NIACE concerned over fall in learner numbers Thursday, February 2, 2012 - 12:57

NIACE is concerned over the latest fall in the number of adults who are involved in Personal and Community Development Learning, as reported this week in the Quarterly Statistical First Release from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

David Hughes, Chief Executive of NIACE, said:

"Although these figures aren't completely unexpected, a fall of 7.1 per cent is worrying, particularly because our annual survey has been recording a decline in overall participation in all sorts of learning for the last three years. There is some hope that many people are getting more involved in informal, self-organised learning but the reductions overall are significant. We will be monitoring the situation closely through our annual participation survey which will report in May."

"Perhaps the most worrying aspect of this is we know that when participation falls overall, it hits some groups harder than others. Participation is strongly correlated with family history, with income, with age at which people left full time learning and with socio-economic class. When participation falls overall this relationship means that some groups of people are even more likely not to learn and benefit from learning. It is crucial, for reasons of social justice, health, well-being, community cohesion and employability, that any falls in the numbers participating in learning, wherever that learning may happen, are reversed."