Paying for Lifelong Learning – Expenditure paper published Wednesday, July 14, 2010 - 16:10

This paper - [PDF]  on expenditure on lifelong learning, as well as models for funding, represents a major contribution to building a strong knowledge base for a strategy for lifelong learning.

The first paper in this volume, by Jenny Williams, the Inquiry's Project Manager, now Head of Policy at LSIS, presents for the first time comprehensive details on the levels of expenditure on lifelong learning of different kinds. This includes expenditure by public authorities, private employers, third sector organisations and private individuals and households.

Also included is an overview of participation trends by Dr Fiona Aldridge, Head of Research at NIACE. This draws on invaluable annual surveys carried out by NIACE to give a sense of the trends involved, broken down by key variables. With these two sets of data, combined with original analysis commissioned from Muriel Egerton, formerly of the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford, on time use, has enabled a picture of the distribution of resources across the life course to be built - another central feature of Learning Through Life.

The second main component of this paper by Professor Stephen McNair, Research Fellow at NIACE, discusses how to approach the funding of lifelong learning. This is a significant contribution to a debate which often lacks coherence. Drawing on his vast experience, and with the benefit of an Inquiry consultation seminar, Professor McNair provides the tools with which the debate can and should be advanced in the coming years.