and college providers for adult learners. |
Speakers at the triad of conferences include Tony Benn, Bill Rammell MP, Lynne Sedgmore, Frances O’Grady, David Hunter and Andy Westwood.
Attendance at each conference costs £200, however book for all three and save £100.
More information available here.
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Family Learning Week
This week (6-14 October 2007) is Family Learning Week. NIACE has talked to 6 family learners who all returned to learning because of their children. Each one has discovered just how much learning can improve your life for the better.
Listen here to…
Kerry's story - [MP3 file]
Karen's Story - [MP3 file]
Joanne's Story - [MP3 file]
Kevin's Story - [MP3 file]
Tracey's Story - [MP3 file]
Paul's story - [MP3 file]
(If the audio files do not start playing in your browser, right click and save them onto your computer and then play them back through your usual media player)
Find out more about NIACE's work on Family Learning here
See also: Learners to influence policy makers
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International Adult Learners' Week
Paul Stanistreet, Editor of Adults Learning attended the recent International Adult Learners' Week conference held in Manchester and asked delegates why they were there.
The following article is taken from the forthcoming issue of Adults Learning, "the best journal for policy and practice in adult learning".
‘What did you come for?’, I asked learners and providers who travelled from around the world to attend International Adult Learners’ Week in Manchester last month. ‘We must share our ideas with others,’ said one, ‘and see what we ourselves can borrow’. Another said simply: ‘For inspiration’. Another, a learner from Namibia, ventured: ‘This is the first time I have travelled from my country; I want to see a different kind of country’.
The comments reflected the tremendous diversity of purpose and outlook to be
found among the learners and learning providers, drawn from more than 40
countries, who attended the event, being held in the UK for the first time.
Delegates at the conference, jointly organised by the UNESCO Institute for
Lifelong Learning and NIACE, which developed the concept of Adult Learners’
Week, shared their experiences of both learning and celebrating learning. A
provider told how learning had helped ‘recreate a life’ in a Slovenian community
devastated by unemployment. A learner from Scotland explained how a thriving
programme for adult learners had grown from her volunteering to help out in a
school.
Adult Learners’ Week, said South African Deputy Education Minister Enver Surty, is about recognising ‘the dignity of the people’, the learners. The learners at this event demanded greater representation in the list of speakers for future events; greater involvement, from the outset, in planning which affects them; and the resources and support they need to produce a draft learner charter.
The spirit of the event was neatly summed up, in a memorable phrase, by Edicio dela Torre, an adult educator and activist from the Philippines. His work, he said, involved teaching fish to fly and birds to swim. The fish, he explained, were the learners, educators and activists working at grassroots level; the birds, the intellectuals and policy makers analysing and orchestrating events from above. The message from this event was that there is no end to what birds and fish can learn from one another.
Paul Stanistreet
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Inquiry into the future of adult learning
In an interview in Education Guardian on Tuesday 2nd October 2007, John Denham MP, Secretary of State at the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills says that:
"...he welcomes the national debate that NIACE (the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education) has started with the launch of its commission into adult education."
"I just think it's always worthwhile having informed groups like NIACE saying 'let's take stock of where we are at the moment, let's have an honest view of it and come up with ideas about moving forward in the future' ".
| Read the full article here |
See also: Inquiry into the future of adult learning from September 2007
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UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning newsletter
Special issue of the electronic newsletter of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL).
| Special Issue of UIL Nexus on CONFINTEA VI (August 2007) - [PDF] |
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