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Commentary - December 2006

What about the wider benefits?

Leitch maps an exciting future agenda for adult learning for work – all we need now is a parallel report on learning for life outside work, says ALAN TUCKETT

The wait for Leitch sometimes felt like waiting for Godot, but it has, on balance, been worth it. The scale of Leitch’s ambitions for change is dramatic. Now we will need to wait to see how many of his recommendations will be backed by public funding. Since a stream of announcements about what the Government plans for schools will also make demands on tight public finances, we shall all have to push hard for a positive outcome to next year’s Comprehensive Spending Review.

Leitch’s analysis is surely right, that in changing economic circumstances strengthening the skills of the workforce makes sense, that there is an equally powerful case for investing in low-, medium- and high-level skills, but that public investment should be concentrated on the least skilled. The report has practical and sensible things to say about ending the tug of war between public service agreements in the departments of Work and Pensions and Education and Skills that left unemployed people and benefit claimants caught in the middle. With luck, the proposal that the two departments should share a target to secure sustainable employment and progression should herald the end of the invidious 16-hour rule.

He is right, too, to recommend challenging targets, and perhaps the best thing for adult learners in the Pre-Budget Report was the Chancellor’s acceptance of these targets. They cannot be met without major new investment in adult learning. Leitch asked for 95 per cent of adults to have literacy and numeracy skills by 2020, expanded level 2 and level 3 provision, and says higher education targets need to be for adults of all ages. Whether demography or age discrimination were the levers behind that recommendation is less important than the clear signal that education and training in Britain must focus on adults of all ages, as well as on young people.

The report gives employers a key role in shaping the qualifications system, through re-licensed sector skills councils (SSCs) and funds for vocational education being demand-driven by employers – through an expanded Train to Gain – and through individual learner accounts.

I have three concerns with these proposals. First, there has been a litany of employer-led initiatives before, and the history to date of SSCs suggests their performance is patchy. Perhaps the prospect of the 2010 review, and the risk of legislation to secure an entitlement to workplace training, will make a difference this time. Meanwhile, if that prospect is to have any effect, the Government will need to set a clear threshold for employers to achieve in the next three years.

Second, Leitch uses qualifications as the measure of skills gain. Yet workplace research shows that employers and employees alike value highly informal learning at work, and generic skills like teamwork and problem-solving aren’t simply learned through a formal vocational curriculum.

Third, the proposal assumes that individuals are able to make informed choices. To support that idea a universal careers service for adults, which takes responsibility for allocating learner-support funding will help many, especially since Leitch proposes that it is backed with an outreach service. And people on benefit will have structured support with basic skills. But for many adults the route back to learning is a complex one, and I can’t quite see where the space will be for them to shape their own learning journeys.

We agree with Leitch that there is a need to secure a change in the culture to make learning everyone’s expectation at work. But cultural change has to start from where people are. Learning journeys have to make sense to the learners embarking on them, as well as to their potential employers.

The interim Leitch report was powerful on the demographic challenge facing the country, and whilst the final report confirms the analysis, there is surprisingly little follow-through into the practical proposals. What are the skills challenges facing older workers? Why is the report so silent on migrant workers and the ESOL needs of the country? How will people currently a long way from the labour market have the space to catch confidence, change direction, and be supported where they need to be? It is altogether less alive to difference, of learner groups, sectoral or regional needs, than we might have hoped.

At the first discussion on Leitch at NIACE’s policy committee, the suggestion was made that we might campaign to have the remit of the community learning safeguard extended to include ‘first steps’ provision – re-integrating what used to be called ‘adult education’, wherever it might be offered. The risk otherwise is that a whole strand of adult learning opportunities – related to work and to the wider world – will be lost, almost accidentally.

Altogether, though, Leitch maps an exciting future agenda for adult learning for work. Now all we need is a parallel report on learning for life outside work – for our roles as parents, citizens, friends and companions.

Alan Tuckett is Director of NIACE

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