spring 2012 volume 23 number 3

What’s the point of adult apprenticeships? Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin

further education loans I free universities I work experience I reading groups contents adults learning spring 2012

4 Commentary 6 The information his Adults Learning reflects 8 What’s the point of adult Ton some of the central planks apprenticeships? There’s no reason to think older workers wouldn’t of the government’s education benefit from apprenticeships that helped them reform programme – including learn new skills and progress in their careers. But converting existing workers into apprentices to apprenticeships, further education increase the numbers with qualifications is unlikely loans and university access. to help them fulfil their aspirations, say Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin consider the potential and limitations 14 An economic necessity and a vital social and cultural good of adult apprenticeships, and ask The power of adult learning is recognised by whether the current approach to politicians of all parties. But, as the government’s apprenticeships is likely help adults ill-conceived plans to introduce FE loans demonstrate, we are still some way from getting the balance right access the learning they need. between individual, state and employer funding, And Labour shadow minister argues Gordon Marsden Gordon Marsden examines the 18 University isn’t just for young people government’s plan to introduce For those who really care about social mobility, it is the decline in applications by mature students, and further education loans for adults, not the appointment of Les Ebdon as Director of calling for a rethink of the balance OFFA, that should be setting alarm bells ringing, says Pam Tatlow between individual, state and employer funding of education. 20 ‘Anyone can teach, everyone can learn’ Tent City University has been one of the most Elsewhere, Pam Tatlow looks at remarkable experiments of the Occupy London the drop in mature applications to protest, but, as Paul Stanistreet discovered, it is just one of a number of radical alternatives which are higher education, while John Field emerging to challenge current educational convention uses criticism of the government’s work experience scheme as a 27 Does work experience actually work? The government’s work experience scheme for jobless platform for a wider discussion of the people has been widely criticised, but does work value of work experience – and the experience actually work – and what more can be done to meet the needs of older unemployed people, needs of older unemployed people. asks John Field We also look in depth at the 30 Learning for life outside emergence of the free university Offender learning can be transformational, but movement and the remarkable evaluating the work can be tricky, particularly when it comes to tracking ex-offenders in the wider world expansion of reading groups, led by they encounter on release, writes Tom Schuller the Get into Reading scheme. 32 A curriculum for curiosity Michael Gove is right to criticise the way in which Paul Stanistreet – Editor information and communication technologies are taught, but his response will do nothing to create the [email protected] sort of curriculum we will need if we are to produce a generation of thoughtful users and co-creators of ICTs, argues Mike Cushman

2 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 contents adults learning spring 2012

43 Making open educational page 38 practices a reality The concept of open educational resources has gained ground in the last decade but they are still not being used extensively. Grainne Conole and Eta De Cicco ask how we can ensure a better uptake and enhance the quality of shared resources 46 Learners need face-to-face advice In times of economic hardship, it is crucial that adults and young people alike get the impartial and informed support they need to make the right choices. Professional, face-to-face guidance is essential in making the most of the information available, writes Lynne Sedgmore

Kirstie Worswick East Midlands Regional Adult Learners’ Week Award The Reader Organisation The Reader c Williams Photo Agency Williams 34 A challenge we can’t afford to shirk c Welsh ministers have an opportunity to look again at Kirstie Worswick, of Glossop in Derbyshire, had to overcome how best to coordinate efforts to meet the needs of prejudice to succeed in a male-dominated industry. ESOL learners. Concerns raised by practitioners in the On entering further education in 2007, she took courses in field suggest they need to take it, writes Cerys Furlong vehicle body and paint operations, achieving Level 3 in record time. She then started a job in vehicle paint repair and enrolled 36 The joy of reading groups with Derbyshire Adult Continuing Education to study City and Reading groups have a cosy, suburban image – Guilds welding courses, progressing from Level 1 to Level 3 in just but NIACE, through its Quick Reads outreach work, 16 months. has been working to challenge the stereotype, Kirstie won the Automotive Custom Paint Competition in 2008. says Sue Southwood Soon after, she enrolled at the University of Derby through Buxton 38 Big books and small marvels College and gained ABC Level 2 Welding, as well as a Preparing to The Reader Organisation’s Get into Reading Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector (PTLLS) qualification. programme is all about getting people together in She has since completed ABC Level 3 Welding and aims to groups to engage with serious books. The groups are use her PTLLS qualification to teach welding at Buxton College. mixed and the participants sometimes challenging, Her efforts were recognised last year in an Adult Learners’ Week but the outcomes are often remarkable, writes Award. Paul Stanistreet

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 3 commentary

e’ve just had a new kitchen fitted. Part of this work has been to talk to One of the fitters, John, was employers about the basic or life skills needs 19 and just out of his two-year of those entering an apprenticeship – and W joinery apprenticeship. He was by ‘basic skills’ we mean more than literacy a determined young man who’d enjoyed his and numeracy – and how they address them. apprenticeship because he’d been taken under Overwhelmingly, employers felt that young the wing of an experienced carpenter who’d people and adults came to work without showed him the ropes. Reg, the gaffer, was in adequate literacy and numeracy skills, and, in his sixties. A seven-year time-served apprentice, particular, communication skills, and without full of stories, he chuckled as he remembered what they called ‘work skills’ – being able his apprenticeship mentor giving him lots to make eye contact, talk on the telephone, of advice, including, memorably: ‘Keep your address customers politely, good time-keeping. eyes and ears open and your mouth shut!’ His But as long as the employee arrived with the apprenticeship included two years learning right attitude to work, all the rest could be French polishing, and a month on how to load picked up by working alongside experienced a van. people – ‘sitting next to Nellie’, as one owner Both men left school with nothing except of a packing firm called it. As Reg said, their memory of having been told by teachers ‘If I took on an apprentice, qualifications that they would never get on, would never wouldn’t matter – all that would matter is their

Photo: Ed Melia ‘make anything of myself’. Both had undergone willingness to learn’. Learning that transforms lives What motivates most adult apprentices is a desire for a second chance – once they get it, the impact can be seen in every aspect of their lives, writes CAROL TAYLOR

a rigorous apprenticeship, learning alongside In Adult Learners’ Week last year there and from skilled older workers. For them, the was a first-time national award, sponsored key to their success was their determination by Pearson, for the Adult Apprentice of the to succeed, a positive attitude from their Year. There were 81 nominees from across the employer and the support of colleagues. This age range and from a multitude of jobs. We was underlined time and again by employers in NIACE were keen to find out more about interviewed as part of a piece of work NIACE their stories so we analysed their nominations, carried out in partnership with the Chambers asked for more information and interviewed of Commerce: ‘As long as the attitude is right a number of the nominees. What we found we can teach them the rest, and they will may not be representative, but it’s certainly succeed.’ interesting.

