The government consultation on the future of lifelong learning has provided a platform for WEA students, members and volunteers to share their hopes for the future of government-supported adult education in England.

Nick Brown, MP and Minister for the North East signs the WEA Newcastle Branch petition for their ‘Right to Learn’ campaign in response to the recent DIUS consultation. Photograph: Anne Staines

Since the launch of the consultation in January, the WEA and other educational, charitable and public sector organisations have organised events and joined together to compare notes on the consultation document itself as well as its subject: the public funding of informal adult education.

Throughout the consultation period, the term ‘informal adult learning’ – and the need for a common, widely understood, definition of the term – has caused as much debate as some of the questions that government has asked the public to consider as part of the consultation.

During the consultation period the WEA has encouraged responses through events, letters, petitions, conferences as well as over the internet.

In WEA Yorkshire and Humber a regional response was organised and handed over last week to a Senior Policy Officer from the DIUS (the Department for Innovation Universities and Skills), the government department responsible for the consultation.

In response to the consultation, WEA Newcastle, South Tyneside and Berwick Branches staged a local 'Right to Learn' campaign with the local Centre for Life Long Learning. The result was a petition of 1,400 signatures which was completed at the WEA North East Region Spring Conference when Nick Brown, MP and Minister for the North East added his signature to the list, saying to the audience, 'I live here too and I care about this'

The WEA’s national response takes into account the views of all those who have responded throughout the consultation. It has been passed to DIUS along with all those responses made by individuals and WEA Branches in their own right.

We would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to send responses to the WEA and enabled us to submit a collective WEA view in response to this important public consultation.

View PDF of WEA response to Informal Adult Learning: Shaping the Way Ahead

Related links:
WEA Yorkshire and Humber Region
Department for Innovation Universities and Skills
Save Adult Education Campaign
National Institute for Continuing Adult Education