WEA Education Blog

Independent working class education during the Global Financial Crisis?

With the passing of New Labour and the recession, government through ‘big (rubber) levers of power’ has largely been discredited. Years before David Cameron launched the ‘Big Society’ and the localism agenda, David Miliband had talked about ‘double devolution’ of decision making down beyond the local authority level. Now, in FE this is presented as new freedoms to be responsive to communities – apparently quite a change from the certainties of the Leitch Report (written by a former banker).

Has this ended years of confusion in FE between needs and interests of adults with needs and interests of regulators? BIS and the Skills Funding Agency actually talk about ‘freedoms with results’ and rapid contract interventions if ‘results’ aren’t there. This has its parallel in the payment by results of the Work Programme. Leaving aside the contradictions in this I think the Prime Minister’s interest in the Big Society is genuine. Few are arguing the old Blair/Brown ‘we know best’ approach any more – even if they think they do.

Internationally, there’s currently a massive globalised expectation on (and demand from?) working people to get skills through qualifications, at both technical (FE) and HE level. 75% of New York subway ads are about training and qualifications; buses and billboards in Kowloon are the same. Some employers value skills - in Swindon, Honda preferred to retain staff in 2008-09 rather than make redundancies because of the training they’d invested in them.  John Field has argued for years that lifelong learning is no longer something cosy or worthy but an imperative on workers in globalised capitalism.

Across Britain, the USA and elsewhere, middle level jobs are being rapidly stripped away leaving a thinner middle class (in pay/benefits terms) sandwiched between a  largely insecure working class and the rich ‘overclass’. This is accelerating as the ‘insurance’ provided by the welfare state is hit by austerity. In Cleveland, Ohio this month over 70,000 people dropped out of welfare payments onto food stamps after three years out of work. A high proportion of them were home owners in the suburbs.

In the face of the ongoing Global Financial Crisis (GFC), you’d think there would be an upsurge in workers’ educational activity in this country. However, after four years of recession and financial crisis there is little of the activity that was seen arising in the WEA even during the early 1980s, let alone in the earlier part of the last century. In reality the capacity and institutional infrastructure that supported birth of WEA has gone. The conditions in which the WEA grew included:

• Labour movement connected to localities
• Lively and active local political party branches
• Churches with a reform agenda
• Cooperative societies
• Confident, councillor led, local authorities
• Individual teachers in universities looking outward and into local communities

The loss of the above has led to a much reduced sense of active democracy. Today, networks of individuals acting locally have often been replaced by networks of professionals working within central government initiatives, looking for bids, drafting ‘deliverables’, totting up ‘beneficiaries’.

This loss of an infrastructure of local democratic institutions with their expectations, committee culture and decision making has been said to have individualised working class people into either aspiring or ‘lumpen’ behaviours/cultures. But these are longstanding trends (at least since 1976 economic/political watershed) and now sit in context of the GFC. This crisis likely to lead to despair and social unrest within which new organisations (reactionary or radical) emerge.

In terms of adult education we’ve seen the limits of a government led professionalisation agenda (and its successor – government endorsed, professional ‘self-regulation’) and yet we all know that one of the most critical elements in successful adult education is great teaching by tutors who are engaged with and understand their students and their communities.

In the historic independent working class education model (however true in reality), great teaching engages with communities and their organisations, learns from all participants, attends to their interests rather than ‘banking’ information or knowledge (however radical) with them. This was centre of Freire’s approach.

The GFC has thrown up new debates and arguments. These have been rapidly spread around the world through the Occupy movement and slogans like ‘we are the 99%’. Within that, the publication of research around the consequences of income inequality in ‘The Spirit Level’ has been significant in concisely capturing the essence of inequality whilst supporting the argument with researched evidence. There has been a remarkable response to it in public debate and from the three main political parties in England. Incidentally, the Tea Party movement in the USA seems to correlate the same issues and reach exactly the opposite conclusion: i.e. income inequality is due to individuals not getting educated, eating badly, committing crimes, getting pregnant too soon, not moving to get work, etc.  Of course, they don’t make the comparisons with other developed countries that makes the Spirit Level presentations so simple/effective.

However, the Spirit Level audience is probably a professional one, concerned at the impact of the GFC (on them as well as society). The Spirit Level premise is simple: Income Inequality leads to many social ills, but it’s one that most working class people across the world probably know already – things are unfair and the ruling class isn’t necessarily on your side. In Telford in the early 1980s unemployment reached 20%. The Trades Council called a public meeting which was well attended. The Trades Council Chair (a TU lecturer) introduced the meeting by reading from The Sunday Times an article about unemployment in the Midlands. After a few moments he was heckled by people saying they knew all that but what should be done?