4 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 commentary

Almost all the nominees were from big firms my daughter and girlfriend. which presumably have strong human resource departments. The only nominees from small I was lucky enough to be taken on as an The Apprentices’ or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were from apprentice scaffolder. I am so sorted now, feeling Journey, a report on the care homes, and the only voluntary-sector much more positive about myself, and my family experiences of the 81 nominees were from the YMCA. Public services are more relaxed around me and are proud of me. learners nominated for seemed to be at the forefront of helping the Pearson-sponsored women into traditionally male-dominated Apprenticeships are deeply embedded in 2011 Adult Apprentice jobs. Most striking was how all the nominees our cultural heritage, as one route within a of the Year Award, is talked of how well they’d been supported by vocational education and training strategy published by NIACE: their employer, their college and their training which values learning. This government is provider. committed to an expansion of apprenticeship http://shop.niace.org.uk/ A common theme was the desire for a fresh numbers, and to an expansion of the number the-apprentices-journey. start or a second chance. A depressing number of frameworks and levels. It is also committed html of younger apprentices had been told by their to increasing the number of employers school, quite bluntly, that they would never offering apprenticeships, supporting SMEs, get on. Despite this, and without the help of for example, to be able to offer apprenticeship their school, they had managed to get onto schemes. However, a recent report by Pearson an apprenticeship. Many of the older adults showed that some 80 per cent of employers wanted a change in their life – overcoming loss surveyed would not consider taking on an or illness, determined to make good, climbing apprentice. Certainly, our employer breakfast the ladder. We were concerned to hear from meetings revealed a serious amount of some of the nominees that it hadn’t been easy discontent with apprenticeship schemes, to get an apprenticeship, that there was a lack including concerns about a lack of useful of marketing and the advice and guidance information, ‘red tape’, and the role of the to go with it, that schools didn’t recognise it ‘broker’. As we move into this second stage as a valid career path. Once engaged in an of growth of the apprenticeship strategy we apprenticeship, they found that learning on need to look at these issues more closely. We the job was preferable to classroom learning. suggest this could be addressed by listening to ‘Learn and earn’ was important, although adult the voices of the apprentices themselves, and apprentice wages were difficult for people with the voices of those employers not yet ‘sold’ on family commitments. apprenticeships. For me, the most moving parts of their What the interviews with the nominated stories concerned how success had bred success, apprentices show is that learning transforms and what this had meant for their life outside lives. I look at these apprentices and think that, work: their sense of self-confidence and self- at a time of mass unemployment, they’re the esteem; the impact on their families; and their lucky ones. We still have an education system engagement with community activity: that systematically fails far too many young people and makes them think that learning Since commencing my apprenticeship I am now isn’t for them, a view that is hard to shake off in much more confident. My home life is also very adulthood. As Helena Kennedy said, if at first good. I can buy things for my son. My parents you don’t succeed, you don’t succeed. are also happy and proud of my achievements Adult educators have spent the last decade and they feel they have their son back. In fact, life trying to hang the cash value of learning onto is fantastic! the different pegs of social policy. Perhaps it’s time to re-assert a fundamental truth – that The apprenticeship has transformed my life there’s an inherent and inspiring value in because I am now more outgoing and I know adult learning. It’s an intrinsic part of our what I want to do with my future. humanity. And for that reason, and for that reason alone, we should grow it and cherish I feel that, as a middle-aged woman, what I it. I challenge the bean-counters to read the have achieved is remarkable. My journey has not stories of our apprentices without a little tear finished – it has only just begun. splashing quietly onto their spreadsheet. Softened hearts can change minds, and minds Carol Taylor This will change my family’s life because I am can change structures. More and different is NIACE’s Director of now working towards building a career instead adult learning – NIACE’s mission is as valid Research and Development of just doing dead-end jobs, so I can provide for today as it ever was.

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 5 news&numbers from the adult learning sector

HIGHER EDUCATION ‘I feel privileged to be appointed to within the private sector. The appointment of Professor this post at such a key time. I am Association of Colleges Chief Les Ebdon, Vice Chancellor of passionate about access to higher Executive Martin Doel said: ‘We the University of Bedfordshire, as education and strongly believe that are extremely pleased that the Director of the Office for Fair Access no one should be put off from going government has succeeded in has been confirmed by government, to university because of their family getting this decision reversed and despite opposition from MPs on background or income. has delivered on its promise to the Business, Innovation and Skills ‘As Director, I will respect afford further education colleges Select Committee. the diversity of the sector and greater autonomy. Allowing colleges Secretary of State Vince institutional autonomy while also to maintain their own affairs is not Cable rejected attempts to block working with all universities to only beneficial to the institutions the appointment after Professor ensure that their considerable themselves, but it also brings more Ebdon told the committee that he efforts and very real commitment clarity to the way the public money was prepared to impose financial bear fruit. My role will be to provide is spent.’ penalties on institutions which greater challenge around outcomes Lynne Sedgmore, Executive failed to meet access targets. but also to provide greater support Director of the 157 Group, said the MPs on the committee said they through good practice and other decision of ONS was ‘constructive’ ‘were not convinced by Professor guidance.’ and demonstrated a willingness to Ebdon’s descriptions of the root listen to colleges and their business causes of the obstacles to accessing communities. universities’. The government has also Mr Cable said Professor Ebdon’s 20,000 announced its intention to set out experience of higher education Fewer full-time undergraduate further advice to the sector on would ‘bring great benefits to courses available now than new forms of organisation for FE the role and equip him to deal there were in 2006, according providers. even-handedly with all parts of the to a study by the University and sector’. College Union – a fall of more ‘We undertook two long, than a quarter thorough searches to ensure we £9,500 found the right candidate for the Extra student places allocated post, and I have no doubt that to further education colleges by Professor Ebdon has the qualities FURTHER EDUCATION the Higher Education Funding and determination to help those The government has announced Council for England – around I am passionate students from low-income or other that, from April, colleges will no half of the 20,000 places under-represented groups to secure longer be classified as part of available under the ‘core and about access the places in higher education that central government. margin’ system to institutions their attainments and potential The decision by the Office charging tuition fees of less than to higher show they deserve.’ for National Statistics (ONS) to £7,50 0 Professor Ebdon, a former reclassify colleges as part of the education and chair of Million+, the think-tank private sector rather than as part representing new universities, will of central government, reversing a strongly believe take over from Sir Martin Harris decision made in October 2010, has APPRENTICESHIPS later this year. His role at OFFA will been widely welcomed by college The number of employers prepared that no one be to safeguard fair access to higher leaders. to take on an apprentice would should be put education and widen participation John Hayes, Minister of State more than double if the right among students from disadvantaged for Further Education, Skills and package of support was available off from going backgrounds. Lifelong Learning, said the move from government and learning The government’s White Paper, would reinforce the government’s providers, according to a poll of to university Students at the Heart of the efforts to give further education 1,000 employers. System, pledged to strengthen colleges ‘the freedom they need However, less than three per because of OFFA, so that it can provide more to make their own judgements on cent of employers thought an active and energetic challenge and how to manage their affairs for the apprenticeship was most relevant their family support to universities and colleges, benefit of learners, employees and to someone aged 22 or above – the and to make more resources wider communities’. age group which has shown the background or available, increasing its capacity to The government has already most growth in numbers over the income four times its original level. announced a number of other past year. Ninety-three per cent Universities wanting to charge reforms intended to give further believed apprenticeships were most tuition fees higher than £6,000 education and sixth-form colleges suitable for under-21s. have to satisfy OFFA that they are greater ‘freedoms and flexibilities’, The YouGov survey, Professor Les Ebdon, Vice protecting access for poorer or including giving them more freedom commissioned by education Chancellor of the University of under-represented groups. to borrow money, putting them on a company Pearson Work-Based Bedfordshire and new Director of Professor Ebdon commented: similar footing to charities operating Learning, in partnership with the Office for Fair Access

