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Editorial, Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2001

Access and credit: when did they start?, Jonathan Brown

Recently Richard Edwards has demonstrated that the term lifelong learning is not new (Edwards, 2000). I am particularly taken by his claim to 'fabricate a mapping of lifelong learning' (p3). This set me thinking about whether such an exercise in fabrication could be undertaken with many of the other terms in our varying discourses. Could it be done for access and /or credit? Do they, too, have 'different stories' and 'differing notions' (Edwards, 2000, pp3-4) about concepts and confusions of meanings? With both access and credit some confusions of meaning are revealed by contributions to JACS. The starting point for Edwards' fabrication was the discovery of uses of the lifelong learning terminology dating back to at least the 1930s ('the ERIC database elicited 1741 references between 1932 and 1983' p3). I cannot point to the usage of the access word over such a period, but my personal reflection is that I have always known of the access concept or process as it was a part of my upbringing. My father, Thomas Lumsden Brown (1904-1992) gained his 'access' through the WEA Great Houghton Branch (Yorkshire South District) to Fircroft College where he studied in the year 1931-32. (In those days the Fircroft letterhead had the sub-heading Residential College for the Higher Education of Working Men.) It is likely that stories similar to this would reveal an interesting pre-history for access long before its invention or identification in the late 1970s.

At a much later date than the 1930s there are clear signs of an access process in quite a number of corners of our confused adult, further and community education structure. In the very early 1970s I was lucky enough to undertake some work with the then Pre-school Playgroups Association (PPA). In those days PPA was a quite remarkable organisation. It not only made a major contribution to provision for the under 5s, but to the training, education and development of its adult members. Members grew intellectually, academically and professionally in PPA. Luckily there was one astute reflective practitioner who chronicled the process as she observed it. With examples of playgroup volunteers or leaders who moved on to become teachers, health visitors, researchers, playbus organisers and FE lecturers, Maude Henderson* wrote:

I have talked to them and others...seeing where PPA has got them to in five, ten and 15 years. These random illustrations could be multiplied indefinitely. (Henderson, 1978)

Even more perceptively, in terms of the debate produced by the paper by Keynes and Syrad (2000) in the last issue of JACS, Maude wrote

Courses themselves are neutral, just journeys from one point to another. What is of interest is that students want to start and do not always know where and how fast they are going (p62).

However, the award of credit, had it then been available, might assist with both direction and speed.

With lifelong learning Edwards argues that following through the emergence of the concept, the telling of the tale, is itself a part of the learning process. So it should be for access and credit. This is a challenge to which readers may like to respond. Potential contributors may be assisted by some of the papers published in this issue. Patterson, for example, starts her article by referring to credit transfer between medieval universities. Access to both science and citizenship are discussed by Pilkington and Stuart, while Bailey looks closely at meanings in the arena of lifelong learning and social exclusion. The emergence of the Foundation Degree and its relationship to access is examined in Fowler's personal view where he argues that demand from potential clients will be one of the critical factors.

References

Edwards R (2000) 'Lifelong learning, lifelong learning, lifelong learning: a recurrent education?' in Field J and Leicester M (Eds.) Lifelong Learning: education across the lifespan, London: Routledge 4-11.

Henderson M (1978) Cogs and Spindles: some impressions of the playgroup movement, London: Pre-school Playgroup Association.

Keynes R and Syrad K (2000) 'Does credit add value to Access to HE courses?' JACS 2 (2) 192-203