WEA Education Blog

Differentiation and 'firstness'. Nothing new there.

At the moment we hear a lot about differentiation and 'firstness' in education policy. In some ways 'firstness' is just a new word for widening participation - although one which may well be used to ration access to funding for education for adults.

However, these two quotes from RH Tawney indicate that the WEA has considered these issues important for a very long time.

In 1931 Tawney said:
"Equality of provision is not identity of provision. It is to be achieved not by treating different needs in the same way, but by devoting equal care to ensuring they are met in the different ways most appropriate to them"

In terms of reaching out to disadvantaged adults he said:

"Our business is not to organise classes for those whom, in the circumstances of today, it may, for one reason or another, be easiest to attract. It is to create a demand for education in individuals and bodies who at the moment may be unconscious of its importance to them but who, if a tolerable society is to be created, must be won to believe it".

Does the WEA do that in 2008? I think it does. John Bolt, the architect of the new LSC funding methodology this week explained that  one part of the LSC's 'demand led ' calculator looks at the level of provision for adults living in the most disdvantaged neighbourhoods in England (the Index of Multiple Deprivation). It shows the WEA as working with adults from those areas to a far greater degree than the FE average across England and this is reflected in our new FE Provider Factor.

We know who picks the 'low hanging fruit' and it isn't the WEA!

What's a SAIP?

I'm back at home tonight after completing this term's round of SAIPs across the country. We set up Self Assessment & Improvement Panels a couple of years ago. Each term, three WEA regions in the north, centre and south of England meet with me to review progress with improvement actions, identify issues and share approaches to priority areas of work. The meetings involve the regional directors and the regional nominees in each case and me.
It's always a pretty tiring trip around the country but it is really valuable to me in finding out what's working and what's not, trying out ideas and hearing about problems (some of which I've created!).
It's good to have a smallish meeting of seven and, with the development of WEAMIS reporting, we can use data to explore the evidence behind some of the issues or raise questions that might be harder to find otherwise. In today's meeting in Leeds we were joined by two regional committee officers as observers.
Each round is based on an agenda set by the Education Board and each round is summarised as an in-year review report to AMT.
This week's visits (on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in London, Birmingham and Leeds) have been very encouraging. I really liked one comment that the data we use now 'takes us where it hurts'. I was also fascinated by the range of ways regions are using the Educational Strands with colleagues to develop curriculum planning within their local and regional circumstances.
Of course, inevitably some of the discussion turned to the imminent visit of colleagues from Ofsted. I was delighted with the way adjacent regions are working together to manage another very complex inspection - and their insistence that I should relax. As if!
Nevertheless, whilst they may not quite fit the QIA vision of peer review (and how hard has it been for the WEA to get into those in the FE landscape of diverse providers and consultants!), I think there's a lot to be proud about the way these  termly meetings have driven self assessment and improvement in the WEA and I thank the colleagues involved this week for their hospitality.

Ofsted visit to WEA in March

With the imminent visit of Ofsted to the WEA in England, I thought it would be worth summarising what is different to what we were used to with the former Adult Learning Inspectorate.

In many respects inspection is the same. It will focus on teaching and learning - especially learning. It will look for evidence from observations, interviews (with students, tutors, staff, partners and volunteers), reports and data. It will be rigorous and ask 'so what?' questions - i.e. 'so what difference does that make for the learner?' The inspectors all have a background in Adult Community Learning (although one interesting area is how that links to Personal & Community Development Learning).

On the whole they won't know the WEA and we'll need to briefly ensure they understand our educational strands and the role of partners, students and volunteers in planning and organising provision they see and in the governance and shaping of the WEA's direction.

Ofsted will grade the WEA in broadly the same way: 1-4 (outstanding to inadequate). It will look for evidence of improvement.

The inspections are smaller. In 2004 we had 45 inspectors for three weeks (675 Inspector days) and the reinspection in 2005 was around 170. This inspection will be for one week with around 80 inspector days looking at Humanities, Arts, Skills for Life, Health, community learning and our community involvement work.

To make judgements with fewer inspectors means the Ofsted team will look for evidence that our own systems are leading to improvements: the Observation of Teaching and Learning, the success rates on accredited courses, the support to learners and the reliability of our own self-assessment process.

Of course, we want to show the WEA as it is and what its distinctive role is locally, regionally and across the country.

It's a very complex inspection process when compared to colleges, local authorities and workplace learning providers. To help with this our longstanding system of nominees in every WEA region is coordinating this process with regional and national colleagues and this network has been vital to improving the work of the WEA over the last four years and is a really supportive and effective peer network - the kind of thing the QIA now advocates as part of 'self-regulation'.