6 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 theinformation

NIACE, found that only 19 per cent Innovation and Skills could improve at primary school and struggle to Chris Humphries, chair of of employers currently employ an value for money significantly by understand a payslip or a train National Numeracy and former apprentice. However, 40 per cent targeting resources on areas where timetable. Chief Executive of the UK said they would hire an apprentice the greatest economic returns can The figure has increased by Commission for Employment and if they had all the support they be achieved. nearly two million over the last eight Skills, said: ‘It is simply inexcusable needed. years (from 47 per cent to 49 per for anyone to say “I can’t do The polling also found that 61 cent), far exceeding the equivalent maths”. It’s a peculiarly British per cent of the large employers figure of five million for poor disease which we aim to eradicate. surveyed employed an apprentice 40 literacy, and is, the charity argues, It doesn’t happen in other parts aged under 25, compared to only Percentage of apprentices who ‘a disturbing indictment of national of the world, and it’s hitting our 11 per cent of small businesses. are 25 or over when they start attitudes to numeracy’. international competitiveness. With More than 80 per cent said their apprenticeship National Numeracy has been set encouragement and good teaching, they had no plans to recruit an up to champion the importance of everyone can improve their apprentice under 25 in the next 18 numeracy for people of all ages and numeracy.’ months. seeks to emulate the success of the A recent National Audit Office NUMERACY National Literacy Trust. report found that 68 per cent of The number of adults with poor The group also revealed the the 140 per cent expansion of the numeracy skills has reached 17 results of a YouGov poll of 2,000 49 Apprenticeship Programme between million in England alone – very adults, which it commissioned last Percentage of British adults the 2006–07 and 2010–11 had nearly half the working-age month and which found that, while who struggle to complete been among adults aged over 25. population, according to an analysis 80 per cent of adults would be primary-level maths questions, It reported that apprenticeships of government figures by National embarrassed to tell someone they according to an analysis of for adults offered a good return Numeracy, a new national charity. were bad at reading and writing, government figures by for the public money spent The group says that almost only slightly more than half (56 per new charity National on them overall, but said that half of British adults have the cent) would be embarrassed to say Numeracy the Department for Business, numeracy skills expected of children they were bad at maths.

OBITUARY eight years at Bromley Grammar School in and most important, which he co-authored South-East London, until health problems with H.A. Jones, was published a year later Alan Charnley – obliged him to stop. After a period as a civil (The Concept of Success in Adult Literacy). servant he seized the opportunity to return Alan Tuckett, former Chief Executive research pioneer to education, working with the BBC and the of NIACE and Right to Read campaigner, Open University in setting up multi-media recalls the impact the research made in the By George Low courses leading to an OU degree. early days of the adult literacy campaign. We record with regret the recent death of In 1972 the Russell report on ‘Alan’s research enabled us to target key Alan Charnley, pioneer researcher into adult adult education made some important groups of students and gave us a reliable literacy, at Cambridge, aged 82. After retiring recommendations on paid educational leave guide to the effectiveness of recruiting and from his early career as a school teacher, Alan (PEL) for workers, which the Department teaching methods. He and his small team discovered a new career in adult education for Education and Science felt obliged to went on to do about 10 studies of excluded research, which laid the foundations of the follow up. They gave £5,000 to the National and disadvantaged groups, such as the Right to Read movement in the 1970s. Institute of Adult Education (now NIACE) to unemployed, single mothers, NEETs and Born in Guatemala, where his Lancashire- do research into PEL programmes in three ethnic minorities, and so on. His research born father worked, Alan came to England European countries – France, Sweden and was ground-breaking and rock solid. He was for a holiday in 1939 but was unable to West Germany. Alan, by then research officer certainly a rock on which my predecessor return because of the war. He went to a at NIACE, produced an 800-page document Arthur Stock could depend ... Sadly, his boarding school in Lancashire and, at the age within one year. DES officials were impressed health gave out shortly after I took over in of 17, won a state scholarship to University and gave him the additional task of producing 1989 and he was obliged to retire.’ College, London, to read economics. But first a document for the wider public. Despite ill health, Alan enjoyed more than he did his national service with the Black In 1974 Gerry Fowler, Minister for 20 years of retirement. Although latterly Watch, where he found he was one of the Education and Science in the new Labour he could not travel far, he could get to few soldiers able to read and write. His wife government, launched a national adult literacy Newmarket with Evelyn to enjoy his lifelong Evelyn recalls that he was ‘put on clerical campaign on the back of the BBC On the love of horses, which stemmed from his duties’, helping the others keep in touch with Move programmes and the Right to Read childhood in Guatemala. At the races his their families, and was ‘profoundly affected by movement in adult education centres. Alan mathematical and logical skills came to the the lack of life-chances for those with little or was ideally placed to carry out research for fore and, according to Evelyn, earned him a no education’. the campaign. He set up a research team, reputation as ‘the only punter who always When he finally went to university, Alan which provided important evidence for returned home with a profit’. ‘A pity he didn’t read economics before taking a postgraduate practitioners in the national campaign. The start earlier,’ she sighs. ‘He was no gambler, course in education. After a further spell of first document, Adult Literacy: a study of its but his life was full of adventure and concern national service he took up teaching, spending impact, was published in 1978, and the next, for the underdog – 82 years well spent!’