2011 seems to have marked a turn in people’s reaction to the GFC. Disillusion with politicians (as well as the collapsed reputation of banking, journalism and the metropolitan police) is repeated in countries across the world. In that sense, 2011 may be like 1968, 1945, 1919. Within the Arts, some argued that the impact of 1968 didn’t appear until 1974/5. Could there be new structures and ideas emerging now. The Occupy protests put education workshops and debates high on the activities organised to pass time in the encampments.

Adult education and its organisations still need to immerse themselves in working class communities – to see what people think, build a continuing relationship and a changing programme that reflects the issues arising from the relationship. That doesn’t exclude working with state agencies and others in authority but it does require close working with working class communities to understand them and develop the case for sustained work and resources from an authentic point of view. This is a challenge when you need to win contracts, make bids, etc. but it is fundamental to an organisation’s reputation in those communities and that builds its reputation above them at local, regional and national level.

The task for an independent adult education is the same as always. To be successful, its work and behaviour needs to be respected by the community, be on their side, in an open and democratic way – not a subcontractor for the state.

England is very different than 100 years ago. It’s not the GFC that is the biggest challenge to independent working class adult education; it’s the disappearance of local networked infrastructure and decision making in which it can flourish. Can new structures develop in a different networked world?

 

Teaching, Learning & Assessment + Leadership, Management & Governance

At last week's LSIS Strategy Day the Council and Board heard from Sue Pember (BIS), Geoff Russell (soon to retired CEO of Skills Funding Agency) and Lorna Fitzjohn (Ofsted). There was a lot their short presentation had in common and I'd sum it up as 'Freedom with results - with speedy intervention if no results'. The FE sector is being given more freedom but interventions around concerns will quickly lead to notice of withdrawal of funding.

The meeting came shortly after the renewed 'satisfactory is not satisfactory' debate as Michael Wilshaw proposes 'Improvement Required' as its replacement. Lorna Fitzjohn drew out some points from the 2011 Chief Inspector's report. In particular the number of serially 'satisfactory' providers. The new expression may be intended to get governing bodies to act. She reported that 'satisfactory providers' often have very poor action planning, ill-informed governance, principals who don't know enough about learners. Again she urged self critical self assessment designed for the provider, showing they know their own work and are taking improvement actions.

There were no inspections in the year reported where teaching and learning was outstanding and this was critical to why so few providers were outstanding overall. Sue Pember had also commented on governance saying: "The new role of governance is crucial. We need governors who can really govern and manage performance of institutions." 

Effectively, between them, the emphasis could be summed up as Teaching, Learning & Assessment (TL&A) combined with Leadership, Management & Governance (LM&G) - all within the 'new freedoms'. 

It's a big turn around from the last 10-15 years of complaince and centralised planning. They seemed to be asking whether providers were ready. Lorna said that in 'satisfactory' providers, when compared to School Heads, FE leaders are 'managerial pre-occupied - not thinking enough about teaching and learners'. 

Lorna's presentation is available here:  Download Presentation - OFSTED

10:10 annual update shows people are still getting on with carbon reduction

The 10:10 annual update (instead of an annual report) shows that, even after two years, there is momentum in the idea of making efforts around percentage reductions in CO₂


You can read their update here - very enjoyable and full of simple ideas. We need to get this back up the agenda in the WEA after a pretty good effort in 2010.

Framework for Excellence 'lives' on with 'Innivation' innit!

FE Providers around the country got an early Christmas present today as their results from 'learner views survey' of the Framework for Excellence (FFE) were put into the provider gateway for them to check before publication. Once out, learners will again be able to compare 'data' before chosing where to study. I'm not absolutely certain that learners across the country will have been holding their breath for the outcome of this year's survey and we'll all have to hold it a bit longer for the outcome of the massive telephone survey of learner destinations

Many providers will have been expecting this to be the last round of the dismal, costly and meaningless FFE with the publication of 'New Challenges, New Chances'. However, it seems like BIS (which the communication renames the department of 'Business, Innivation and Skills') intends to respond to years of criticism of the Framework for Excellence by renaming it the 'FE Public Information framework' so it perhaps it will live on in a zombie format.

Still, in these hard times, maybe its a good thing that social research consultancies continue to get Government business through make-work schemes like these. A new equivalent to the Keynesian approach of digging holes and filling them back in to keep the economy going?

On the other hand, perhaps it was all just an A level stats project that got a bit out of hand.

WEA goals for membership, volunteering and marketing

New WEA Interim Strategy for Membership, Volunteering & Marketing was approved this week. It was the outcome of work across the autumn with colleagues around the WEA. The Strategy has the usual three year goals and one year action schedule. Essentially, we want to: develop and engage more with our members across the country; clarify and build voluntary activity; ensure WEA governance is effective and democratic; build more systematic campaigns and alliances; improve promotion and marketing so more people get involved in the WEA; improve fundraising to support our work and improve communication across the Association.

