NIACE briefing sets the agenda Tuesday, July 21, 2009 - 08:57

A NIACE briefing - Adult Learning and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills: What are we to make of it? - held Tuesday 21 July 2009, in Leicester, examined the relationship between the new department and adult education. It helped people concerned with adult learning to best protect and promote learners' interests over the coming months in a changing landscape.

Concerns for the future of adult learning grew, when the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) was dissolved following the Government re-shuffle of June 5th - just twenty months after it was formed to give further and higher education a voice in the Cabinet - and was replaced with BIS.

Alastair Thomson, NIACE Principal Policy Officer, said:

"The new department brings further and higher education under the same umbrella as the Regional Development agencies, raising some interesting questions about how provision for adult learners may develop once the Learning and Skills Council is replaced by a Skills Funding Agency.

Far from being pushed to the margins of a big Department of State, it is possible that adult education may be better able to demonstrate how it adds public value on a bigger stage. The briefing will allow us to explore how that potential can be realised."