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 7 s there an optimum age to be an a whole-workforce development strategy. As apprentice? For most people, their image such, apprenticeship is qualitatively different to of an apprentice would be a teenage school providing standard on-the-job training. Ileaver. Yet, in England, the majority of Making this model work is challenging, apprentices are over the age of 19 when they particularly in some service sectors where, start their apprenticeship, and 40 per cent are until recently, there was no tradition of 25 or over. This would be very unusual in other apprenticeship. It is tough because it requires European countries. In this article, we discuss employers to plan for the medium- to long- what lies behind the participation figures and term. In any country, therefore, the quality of the meaning of apprenticeship for adults. apprenticeship will vary within and between What’s the point of adult apprenticeships?

There’s no reason to think older workers wouldn’t benefit from apprenticeships that helped them learn new skills and progress in their careers. But converting existing workers into apprentices to increase the numbers with qualifications is unlikely to help them fulfil their aspirations, say ALISON FULLER and LORNA UNWIN

As a universally understood model sectors, but there are particular problems in of learning, apprenticeship involves the England. Through research in a wide range development of occupational expertise. It is of workplaces, we have developed the concept often conceived as a supported journey during of the expansive–restrictive continuum (see which an individual matures and becomes Figure 1 opposite) as a tool for analysing why a recognised member of an occupational some apprenticeships offer so much more than community. It takes time to enable the others. The key characteristics include the individual to refine their vocational practice in extent to which apprentices are given access the workplace and to acquire wider knowledge to (new) knowledge and skills and recognised about the concepts and theories underpinning vocational qualifications, and to structured on- that practice. In this model, skilled vocational and off-the-job training. Other critical factors teachers and trainers play a key role. The include the degree to which apprenticeships model requires serious employer engagement incorporate the opportunity to learn about the and investment in, and commitment to, the whole-work process rather than only discrete creation of a highly trained workforce, with tasks, and provide a platform for higher apprenticeships seen an integral element of learning and career progression.

8 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 Figure 1: The Expansive–Restrictive Continuum

Expansive Restrictive

Apprenticeship is a vehicle for aligning goals Apprenticeship is used to tailor individual capability of individual development and organisational to immediate organisational need capability

Workplace, training provider and (where present) trade union share post-apprenticeship vision: Post-apprenticeship vision: static for job progression for career

Status as employee dominates: status as learner Apprentice has dual status as learner and employee restricted to minimum required to meet statutory ‘apprenticeship framework’

Fast transition to productive worker with limited Apprentice makes gradual transition to productive knowledge of occupational field; existing productive worker, gaining expertise in occupational field workers given minimal development

Apprentice treated as member of occupational and Apprentice treated as extra pair of hands who workplace community with access to community’s only needs access to limited knowledge and skills rules, history, knowledge and expertise to perform job

Apprentice participates in different communities of Participation restricted to narrowly defined job role practice inside and outside the workplace and work station

Workplace maps everyday work tasks against Weak relationship between workplace tasks qualification requirements – qualification valued as and qualifications – no recognition for skills and extending beyond immediate job requirements knowledge acquired beyond immediate work tasks

Qualifications develop knowledge for progression to Qualifications accredit limited range of next level and platform for further education on-the-job competence

Apprentice has time off-the-job for study and to Off-the-job simply a minor extension of on-the-job gain wider perspective

Apprentice’s existing skills and knowledge Apprentices regarded as ‘blank sheets’ or recognised, valued and used as platform for ‘empty vessels’ new learning

Apprentice’s progress monitored for job Apprentice’s progress closely monitored – regular performance with limited feedback – provider constructive feedback from range of employer and involvement restricted to formal assessments for provider personnel who take a holistic approach qualifications

Far too much apprenticeship in England is In 2008 it was revealed for the first time, in located at the restrictive end of the continuum. the Innovation, Universities, Science and A key reason is that the majority of apprentices Skills Committee’s scrutiny of the draft are what is known as ‘conversions’. Apprenticeships Bill, that approximately 70 The practice of converting existing per cent of apprentice starts were conversions. employees into apprentices to support the The key problem for quality is that conversions attainment of the government’s numerical are associated with employees gaining targets is grossly undermining the concept qualifications that accredit their existing of apprenticeship as a model of learning. rather than new skills. The emergence of

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 9 this phenomenon broadly coincides with the of the process of training (and acquisition of decision of the last Labour government in vocational knowledge) from the assessment 2004 to fund apprenticeships for the 25-plus of competence. Advocates of this approach, age group. The official statistics show that by including some adult educationalists and 2007–08 there were just over 27,000 starts in trades unions, argued that it would enable the older age group. The most recent full-year adult workers who had not had the opportunity figures (2010–11) show that the number of 25- to gain qualifications to get recognition for plus starts had grown six-fold to 180,000. Much their expertise. of the recent increase can be explained by the The competence-based model remains rebranding of employees on Train to Gain contested in the academic literature more than as apprentices when the former scheme was 20 years after NVQs were first introduced. withdrawn by the coalition government. However, there is some evidence, including from our own research on the automotive- Restrictive model component manufacturing sector, that the So, how has a largely restrictive model approach can be beneficial to organisations of apprenticeship come to dominate the and individuals. Our 2008 study led us to landscape? There are three interrelated conclude that the ambiguities inherent in the reasons. The first lies in the largely NVQ model create tensions and opportunities unregulated nature of occupations in England for ‘restrictive’ as well as ‘expansive’ forms of (and the UK more broadly), but it is the other implementation. The key point we want to two reasons that concern us here: first, the make here – one we will return to later in this use of competence-based qualifications as article – is that adults want qualifications to the mandatory output from all government- provide access to new learning rather than funded training programmes since the1980s; simply accreditation of what they already know. and, second, the obsession of successive governments with increasing the stocks of Competence-based legacy qualifications in the workforce. Central to the The competence-based legacy, combined with competence-based approach is the separation the minimalist standards enshrined in the Specification of Apprenticeship Standards in England, help explain why two-thirds of adult Table 1: Most populated apprenticeship apprenticeships in England are at Level 2 and why so many can be classed as conversions. sectors in England 2010–11 It also helps explain why service-sector Source: Data Service apprenticeships dominate the apprenticeship statistics. The top three ‘sector frameworks’ Sector Total Starts for apprentice starts in 2010–11 accounted for about a third of all starts registered in Customer Service 53,970 the 170-plus apprenticeship frameworks that are available. In descending order these are: Health and Social Care 53,720 Customer Service (53,970 starts), Health and Retail 41,410 Social Care (53,720) and Retail (41,410) (see Table 1 for a list of the top sectors). Currently, Business Administration 38,900 many apprenticeships at Level 2 are linked Hospitality and Catering 29,810 solely to the accreditation of the competencies needed to perform workplace tasks in specific Management 29,790 job roles, as well as narrowly defined functional Children’s Care, Learning and Development 27,410 skills. Such provision simply mirrors the limited learning requirements of low-level jobs, Engineering 18,330 and leaves the government’s scheme open to Active Leisure and Learning 17,65 0 the criticism that it is reproducing low-level skills as well as funding ‘deadweight’ provision. Hairdressing 16,450 Whilst the headline statistics on Construction 15,590 apprenticeship generally categorise participants in three age bands, 16–18, 19–24 IT and Telecoms Professionals 12,030 and 25-plus, figures are also available on starts across the age scale. Digging further into the Vehicle Maintenance and Repair 9,060 25 and over age group, we find that about