 Should set me up for the next year's work after 12 months of change in the Association.

 

Ofsted and Adult Community Learning - challenging and fun?

Ofsted's Annual Report has some key messages on Adult Community Learning. Holex has identified these: 

 - that over 75% of the ACL providers inspected during 2010/11 were found to be good or outstanding (compared with 55% across the learning and skills sector as a whole) 

 - that, notwithstanding this, there is no room for complacency (more could be done, eg on progression monitoring, and in "sharpening" self-assessment)

 - that teaching and assessment (which will be even more important under the proposed revisions to inspection from September 2012) still lacks "sparkle" - over 30% of ACL providers were found to be Grade 3/4 in this element, and none were outstanding.     

 The full report can be found here.

I thought the points on quality of provision were the most interesting about ACL:

• The quality of provision was predominantly good.
• However, the quality of teaching, training and assessment, which forms a key component of the judgement on the quality of provision, was less positively judged, with 13 of the 45 providers judged satisfactory and one inadequate.
• As was the case last year, no provider was judged to have outstanding teaching overall; nevertheless teaching was judged outstanding in 10% of lessons observed.
• In those lessons where teaching was outstanding, tutors were highly skilled at providing examples and breaking down complex technical processes for learners; tutors’ enthusiasm was inspiring.
• The most successfully taught subject areas inspected this year were arts, media and publishing and preparation for life and work.
• In these sessions, tutors posed challenging questions, thoroughly checked learners’ understanding and made learning fun. They enlivened sessions by their skilful use of technology and provided excellent examples, explanations and demonstrations.

I guess it would be hard to disagree with an emphasis encouraging outstanding teaching which is both challenging and fun. Years ago one of my kids said 'fun' was a word you can't completely trust, citing 'Fun with Maths' and 'fun-sized Mars bars' - but nice to see it in an Ofsted report, nevertheless.

Community Learning in BIS 'New Challenges, New Chances'

Just read the HOLEX extract from in the BIS New Challenges New Chances Reform Plan published today: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/further-education-skills/docs/f/11-1380-further-education-skills-system-reform-plan.pdf

Here's the bits on Informal Adult & Community Learning:

 Community Learning

BIS funding will continue to support a universal a community learning offer, with a wide range of learning opportunities available to all adults in England.

The consultation endorsed a new, clearer commitment to using the public funding subsidy to support access, and progression in its widest sense, for people who are disadvantaged and who are furthest from learning and therefore least likely to participate. In the 2012/13 academic year we will pilot different locally-based ‘community learning trust’ models to channel Adult Safeguarded Learning funding and lead the planning of local provision in cities, towns and rural settings. If this proves to be an effective model we will roll out community learning trusts across England to begin full operation from summer 2013. The new trusts will take account of the views of local government, local communities and local business leaders to ensure the purpose and objectives for the budget are implemented in ways that meet local need. A prospectus will be launched in the spring 2012.

 

PAGE 14:

 Purpose of Government Supported Community Learning:

· Maximise access to community learning for adults, bringing new opportunities and improving lives, whatever people’s circumstances.
· Promote social renewal by bringing local communities together to experience the joy of learning and the pride that comes with achievement.
· Maximise the impact of community learning on the social and economic well-being of individuals, families and communities.

Objectives

 - Focus public funding on people who are disadvantaged and least likely to participate, including in rural areas and people on low incomes with low skills

 - Collect fee income from people who can afford to pay and use where possible to extend provision to those who cannot.

- Widen participation and transform people’s destinies by supporting progression relevant to personal circumstances, e.g.

    - improved confidence and willingness to engage in learning  - acquisition of skills preparing people for training, employment or self-employment
    - improved digital, financial literacy and/or communication skills
    - parents/carers better equipped to support and encourage their children’s learning 
    - improved/maintained health and/or social well-being.

- Develop stronger communities, with more self-sufficient, connected and pro-active citizens, leading to:

    - increased volunteering, civic engagement and social integration

    - reduced costs on welfare, health and anti-social behaviour

    - increased online learning and self organised learning

    - the lives of our most troubled families being turned around 

 - Commission, deliver and support learning in ways that contribute directly to these objectives, including:

    -  bringing together people from backgrounds, cultures and income groups, including people who can/cannot afford to pay
    - using effective local partnerships to bring together key providers and relevant local agencies and services
    - devolving planning and accountability to neighbourhood/parish level, with local people involved in decisions about the learning offer
    - involving volunteers and Voluntary and Community Sector groups, shifting long term, ‘blocked’ classes into learning clubs, growing self-organised learning groups, and encouraging employers to support informal learning in the workplace
- supporting the wide use of online information and learning resources
- minimising overheads, bureaucracy & administration

 

WEA Annual General Meetings - just “keeping in touch”

I’m writing this on my way home from the WEA East Midlands AGM. That was my fourth AGM in a month and, again, an enjoyable and thought provoking day. I’ve been to Eastern, North East and North West as well on my journeys but had to miss another six which clashed.

