Adult Learners’ Week is when events are staged all over the country to celebrate Adult Learning and Learners’ achievements. But, there have been major changes in priorities in further education and money for leisure provision has gone –and support for learners over 19 cut (at least that’s how it seems to have ended up).
Adult Learners’ Week is when events are staged all over the country to celebrate Adult Learning and Learners’ achievements. But, there have been major changes in priorities in further education and money for leisure provision has gone –and support for learners over 19 cut (at least that’s how it seems to have ended up).
Two out of three jobs over the next 10 years will need to be filled by adults – because there just aren’t enough young people to replace the large number of post war baby boomers now leaving the workforce. Also, many jobs require higher levels of skills and the government's skills strategy appears to recognises this, and offers people with low skills the chance to get them, alongside its entitlement offered for adults to get free tuition for literacy, numeracy and English language. (Mind you, recent surveys found out that most of us don’t support all the money going on Literacy and Numeracy). Public provision for adults has been going down rapidly - with a drop in the number of enrolments on courses supported by the Learning and Skills Council by every age cohort over 30 this year, including a drop of almost a quarter among people over 60. And further reductions in courses for adults are already planned and even those courses that survive, fees are rising, sometimes sharply. In part, this is the result of the government's success in raising participation among 16- to 19-year-olds. One young person's place displaces up to 10 adult opportunities, and funding legislation gives young people priority. The government is also putting more money into workplace learning. The goal of government policy is to support 3 million more people to get skills for work, and to gain qualifications equivalent to those a successful 16-year-old would get at school. Yet there is not enough money to support anyone pursuing exactly that goal if they are over 30, and studying part-time - like the overwhelming majority of adults - unless they are studying at work.
What is said in government propaganda and what happens is quite different – but to me, if the issue is that people have to pay more, then they should get on with looking at how to do this equably – not by just shutting down lifelong learning opportunities.
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