10 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 54,000 (30 per cent) of the approximately learning opportunities and experiences beyond 180,000 starts in 2010–11 were over 45 those encountered in daily work situations. The years old. Perhaps most challenging to the data showed that there was little difference conventional association of apprenticeship between the everyday learning experiences of with young people, is the revelation that those involved and not involved in the pilot, nearly 4,000 people aged 60 or above started although those participating in the programme apprenticeships. That most of these apprentices were slightly more likely to state that they ‘had will be conversions helps explain these learned something new’. Both groups reported numbers. learning on-the-job and from colleagues as the most popular methods of learning at work. Older workers They indicated that they felt supported and Given that apprenticeship for older workers is could ask for help when needed, and that a relatively new phenomenon, little is known they were often involved in helping others to about their experiences and perceptions of learn. Overall, the positive attitudes towards the programme and its relevance to them. workplace learning were consistent with a In policy terms, there has been a surprising workplace environment characterised by the lack of debate about what apprenticeships high-involvement working practices evident for older workers are for. However, there has throughout the company. been growing interest in older workers and training more generally, including research on: Good reputation trends in the availability of different types of Company B manufactures steel rods and training; older workers’ attitudes towards and bars for the construction industry. As a result experiences of training; and a major NIACE of its struggle to match cheaper imports study of the ‘relationship between training and from overseas, the company’s workforce working life after the age of 50’ (see further was contracting. Historically, the company reading below for more details). Whilst the has had a good reputation for training research confirms that participation in training and apprenticeship, but the apprenticeship declines with age, there is little evidence of programme had been suspended and the older-worker resistance to training when they in-house training centre disbanded. As a are given the opportunities. Research we have consequence, the personnel manager set up undertaken on older workers’ experiences a scheme to fund non-work-related education of training and qualifications supports this and training, off-the-job, for those employees finding and provides some hints about their who wanted to continue learning but whose likely attitudes to apprenticeship. jobs could not be ‘expanded’. As part of the In one project, we focused on groups study of company B, we conducted a survey of older, experienced employees in two exploring experiences of, and attitudes to, companies: a manufacturer of steel-based training as well as interviews. The findings products with 700 employees (A); and a steel- showed that the majority of respondents felt processing mill with around 200 employees (B). positively about training both for its relevance In both companies, labour turnover had been and for the activity itself. A quarter of low historically and the majority of employees respondents indicated that they would like to had several years’ service. participate in ‘formal’ learning activities (for Company A designs and manufactures example, college courses or distance learning) bathroom showers, thermostats and valves. A outside the company. While this proportion key indicator of the company’s commitment to is significantly smaller than the proportion workforce development is its well-developed of respondents who indicated that they would internal labour market in which staff, like to participate in job-related learning at the including ex-apprentices, can gain promotion company, it indicates that there is an appetite through to senior management. In keeping among some older workers for learning beyond with its emphasis on workforce development the parameters of what they need to know in as a central dimension of its quality and order to be able to perform their (current) jobs competitiveness strategies, the company effectively at work. introduced a pilot progression programme for Across both companies, the older, production operators based on attainment of a experienced employees in our study appeared National Vocational Qualification level 2 (NVQ to be positive about learning when it was seen 2) in engineering production. We investigated to be relevant and helped them to do their whether involvement in the programme led to jobs better or more easily. Those employees