Overall, it’s really striking how different the character of each region is – and yet how much in common they have about the purpose and value of the WEA. Inevitably, there were questions in different places about how decisions are made on minimum class size, concessionary fees, the complexity of procedures and paperwork, the need to improve publicity and find new tutors. I think these issues may always have been raised in WEA AGMs but I’ve met almost 240 people in the last four weeks who are prepared to come to a Saturday meeting because they want the Association to succeed – and I’ve learnt a lot.

Today’s meeting included a talk  by Cynthia Brown ‘Paths laid with ruin – drugs and the Victorians’ -  mostly around opium and arsenic it covered social policy, poverty, literature and the enterprising approach the British had to selling opium into China and the wars they started when the Chinese resisted this trade.

My presentation to each AGM has evolved as I’ve gone round. Today, I concentrated more on volunteering and membership but, inevitably, after this year the issue of how to improve communication across the WEA was one of the main themes. In one region someone said ‘it’s not change that’s the issue, it’s the communication. It’s got to really be two way’.

People agree the need for clarity around membership and volunteering. It’s almost as if a conversation started ages ago but never got past the initial exchanges. The potential as well as the problems were discussed in every AGM I went to. In the discussions there were plenty of ideas: find out more about our members - their skills and interests; be clear about their roles; leave room for creativity; acknowledge and thank volunteers for their work; keep a campaigning edge – the WEA is a movement for social change; give them as much of a break as possible on admin and compliance issues; find ways for new people to be involved in shaping things.

There were concerns about how much is asked of members and volunteers. Equally, I think people agreed that with 54,000 members, engaging and making even 1% of them into new WEA activists would be a massive additional resource to the Association.

There are questions around what the benefits are to members and we do need to be clear about this. On volunteering one longstanding member in East Midlands, Ivor Moon, asked me if I thought that the greatest benefit of volunteering is in doing it. What could I say but yes?

In Nottingham, the discussion and reports before I spoke touched on issues around new volunteers, local decision making, social purpose education, digital inclusion, campaigning and community leadership. In some respects, whilst localism, challenging authority, voluntary activity and addressing inequality are current issues in the news - they’re new but old in the WEA.

I know there are lots of doubts about the potential of social media – particularly with older people. My mother, who is just 80, told me that she wasn’t really any good with computers – all she could use was Skype and Facebook. I said I thought that was pretty good but she then said they didn’t count because they were just for ‘keeping in touch’ with grandchildren and family. She’s right, it’s the C in ICT that is developing so quickly – ‘Communication’.

Despite my lengthy new job title, it’s communication that’s becoming the key issue for me. Within the WEA that's a challenge I expect will be absorbing and fascinating.

 

Democracy and discussion in the WEA

I've just got home from attending and speaking at WEA North West Region's AGM in Manchester. That's my third regional AGM in three weeks since WEA Conference. One more to go next week in Nottingham before reporting to Association Committee.

Another enjoyable day with very welcoming colleagues. This was combined with some excellent discussions and presentations. A really inspirational TRIP project linking the WEA in Accrington and Bury with Uganda was fascinating. It is really striking how far NW has gone in trying to integrate WEA values and curriculum principles throughout its provision. They'd be first to say more to do but it's great to meet new staff so keen to apply these ideas in their work.

Once again I was asking views on the development of of Membership, Volunteering and Marketing in the WEA and, once again, points were made that really helped - and I probably should have thought of myself. There's no doubt that the WEA is going through a bit of a resurgence in its own democracy and debate. All three AGMs have had a positive atmosphere combined with a determination around social purpose education, the importance of our work being shaped from the ground up and a desire to build communication, up and down the organisation and laterally. 

I've been adding ideas to the draft strategy as I go along and there were several more today. For example, I was asked why the WEA doesn't appear in a Google search against qualifications we offer when we often have lower fees than other providers. Not the usual 'distinctiveness of WEA provision' point but a really sensible question on how we place ourselves in a market and help adult learners find us.

Because several WEA regions have AGMs on the same Saturdays in November, there are five I've missed in England as well as Scotland. I hope I'll be able to find ways to meet these other colleagues in the New Year.

What next for the WEA - asks Henry Tam

Henry Tam's asks: What next for the WEA? http://henry-tam.blogspot.com/2011/11/what-next-for-wea.html
His blog - 'Question the Powerful' is a collection of short essays on politics and society. To build inclusive communities, we should question ideas and practices which give rise to power inequalities.