| Path: Home > Book Shop > Journals > Adults Learning > Back Issues > Commentary |
Commentary - April 2006
A curate’s egg?
Some of the measures in the further education White Paper are welcome, but the absence of a coherent strategy for lifelong learning is painfully obvious, writes ALAN TUCKETT
Despite containing several measures to applaud, the Government’s White Paper on further education reform makes evident its lack of a coherent policy for adult learning. That is disappointing almost a decade after David Blunkett’s first post-election speech in 1997 promised a coherent lifelong learning policy. He suggested at the time that we would need to be patient. After all, he said, it takes time to turn round an oil tanker. But nine years in, I would have hoped for a better understanding of the balance that needs to be struck between the proper priority to be given to the education needs of young people, and the legitimate call adults can make on public support for their learning needs – for work and for the richness and complexity of life outside it. So, although NIACE has suggested there are a number of things to applaud in the White Paper, it is, we think, a missed opportunity to address the changing demography we can look forward to over the next decade, and we regret that there is little in the paper to consider the real challenges we face in paying for a system capable of the sustained improvement of the skills, knowledge, understanding, capacity and creativity of the UK’s population. And whilst White Papers arrive now more or less annually, there is little prospect that the challenge will be picked up in the next one, unless we can persuade Government that employers need more than warm words of encouragement to invest more in education and training. That is the reason NIACE has decided to commit its campaigning energy to that debate. The questions we believe need to be asked are:
 | If courses for adults are funded from the public purse, from learners’ own pockets and from employers, how should the mix vary according to subject, level and place? |
| Is enough being invested by each party? |
| Is the balance right? |
| Are the priorities right? |
We hope the debate can be informed by the experience of teachers and learners across the country. We want readers of Adults Learning to explore what should be on offer, at what price, and where. We hope you will raise concerns with the press locally and nationally, with governors, councillors, and MPs. We intend to focus our energy on making sure the conversation shapes the debates and celebrations of Adult Learners’ Week.
Critical to success
My hope is that we will emerge from the discussion with a sharper sense of how the system can meet the needs of groups critical to the success of the UK economy but currently marginalised by education and training priorities. Of course, young people outside education, or employment with training, are one such group. But in NIACE’s submissions to the DfES in the run up to the White Paper we identified eight more which provide a test of the capacity of our current policy mix to meet the economic challenge of securing 80 per cent labour market participation over the next 10 years, and the social challenge of making Britain a place where everyone gets a fair go, as the Australians put it. Our eight groups are:
| Part-time and temporary workers for whom time to study is an issue since it will seldom, if ever, be in the interest of employers to prioritise their skills development; |
| Those employed in businesses which are ‘cool to training’ who will not be reached by the Train to Gain initiative; |
| Workers aged 45+ who are too often neglected when it comes to training and development; |
| Migrants (especially from EU accession countries) whose potential contribution may not be recognised by employers unfamiliar with a culturally and linguistically diverse workforce with skills but not qualifications recognised in the UK; |
| Women – especially from ethnic minority communities culturally resistant to high levels of female employment outside the home; |
| People currently on welfare benefits – including those on Incapacity Benefits as a result of mental health problems; |
| Ex-offenders; |
| Adults with literacy levels at and below ‘entry level 2’. |
How does the White Paper measure up against their needs? Well, for younger adults the extension of entitlement to free courses up to level 3 is welcome. So, too, is the decision to pilot the re-introduction of learner accounts. The control failures last time round were clear, but so too was the impact of the accounts in stimulating participation. The focus on learner engagement is good. The expansion of Train to Gain might be. The commitment to personal and community development learning – what we used to call adult education – is accompanied by fee increases but also by a willingness to think afresh. Support for workforce development in the further education system is encouraging, too. The people with the greatest learning needs deserve well-trained and stimulating teachers, who feel celebrated and stimulated in their work.
There is a promise to articulate a foundation learning tier, mapping progression routes below level 2, and to find funds for it – eventually. You could see this as a measure forced on us by the slow pace of progress towards a framework for achievement. But it will be welcome if it recognises the need not just to map the routes to a level 2 in engineering, but also the routes into successful learning – and work – for ethnic minority women in East London or Bradford.
One thin paragraph recognises the challenge of an ageing workforce. There is little recognising the learning dimensions of other Government policies in health, welfare reform, civic renewal or financial literacy. There is nothing on ESOL. All in all, the paper’s strengths in recognising the achievement and potential of the further education system to meet the needs of the economy are balanced by its weaknesses in recognising the learning needs of just those groups needed to staff that economy. That is evidence of the need for a fresh look at what our policies for adults need to be. Do join us in making sure the conversation is heard.
Alan Tuckett is Director of NIACE
> View Contents page for this issue