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 11 12 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 who had career or personal aspirations gain more under-pinning knowledge. beyond their current jobs were more It is all very well saying to someone, Further reading likely to view opportunities to learn ‘why have you fitted that seal with such Felstead, A. (2010) ‘Closing the age outside work positively than those who care?’ It is not good enough for them gap? Age, skills and the experience were content with their position and who to tell you, ‘Oh, otherwise it might of work in Great Britain’, Ageing and were not aspiring to change. This attitude leak.’ We want them to talk about Society, 30 was exemplified by Tom, an employee pressure and decay over a period of Fuller, A. and Unwin, L. (2003) in company A who, over the past five time, of pressure-sealing if they don’t ‘Learning as Apprentices in the years, with the company’s support, had quite fit that properly… now many of Contemporary UK workplace: participated in a range of work-related them would already have this…but I creating and managing expansive and courses. He outlined his experience and do know a lot of people would not … restrictive participation’, Journal of expectations as follows: Similarly, in terms of the business, I Education and Work, 16, 4 think that at the end of it they should Fuller, A. and Unwin, L. (2006), I thought I could do with some have a better idea of how this business ‘Older Workers’ Learning in Changing electronics knowledge so I saw my clicks together, like a jigsaw. Workplace Contexts: Perceptions manager who said, do a college course. of Barriers and Opportunities’, in So, I did an HNC [Higher National In both companies, older employees had a T. Tikkannen and B. Nyhan, (eds) Certificate] in electronic engineering. positive attitude to training and workplace Promoting Lifelong Learning for older I finished that and asked if I could do learning, valuing opportunities to learn workers: An international review, the HND [Higher National Diploma] new skills as well as ways of learning to Thessaloniki, Greece: CEDEFOP because it helps with my job, it makes do their job (even) better. Qualifications Fuller, A. and Unwin, L. (2011) me more efficient in my job, so which certificated real development and ‘The Content of Apprenticeships’, therefore it saves the company money new achievement were valued, and there in Dolphin, T. and Lanning, T. (eds) in the long run … Hopefully you’re not was little evidence that employees had Rethinking Apprenticeship, London: doing the college course just because much interest in simply having their IPPR somebody’s telling you to do it, you’ve existing skills accredited. While not Mason, G. and Bishop, K. (2010) got to want to do it, that’s important. If wishing to dismiss the positive impact Adult Training, Skills Updating you’re doing it you’ve usually identified that qualifications can have for adult and Recession in the UK: The a reason for it. In my case it’s … to workers with little or no prior attainment, Implications for Competitiveness and make my job easier – that was my and for whom being awarded a formal Social Inclusion, published by the personal benefit, and the company qualification can enhance confidence and Centre for Learning and Life Chances benefits because it gives me more time self-esteem, our evidence suggests that in Knowledge Economies and to do other things, and at the end of using apprenticeship (via conversions) to Societies at: http://www.llakes.org.uk the day you’re hoping, I suppose … to increase the numbers with qualifications McNair, S (2010) A Sense of move … up the ladder. is unlikely to fulfil existing employees’ a Future, Report for Nuffield aspirations for training. Foundation, Leicester: National In company A, change was perceived as On the other hand, there is nothing Institute of Adult Continuing an ongoing and integral aspect of working to suggest that, given opportunities to Education life and as central to the company’s engage in meaningful new learning Torrance, H. (2007) ‘Assessment continuing success. The company’s and knowledge-based qualifications as learning? How the use of explicit training officer outlined the values that can provide a platform for career learning objectives, assessment underpinning the company’s approach, progression or a change of occupation, criteria and feedback in post- stressing the importance of developing adults would not be able to benefit from secondary education and training and stretching employees’ knowledge apprenticeship. We would argue that can come to dominate learning’, and its relationship to organisational the core principles of the expansive– Assessment in Education, 14, 3 performance. The quotation indicates restrictive continuum are important Unwin, L., Fuller, A., Bishop, how he has been urging staff to go beyond in all apprenticeships, including those D., Felstead, A., Jewson, N. and the basic competence-based requirements for adults aged over 24. In our view, Kakavelakis, K. (2008) Exploring of the NVQ to explore and develop their adult training that does not meet this the Dangers and Benefits of the understanding: benchmark should not be called an UK’s Permissive Competence-Based apprenticeship. Approach: The Use of Vocational [W]hatever else training does, it has to Qualifications as Learning Artefacts enhance capability. If someone is more Alison Fuller is Professor of Education and and Tools for Measurement in the capable and more employable … the Work, University of Southampton. Lorna Automotive Sector, Learning as Work business benefits anyway because they Unwin is Professor of Vocational Education, Research Paper, No. 15, Cardiff can do more and they are better at it. I LLAKES Research Centre, Institute of University think people need to be stretched and Education, London.

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 13 would like to think that, in twenty-first perhaps, for women in middle age, who might century Britain, the case for adult learning want to return to learning but find juggling was firmly established and no-one was in the household budget, supporting sons and Iany doubt of its value. Having spent nearly daughters unable to find work, and the need 20 years before I became an MP working as to take on more part-time work, all crowding a part-time lecturer and tutor with the Open out their desire to learn. And for older people University, and seeing the transformation that who find that their own ability to finance it could bring to my students, I am certainly learning is diminished while the adult courses not in any doubt. offered locally are drying up in the wake of The worldwide success of the Open government funding cuts. University, combined with the work of the More broadly, it is clear that, while the University of the Third Age, the long-standing current focus on the threat to the futures of contribution of the Workers’ Educational younger people is entirely understandable, Association – with whom I also cut my teeth changing demographics in the UK – not least, as a teacher – and the high reputation of increasing longevity and the need to stay universities’ and further education colleges’ active longer – mean it will be more, not less, An economic necessity and a vital social and cultural good

work with adult learners, all testify to its important to have a strong strategy to support vibrancy. The 2006 Leitch Report’s stress on lifelong learning and improve adult skills the importance of lifelong learning in enabling levels. That’s essential not just in responding us to compete in a globalised economy, coupled to our competitors from emerging economies with the NIACE-inspired Inquiry into the worldwide, but also in starting to catch up with Future for Lifelong Learning and its main countries like Germany whose ability to reskill report, Learning Through Life, have helped at the intermediate levels of adult skills has keep the issue at the heart of public policy. been a key ingredient in weathering current Parliamentarians get frequent reminders economic storms. of its value through the individual success stories they encounter in personal contact with Further education loans constituents and in their local media. This is why government plans to scrap all state- But willing the end is not the same as willing funded financial support for people over the the means. To consolidate the place of lifelong age of 24 seeking Level 3 qualifications and learning at the centre of British society we have above, and replace it with a system of further to have both. That place remains in jeopardy – education loans modelled on those currently not from the frontal assault of philistines, but causing such controversy in higher education, from the unintended consequences of public are particularly concerning. There is no real policy and the choppy waters of economic evidence base to suggest that the majority of crisis. On the individual level, the warning people will either feel able or willing to take signs are obvious. For the young person on such loans and plenty to suggest they will whose employer may be reluctant or unable to not. Introducing a full loan system in a time of financially support a course that might develop dearth and anxiety is a very different matter them at work. For families, and especially, to introducing one in times of optimism

14 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 and plenty. People who have had a bad prior who may have missed out is of vital importance. experience of education, or who have not been Also, despite the warnings of the adequately exposed to it, often have to be government’s own Advocate for Access, Simon supported, cajoled and incentivised towards Hughes, they seem determined to introduce adult learning. The fashionable phrase in fees for HE access courses – which, as 70 per government circles for this sort of thinking cent of those enrolled in 2009–10 were female, is ‘nudge theory’ – but it’s possible to nudge is likely to hit women hardest. people away from things as well as towards These proposals threaten to mirror the them. unhappy trend that began with cutbacks in The BIS group responsible for setting up funding for courses for those on inactive this loans system is only now starting to carry benefits, which had a particularly negative out proper market research for something they impact on ESOL provision, and which affected wish to introduce in late 2012, and the details ethnic-minority learners disproportionately. of which they want to have set in stone by this The excellent roundtable event that NIACE summer. Even their initial projections and hosted on ESOL last year made clear the false modelling are based on a frank assumption economies involved in cutting this kind of An economic necessity and a vital social The power of adult learning is recognised by politicians of all parties. But, as the government’s ill-conceived plans to introduce FE loans demonstrate, we and cultural good are still some way from getting the balance right between individual, state and employer funding, argues GORDON MARSDEN

