What is the future for Adult Education?

To celebrate the centenary year of WEA activity in Sheffield while addressing current concerns about the future of adult and community education, Sheffield No. 2 Branch of the WEA organised a public event in Sheffield, which attracted about 80 people from the city and from further afield.

The panel on the night was made up of David Blunkett (MP for Sheffield and former Secretary of State for Education), Alan Tuckett (Director of NIACE) and Ann Walker (Regional Secretary of WEA Yorkshire and Humber Region).

The panellists each outlined their views on three main questions: what they think the position of adult education will be in five years, where they would like it to be – and the steps needed to bridge the gap between the two. Some of the key points raised were:

• Adult education is vital if regeneration and the revival of civil society are to be achieved.
  
• Parents need to be confident in their own level of education if they are to be able to help their children learn.
  
• Adult education for older people often has great value for their health, keeping them active socially, keeping their minds active and providing them, in the words of one audience member, with “a reason to get up in the morning”. This is just one example of the way in which the benefits of adult education may not all be obvious or be related to any one government department, yet the costs usually all come from one place. As NIACE studies show, this makes it difficult to demonstrate the full public value of adult learning and to persuade people that the government should fund it.
  
• Current government policy risks an exclusive adult education system, where the rich will be able to pay for the courses they choose and the poorest able to get free courses that the government regards as in their interest – with those falling in between being “squeezed out” of adult education.
  
• Many policymakers do not sufficiently understand the differences between the courses provided by Further Education colleges and Adult and Community Learning (ACL) provision such as that provided by the WEA. More widely, adult education in general often gets “lost” behind schools in terms of government priorities.

Sheffield No. 2 Branch is planning another event later this year on the theme of creativity in adult education. This event will coincide with the WEA’s Create07 festival of creative arts, taking place across the Yorkshire and Humber area in June.

Links

Link to WEA News issue 12, which includes a letter to Chancellor Gordon Brown highlighting concerns about funding for adult education (PDF file)
WEA News Issue 12 (326 KB)

WEA Yorkshire and Humber Region web-page

Link to the 1998 The Learning Age green paper, published during David Blunkett’s time as Secretary of State for Education and Employment
http://www.lifelonglearning.co.uk/greenpaperr

Link to the University and College Union campaign on funding for courses in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), which the WEA has signed up to
http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=1975

National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) website
http://www.niace.org.uk/Default.htm