Scene setting for next five years

In trying to think how the WEA should plan strategically for the next five years everyone agrees that has to be with an outward looking perspective. The crisis that peaked in our Centenary year is now five years behind us and there is a sense that we should now be confident enough to take a leading role in the debate about the value and purpose of adult learning in society.

Within post-16 education recent years have been dominated by government initiatives around the needs and demands of employers and placing skills the centre of British economic competitiveness in the face of rapid globalisation. Within this there is a genuine commitment to building the skills of individuals to help them maintain or improve their employment or employability.

However, the international financial crisis of the last 12 months has brought into question the infallibility of deregulated international banking capital and the judgement of corporate and financial institutions. Recent comments have suggested that western economies may be facing difficulties greater than at any time since the Second World War.  In this climate it might be worth considering the current view of the role of adult learning and whether we are at a point where the direction of the last thirty years may be changing.

1970s was a key decade for the environment, for the post-war economic consensus and for education. It was the time when evidence of the development of global warming and environmental degradation first became widely recognised. For example, the potential for CFCs to create a hole in the ozone layer was identified and later confirmed. It was a key period for the internationalisation of capital and the advancement of the case for monetarism and neo-liberal economics. It was the decade when many ideas raised in the late sixties moved to become legislation – particularly in industrial relations. It was also the decade where the first significant cracks in the post-war Welfare State consensus became evident and

Britain

’s informal social partnership ran out of steam.

Clearly, in the 1970s the Cold War continued to dominate international relations. In the nineties the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union brought with it an acceleration of the trends that could be seen in the 1970s – an increasing rate of exploitation of human and environmental resources within a deregulated and global system of capital. In the last thirty years Thatcher, Reagan, Bush and Blair have been able to frame an agenda and simplify it around corporate and wealthy interests because: ‘It’s the economy, stupid!’ and ‘there is no alternative’. In the

United States

, for 20 of the last 28 years, the presidency has been held by a Republican party strongly influenced by the neo-conservative agenda.

All of this, as has been shown by John Field in his book: ‘Lifelong learning and the new educational order’ , is reflected in definitions of learning. The length of the thread of thinking leading to Leitch can be seen in James Callaghan’s famous ‘Great Debate’ speech in 1976 at

Ruskin

College

:

“In today's world, higher standards are demanded than were required yesterday and there are simply fewer jobs for those without skill.”

From this we can see that priorities of the State have been developing consistently for three decades and there is a close correlation between this view of the purpose of adult learning and the period of dominance of politics and the economy by the values, interests and demands of international corporate capitalism.

However, in 2008, the credibility of these values and their proponents is under question. We can now see that we have been in an accelerating period where profits have been privatised, risk internationalised and now the losses of some are being nationalised. National governments and their tax payers are bailing out the mistakes of the very leaders in commerce and finance that were supposed to be delivering prosperity and (even) social mobility and justice.

We have seen over the last thirty years, that meeting the demands of international deregulated capital has led to dramatic reductions in social mobility, vast increases in wealth differentials and, more recently, to the removal of the security and privileges previously available to professionals and the middle class (reliable pensions, secure jobs, affordable higher education). It has also exploited the environment to the point of near collapse, especially in relation to climate change. A stateless oligarchy of individuals and companies has control of the world’s wealth and resources and still controls (through its ownership of international media and a tireless and longstanding lobbying) the perspective of many of the G7 governments.

In February 2007 (several months before the ‘credit crunch’ started on August 9^th)  

Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson wrote a review of

Britain

in the Blair years: ‘

Fantasy

Island

’. In their analysis – amongst many fantasies that had operated over recent years were two ‘master-fantasies’:

“the one that suggests we can borrow money without limit and the one that suggests that caring for the environment is entirely compatible with endless economic growth”

A year later both of these have been exploded.

In the next five years we can expect people in

Britain

and across the world to have to pay the price for these failures of leadership, the risk taking, aggrandisement and vanities of the last thirty years. A recent report proposing a Green New Deal looks to address this but emphasises the stark urgency. Within 100 months of July 2008 the balance of evidence is that climate change will move beyond the point of no return. That means the next

US

president – if they have two terms – could be in power at that point. If they don’t begin to take action with 100 days of being in office – say by 1^st May 2009 we cannot have confidence that catastrophic climate change can be avoided.

Faced with the situation where free-wheeling capital has generated hyper profits, massive risks, gigantic debt and huge pressure on the environment, what can be done? Moreover, is there anything an organization like the WEA can do?

If the last thirty years has placed skills as a key component in a deregulated and private globalised economy, the analysis in the Leitch Review must now need some revisiting. The assumption that employees and citizens should cope, let alone thrive, whilst competing in an international race to the bottom on wages or the mass acquisition of high level technical and entrepreneurial skills has been exposed. Moreover, the idea that, within this model of labour and manufacturing, demand and standards of living could continue to rise through increasing personal and national debt based on rising asset values is clearly unsustainable. People will still need to acquire, develop and renew their skills but the 2020 vision in Leitch may now be based on a view of the world that passing.

Perhaps, this is now as significant period of change as was seen in the mid seventies or just after World War II. If it is, doesn’t the WEA need to reflect and respond in the way it has through its history: in the argument for working people to have access to knowledge and learning; the fight for comprehensive educational opportunities within a democracy; the historic development of trade union and women’s studies. In 2008 where does the WEA stand in relation to the world people face and how does that relate to the current government skills strategy? In many ways the principles and issues that brought the WEA into being are still there in a modern form. Issues of equity, democracy and the importance of knowledge, ideas and skills have been a common thread along with a tradition of students and tutors co-producing learning by bringing together their expertise and experience around education with a genuine liberal and progressive perspective.

If the principles, approaches and efforts of the WEA can develop and provide education that can change people’s lives how can we now use adult education to help people:

 

• Cope with work and improve their experience of work
• Cope with worklessness
• Cope with increasing costs, financial uncertainty
• Build confidence and self-reliance in communities and individuals
• Improve their health and well being and that of their families
• Deal with ageing and independence
• Deal with pressures and changes to family and community
• Improve their knowledge and skills and help their children learn and develop as individuals and citizens
• Recognise and cope with the issues arising from labour mobility and migration
• Feel confident to take action to improve their communities and address environmental improvements in the absence of leadership from elsewhere
• Understand issues of history, culture and identity through the humanities
• Link with others internationally addressing the same concerns
• Avoid intolerance or influences seeking to divide people or create scapegoats for the failures of the government and corporate leadership
• Speak for themselves and their communities and act to improve things

The list can go on but, in its essence, what can the WEA do to help build positive self-reliance and the use of independent learning to understand and improve society, address issues in climate change and globalisation?

Looking at our organisation’s history and the current issues facing the world, is it too dramatic to say the WEA believes:

• You can’t leave things up to leaders – whether politicians or in the corporate world
• Communities and individuals need to be resourceful to care for themselves and each other
• We can’t wait for business or government to improve issues of environment, economy or equality
• We can use education to help people cope with work, worklessness and the fragmenting and individualising outcomes of modern international capitalism

There must be more to the WEA than just survival and there must be more to education than the Leitch report was able to express. We can’t do what we do without government funding but, if we don’t move strategically now to find a role in the world that people face, what would be the point of the WEA?