The stakes are high. Ofsted inspection outcomes are a key element in future funding and the 'Framework for Excellence'. I'm confident that our assessment of our own progress is fair. I'm the nominee nationally for the inspection and have been working with the Lead Inspector, Richard Moore, in preparing for the visit. Richard produced a short  powerpoint summary of this for the Preparation meeting and I attach that here:
Download powerpoint_presentation.ppt

The case for cultural studies

The issue of cultural studies is beginning to re-emerge as people examine the space that surrounds the tight definitions of the skills strategy. Below is  a quote from the playwright, Lee Hall, that addresses this issue and reminds us that an understanding of culture, supported by education is not a marginal issue of leisure and recreation or something of importance only to an elite. Access to culture is a right and one that was won in much the same way as access to the Peak District was. Maximising access to serious cultural experiences is a sign of a tolerant and democratic society. We know that from the history of the alternatives.

"I believe a democracy can only work properly, and indeed a culture can only be deemed rich at all if it does not exclude people from it. Understanding the arts, history, the workings of our culture, including creative contributions for it are essential to the common good. To try and quantify these things on any economic grounds is clearly preposterous but it is clear how much “culture” contributes to our economy, but the point of education has never simply been the acquiring of skills. To know and understand the world around us is what makes us human and civilised. As a society it is what makes tolerant and able to grow. The right to an education, to access to the arts, to cultivating oneself beyond the immediate requirements for survival or the most basic diversions from this hard work, were won as a result of enormous struggle. It really wasn't long ago that the majority of people were excluded from any access to culture or education at all.

It seems crucially important at a time when the cultural education of everyone is vital for our economic development, let alone the need to stem the crassness of a globalised culture whose dissemination is in fewer and fewer hands, that we preserve and indeed extend this privilege to more and more people. The thought of restricting what people learn to immediately expedient skill sets simply misses what is valuable about this education both for the individual and the economy as a whole. Speaking as someone who creates work for hundreds of people by simply writing, and therefore relies on these people to be culturally educated, I know how important it is to allow people to learn and have a cultural knowledge beyond what obviously seems necessary skill for employment.

Without and understanding of the past and of a culture other than trite entertainment we can never aspire to something better. We will all be drones. The WEA is vital and unique in providing a place where people can extend themselves as well as extending the culture at the same time. We are all poorer for a culture where knowledge, education and creativity are reserved for only those that can afford it.

Lee Hall, writer and creator of 'Billy Eliot'

Biographical details

The WEA Tutor Network

Since early November we have been communicating with a number of tutors in the WEA to examine the possibility of creating a 'tutor network' for the Association. The WEA has over 2500 tutors contracted each year to deliver it's work across England. What do they think of the organisation and their role within it? We have met a small number of tutors, been in e-mail contact with a larger number and have commissioned a small survey from the University of the West of England to help us explore the issues for tutors and the possibilities offered by new media - such as this blog.
There are a number of common themes that have emerged. Tutors value their independence and the possibility of working creatively with adult students. They are strongly committed to the ethos and purpose of the WEA. They are concerned that the Association's distinctive work is being eroded by the demands of state regulation - and they think the paperwork is more demanding than is required of them when teaching for other providers.
You can read the University of West of England report here

The tutor network is open to all WEA tutors. You can listen to some brief clips of what some tutors I've met in this process say about the WEA here:

Palorine
Karen
Treeza
Siddique

Yorkshire Humber on YouTube

WEA staff and volunteers in Yorkshire Humber have been working together to develop their work on the WEA's Educational Strands. Some of these are now available on YouTube and you can click here to see homelessness in Doncaster as an example of Community Involvement education. There is another clip promoting Community Involvement work here .
Regional Director, Ann Walker said: "One element of our work was to have an attempt at using different media to explain the characteristics of the strands so that branches, staff and others could have the information in alternative formats."

Using the WEA's Educational Strands to plan and shape our work is the next stage in their development. A reminder of what they're about:

•  Second Chance to Learn: this is about adults with ‘few if any educational qualifications’ and helping them gain nationally recognised qualifications. Thus it will range from ‘first steps’ to – potentially – an Access to Higher Education Certificate.

•  Community Involvement: this is about helping adults achieve a wider range of outcomes through purposeful education. These include improved health and well-being, better communication skills in situations like signing and lip reading, extending volunteering in schools, activism in unions and other roles and the capacity to take part in community activity etc. Again there is an emphasis on disadvantaged students but using a wider definition that includes health, social, economic and other factors.

•  Cultural Studies: this strand is designed to attract all adults with a ‘love of learning’ who want to develop an understanding of a subject for ‘its own sake’ and wish to be involved in the planning and delivery of the provision.

For more information on the strands click these Frequently asked questions

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!