ADULT LEARNING DESERVES BETTER: A PRE-24 NOT POST-16 EDUCATION WHITE PAPER
For most adult learners the new Post-16 Education & Skills White Paper is a colossal missed opportunity doing little to protect the future of their courses or their futures for that matter.
In a 38,910 word document, adults are mentioned just 0.13%. Rather than a Post-16 White Paper this is really a “Pre-24” white paper. Adult education has become used to being sidelined but this is so disappointing. It’s not merely a refocusing on young people, universities or those categorised as NEET, it’s an abandonment of adults.
The paper says they don’t want to leave people behind but how will that be avoided when potential and opportunity is being age restricted making second chances the luxury of the under 24s.
If you are currently an older learner (over 24) studying with a community based provider other than a college you will struggle to recognise yourself in the White Paper.
Learners who are taking part in courses to improve their confidence, improve their health & wellbeing or to be active citizens in their communities are not featured.
The White Paper makes one fleeting reference to Tailored Learning (which supports health and community outcomes) and otherwise relates everything else to progression into work.
Employment is central to the Government’s growth mission, but can’t be achieved without a comprehensive approach that considers health and strong communities, and the underpinning role of adult learning.
Community adult learning is crucial to the further education sector, fully regulated and legislated for. You would never guess this from the White Paper which totally overlooks it and fails to recognise its strengths which complement more formal college and university settings.
This is an urgent problem because funding for community adult learning has already been cut at national and regional level in the last Budget. Community providers are cutting back courses and reducing their curriculum in light of ever narrower funding constraints.
The White Paper correctly identifies there are challenges in the number of adults with low levels of literacy, numeracy and digital skills. It promises a review but is light on detail of when and how this will take place. We will make a strong case for community based provision to be in at the forefront of tackling this challenge.
The White Paper is cross-departmental but it falls short of what is needed to get the nation learning, which is a full national Lifelong Learning Strategy led from the centre but with a clear role for Strategic Authorities to deliver regional and local needs.
The White Paper is as functional as its title (“Post-16 Education & Skills”). Rather than something visionary and aspirational it delivers a catalogue of reforms which could move things forward for a great number of young people and may also boost parts of the economy, but it fails to transform the learning landscape or be fully inclusive. It will leave some of the most disadvantaged adult learners – especially those who have already left formal education or are furthest from the job market – even further behind.
Here at the WEA we have been sounding the alarm and will continue to press Government for a more inclusive approach which includes learners of all ages, all backgrounds and all levels of qualifications. We will champion learning which supports progression into work as well as learning which is crucial to health and wellbeing (including for those thousands of people who are not in the workforce). We want to see a funding system which takes a flexible view of learning not a narrowly utilitarian one. There may be scope for this in the Strategic Authorities’ Integrated Settlements, which allow for much more flexibility in how funding is used.
Mostly we want to see a vision which puts the learner – all learners and potential learners – at the heart of the strategy – that would be the way to build a system which left no learner behind.
You can read the full whitepaper here.