that at least 20 per cent of existing adult provision. learners on such courses will fall by the wayside In terms of promoting adult learning, as a result of these changes. In addition, so FE colleges remain a crucial, central hub far there has been very little attempt to assess for vocational provision. But, at a time when whether the Student Loans Company – which colleges are already having to absorb a 25 per is supposed to take on the administration of cent funding cut from BIS, what is the impact this scheme and is only just starting to come likely to be on their robustness and financial to terms with the HE loans system – has the viability if adult learner numbers start to fall capacity or appetite to handle FE loans. off a cliff in the wake of an FE loans system As the contributors to January’s excellent ending fee remission? At the very least, we Adult Learning extra on the subject (http:// might see the number and variety of courses shop.niace.org.uk/adults-learning-extra. sharply cut, with knock-on cuts in the number html) demonstrated, the government has of college staff. underestimated the differences between the Of course, it is welcome that skills relative homogeneity of HE provision (in terms, minister John Hayes has so far managed to for example, of start dates, duration and course safeguard the £210 million budget for adult fees) with the multitude of options that exist and community learning. But it remains a across FE. shrinking pot in real terms and is under They have also neglected to ensure that permanent threat when budget shortfalls science and maths courses in FE are afforded emerge elsewhere. the same protection as their HE counterparts. FE loans raise the broader issue of the If we are looking to improve the science and future of adult learning and training. The maths skills base at university, then, surely, government axed Train to Gain in 2010 and protecting provision at FE colleges for those openly encouraged many providers to switch

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 15 provision to apprenticeships, which has (ILA) initiative following some fraud issues in helped fuel the growth in post-25 provision. 2001, there has been a reluctance to return to Apprenticeships are a great option for people, it. This government’s latest attempt – the so- both below and above the age of 25. But the called Lifelong Learning Accounts launched government simply shouldn’t treat them as last autumn – amounts to little more than a ‘silver bullet’ to solve all their skills and a website with informational hints – which training problems. What will happen to those is perhaps why, as a recent piece in FE News enlarged adult apprenticeship numbers and to revealed, there has been so little take-up of it other take-up of skills training when FE loans so far. are introduced? As the UK Commission for If we mean to make progress, the balance of funding between individual, state and employer must be squarely addressed. And The progress we have made this will need to be matched by a much clearer sense of the importance – both for individuals and the collective – of structures since the 1960s, in opening for progression into which individuals can accommodate the recognition (qualifications, up aspirations to lifelong skills and things in between) of their efforts. We have always instinctively known that it’s unwise to ghettoise formal and informal learning, must be maintained. learning. But life and work in the twenty-first century – with people living and working Not least because it is a vital longer, perhaps switching jobs and careers four or five times in their working life, and juggling cultural good, a mechanism more complex work-life balances than ever before – will make that all the more essential.

for bringing twenty-first New settlement To balance the immediate bespoke needs of century people of differing employers and employees for on-the-job skills and training with all of that means that a new settlement on the contributions balance has backgrounds together to be explored. In terms of what government does, it is time for ministers to recognise that departments other than Business, Innovation Employment and Skills told the government in and Skills have a responsibility here. The its submission on FE loans, it seems perverse to benefits of adult learning cannot just be put new loan burdens on individual apprentices siloed into one department – is there not, for at the very time when the government is trying example, a case for securing a Department to encourage greater employer ownership of of Health contribution to lifelong learning training and skills provision. as part of a coherent government strategy to I fear that the problems and concerns about strengthen all aspects of health and wellbeing the ubiquity of the government’s reforms and past 60? the haste with which it is introducing a loans John Hayes has suggested that ‘community system for adults in further education will only cohesion’ funding might help to fill some of multiply in the next few months. Following on the gaps in ESOL provision which last year’s from last year’s furore over ESOL funding, and government announcement created. continuing uncertainty about restrictions on fee We wait to see what impact the additional support to those only on job-seeking benefits, funds Mr Hayes finally managed to wrest from it merely illustrates the importance of starting Eric Pickles’ department for ESOL provision to address the elephant in the room which risks will have, but it already seems clear they will bedevilling the whole future of adult learning. be insufficient to address the disproportionate And that is the issue of individual and, possibly, impact the government’s changes are having collective lifelong learning accounts. on women. No-one should think that to do this properly In terms of finding the structures and will be easy – which is why, since the withdrawal mechanisms to get us there, we are not just of the ambitious Individual Learning Account looking at a blank piece of paper. We should

16 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 revisit the ILA project and look elsewhere in from Nelson’s flagship HMS Foudroyant) in the the United Kingdom where kindred initiatives 1890s – though the books I saw on his shelves did not founder. We should look to the as that small child testified to his enduring experience of the Open University, both in passion for history, which I have inherited. terms of their engagement, communication, The progress we have made since the 1960s, and structures for progression successes, at in opening up aspirations to lifelong learning, what came out of the Learning Through Life must be maintained. Not least because it is a inquiry, and at the ideas that have been floated vital cultural good, a mechanism for bringing by, among others, the Banks review, City and twenty-first century people of differing Guilds and unionlearn. There are big questions backgrounds together, whether person-to- but, spurred on by the looming problems person, in groups or online. Not only can it with FE loans which I believe the government help banish the tale of waste and thwarted should seriously revise and revisit, we need to talent which was a staple in English literature draw on those resources, and make progress. from Thomas Gray’s ‘mute inglorious Miltons’ We have to do so – because lifelong through to Hardy’s Jude the Obscure and learning is not just increasingly an economic beyond – it can challenge the atomisation and necessity, it is a social and economic good. alienation that twenty-first century technology Fifty years ago this month my grandfather can sometimes bring unwittingly in its wake. died, someone I remember vividly, though I As such, we must make sure it stays centrally was a small child at the time. He was born a on all decision-makers’ agendas, locally and cobbler’s son into a large Derbyshire family nationally – and not least that of the Treasury. whose circumstances never allowed him to satisfy the thirst for learning that won him a Gordon Marsden is Labour’s shadow minister for scholar’s medal (struck from the copper taken further education and skills

Perspectives on further education loans An Adults Learning special issue

This special issue of Adults Learning – the first in a series of single-topic ‘extras’ – aims to inform the ongoing debate about the introduction of further education loans for adults aged 24 and over in England from 2013.

