WEA Education Blog

The return of adult education?

The government's consultation on informal learning gives us, at last, a chance to talk about an enormous amount of adult learning without having to justify it in terms of qualifications or the nation's ability to fend of competition from the Far East. Strangely, it comes at a time when Further Education - FE - is becoming more determined to be seen as a single purpose system to boost skills for employment. The huge range of activities undertaken by FE colleges since they were incorporated are rapidly being trimmed and aligned with the skills messages of Leitch and Foster. Little talk of knowledge here, let alone education.

Within this there are many excellent FE colleges and it is right that their work should have the reputation it deserves. It often seems that they are only seen as Cinderella's by journalists and civil servants who sped from privileged schools to privileged universities honing their networking and opinion forming skills on the way.

So, is it one system? All the messages are that it is - and yet, with the Informal Learning review, are we seeing the re-emergence of the pre-1992 separation of Further Education from Adult Education?

Does that give us hope? It does seem we need some hope. The number of older learners clearly alienated by the government's education priorities is growing and quite vociferous. The percentage of adults over 65 studying with the WEA hasn't dropped - and yet the sense of education opportunities disappearing for older people continues. Less vociferous are people of working age who want to learn something unrelated to their employer's bottom line.

Perhaps the consultation will be an opportunity to reaffirm the value of adult education? There are some who see the document as an argument that watching TV or checking out a family history site is, in itself, the future of informal adult learning. The case for face-to-face social learning as an important part of civil society needs to be made.

Informal Adult Learning - Shaping The Way Ahead

The Government has just announced its consultation on the future of 'Informal Adult Learning'. It is on the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) website and you can reach it by clicking here

There will, no doubt, be a WEA response to the consultation and I will put more news here when I have it.

Democracy in education?

How about this as a statement to think about in the current 'demand-led' procurement round for contracts with the LSC?

"Instead of wave after wave of reform, bouncing from concerns about equity to diversity and back again, the people who experience the paradox - the tutors and students - should be directly engaged in deciding the shifting relationship between how much equity and how much diversity. They must live and manage the paradox. This is the argument for democratisation of adult learning and other crucial public services.

Democracy has two distinct benefits. On instrumental grounds, opening up the design of services to staff and users would transform the productivity and efficiency of adult learning. It is the people at the sharp end of providing and receiving education who know best how to deliver it and what they want. Reform then becomes organic and truly adaptable, and not forced through a rigid machine or unjust markets.

There is an equally important intrinsic benefit of democracy. Through our collective voice, we demonstrate the common ownership of education as a site of social citizenship, which we value not just because it makes us well, but because it makes us more equal and puts us in control of our world. Democracy is the means and ends of the good society."

Actually, this extract from a 'New Statesman' article is about the NHS. I just replaced some words (in green)! You can see the full article here.

Education all 'Leitched' out?

I would recommend two short articles to you which I think address issues raised by staff, tutors and volunteers in the WEA over 2007 - the loss of the word "education" from the scene in government department titles and communications and the strange meaning  of 'demand-led' in the new plans for adult learning.

Both articles are from NIACE's 'Adults Learning' monthly journal and are linked to this blog with their permission. The first, by Alison Wolf, Download al_oct_issue_pg_2225.pdf is an acute critique of the language, meaning and implementation of Leitch. The second, by Allen Parrott Download al_nov_issue_pg_2427.pdf , covers similar issues but looks at the loss of mainstream adult education and lists what has been lost:

• All students regarded as equal – to each other and the teacher;
• Rich and poor learners in the same classes – social cohesion;
• Second chances of all sorts, offered to people regarded as school ‘failures’;
• Physical and mental health of students and the population enhanced;
• An escape from the drudgery and predictability of everyday life;
• Safe evening activities, especially for women and single people;
• ‘Non-affiliated’ activities without any pressure placed on non-joiners;
• Social and convivial meeting places, as well as venues for learning;
• Intrinsic worth of subjects, entering one of the ‘conversations of humanity’;
• Intellectual risk-taking, leading to new ways of thinking and acting;
• Outlet and opportunity for developing creativity and imagination;
• Confidence building and personal development of all kinds;
• Opportunities to deepen political understanding and to ask ‘why’ questions;
• Facilitating participation in local organisations and/or in local issues.

Something to campaign for in the New Year?

Happy Christmas!

Personalised public services

A couple of cabinet jobs ago, David Miliband spoke often of the need for 'double devolution' as the next stage in the development of public services. This is now recast as 'personalised' public services and is a theme in several new government initiatives.

An article in the current New Statesman (click to read) says:

"The new Labour guru Charles Leadbeater talks about "Public Services 2.0", echoing Web 2.0, where user-generated content - MySpace, Wikipedia, Second Life and so on - is all the rage. "For the past decade," writes Leadbeater (www.charlesleadbeater.net), "most of the debate about public service reform has focused on . . . making the public sector value chain work more efficiently to resemble private service delivery. But you cannot deliver complex public goods the way that Fed Ex delivers a parcel."

So people should no longer be treated as consumers or users, but as participants."

How does adult learning fit into this? On the face of it, 'demand led' provision should be thoroughly personalised. In reality it seems largely about contracting and procurement. However, leaving aside the metaphors of new technology, isn't this just what the WEA has tried to do for decades? A social network just waiting for the web?