Public IACL consultation findings published Friday, February 17, 2012 - 14:11

The views of thousands of people on the future for informal adult and community learning have been published in a NIACE report of a public consultation, commissioned as part of a wider government consultation on further education.

6,306 individuals and 227 groups from diverse backgrounds across England responded to the consultation. They said that:

• people want to learn a wide range of different topics and most prefer to learn in a class with a paid tutor;
• most people who can afford to pay are willing to pay fees if they think they are fair and affordable;
• most people agree with using fees to cross-subsidise learning, so that people with higher incomes pay more and those with low incomes pay low fees or nothing;
• over a quarter of people who replied are keen to help organise learning activities in their local area or workplace or to get involved as learning champions; and
• most people who replied believe that local people should be involved in making decisions, but disagree with ‘tokenism' - they want a real voice and influence in decisions about the learning in their area.

Jane Ward, NIACE Programme Manager, said:

"The high volume of responses to this consultation shows there is a public passion for adult learning and an interest in contributing to policy. It also shows that people hold strong opinions about adult and community learning. People's belief in the concept of fairness in distributing government funding and setting fees for adult and community learning sends a powerful message to those forming and implementing policy at national and local levels."

The consultation ran from August - October 2011 and was commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) as part of its wider further education consultation, which also invited the views of learning providers and interested organisations.