The short, sharp contributions gathered together here – from across the adult and further education sector – were published in January 2012, as the government began to work with stakeholders to develop options for the implementation of the policy.

This Adults Learning special issue can be downloaded for free from: http://shop.niace.org.uk/adults-learning-extra.html

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 17 ne in three undergraduate students Review of higher education: in spite of the enter university for the first-time when expansion of higher education and rising levels they are over 21 – not that you would of attainment in schools, one in seven students Onotice given the obsession of both admitted by these universities now come media and politicians with younger students from less advantaged backgrounds compared progressing to university straight from school to the one in six admitted 15 years ago. In or college at 18 or 19. This focus on younger suggesting that these institutions should aim students has been put into even sharper for an intake similar to that achieved in the relief in the debate about the next Director mid-1990s, Ebdon opened a floodgate of of the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) – now anxiety amongst Conservative backbenchers confirmed by ministers as Professor Les Ebdon, concerned that this would lead to the dumbing former chair of million+ and currently Vice- down of ‘prestigious’ institutions. Within days Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire. four Conservative MPs had set up a Fair Access Ebdon (and, at various points, his university) to Universities Group (FAUG) and published a have been relentlessly attacked by political report which essentially repeated the mantra University isn’t just for young people

For those who really care about social mobility, it is the decline in applications by mature students, and not the appointment of Les Ebdon as Director of OFFA, that should be setting alarm bells ringing, says PAM TATLOW

commentators – wisely, education journalists that the fault lay with (state) schools and the had somewhat less to say – for daring to suggest subject choice of students. that the Director of OFFA might use the powers For those interested in ensuring that people already available under the 2004 Higher of all ages have opportunities for learning and Education Act to set more demanding targets progression, this emphasis on younger students for some universities. is depressing. It also completely ignores the The universities that Ebdon (and ministers) diversity of the student profile that is one of the have in mind overwhelmingly recruit younger features of UK higher education and which has full-time students. The figures quoted at a been a key factor in promoting social mobility. pre-appointment hearing of the House of Many of the students with whom FAUG is Commons BIS Committee are revealing, and interested will progress to university anyway had been quoted by the outgoing Director (although perhaps not to the universities of OFFA, Sir Martin Harris, to the Browne which these MPs apparently value). In fact, the

18 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 January and February statistics from UCAS, Million+ and the NUS are also engaged in the universities admissions service, suggest that a mature students project, the results of which MPs should spread their interest and concerns will be published in May this year. Currently, more widely. 4,000 responses from mature HE students The 15 January UCAS date is the deadline are being analysed and a series of workshops for applicants to be considered on an equal are being held in universities in England basis for admission to university and is not the and Scotland. Early survey results provide deadline for applications to university in 2012. further food for thought for those who, along It is well-known that many would-be older with NIACE, have raised concerns about the students will apply much later and some will Westminster government’s decision to withdraw wait for the outcome of access-to-HE courses all public funding from Level 3 courses for where results are only known in late August. those aged over 24 (see http://shop.niace.org. Other mature students will be more interested uk/adults-learning-extra.html). From 2013–14, in studying part-time and will apply direct to a these adults will be faced with paying much university rather than via the UCAS system. higher fees upfront or taking out a further education fee loan on the same terms as that Decline in applications offered in HE. UCAS does not break down the application Around 62 per cent of respondents to the figures by UK country and age but the January million+/NUS mature students survey have statistics reveal an overall 11 per cent decline said that Level 3 qualifications were their in applications from mature students who highest qualifications before starting their want to study full-time compared to January university course. Interestingly, around 65 2011. This has to be set against an overall 6.5 per cent of all respondents (i.e. those with per cent decline in applications from younger Level 2 and Foundation Degrees as well as students. UCAS also suggested that there was a Level 3 qualifications) have indicated that they greater decline in applicants from advantaged, started studying for their highest pre-entry compared to disadvantaged, backgrounds. This qualification when they were over the age of is a somewhat doubtful conclusion. The UCAS 24. This suggests that significant numbers of analysis is based on application trends linked mature students in England will have to be with local government wards – a relatively prepared to incur an FE fee loan plus an HE crude measure of disadvantage. In fact the fee loan if they wish to progress to university in UCAS ‘deprivation’ analysis is only for 18-year- the future. old students. This group now makes up fewer At a time when demand from mature HE than half of all university applicants, and students appears to have been undermined experienced a far smaller fall in applications by the new fees regime, many will inevitably than others did. Applications from 18-year- ask whether the use of FE fee loans to replace olds fell 2.6 per cent year on year, versus 12.6 funding for Level 3 qualifications is the best per cent for 19-year-olds and 11.4 per cent for way of ensuring that university is not just for those aged 20. Applications from those aged 25 young people. Unlike HE fee loans, FE loans or over fell by over 10 per cent. The February will have an overall cash limit rather than be UCAS statistics confirm the January trends. governed by student number controls. No- In reality, the impact of the new 2012 fees one knows what will happen if, and when, the and funding regime in England will not be money is used up. For its part, the High Court known until enrolments have been analysed in has recently deemed that the Westminster 2013. However, the decline in applications by government did not pay ‘due regard’ to the mature students rather than the appointment promotion of opportunity as required under of Les Ebdon as Director of OFFA should be the equality legislation prior to introducing ringing alarm bells among MPs and ministers. the 2012 HE fees regime. It remains to be seen Mature students often come from more whether the FE loan policy will be subject to, disadvantaged backgrounds. Any decline in and will pass, a similar judicial test in terms of the number of mature students studying at age and other equality factors. university is likely to undermine rather than enhance social mobility. This is why million+ Pam Tatlow is Chief Executive of the university and the National Union of Students have think-tank million+. The million+/NUS called on ministers to devote more resources mature students report will be launched at the to ensure that older prospective students are House of Commons in May 2012: aware that they do not have to pay fees upfront. www.millionplus.ac.uk.

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 19 Tent City University has been one of the most remarkable experiments of the Occupy London protest, but, as PAUL STANISTREET discovered, it is just one of a number of radical alternatives which are emerging to challenge current educational convention

20 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 Marco Maccarini/Alamy c ‘Anyone can teach, everyone can learn’

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 21 he eviction of the Occupy London interventions of the adult education movement protesters from their tents outside St – university settlements, extension classes, free Paul’s Cathedral marks the end of one libraries, Ruskin College and the Workers’ Tof the most interesting experiments Educational Association. The free university in popular education in recent times. For the movement is ‘absolutely embedded in the history past few months a string of leading writers, of adult education’, he says. The Social Science activists, journalists and academics have held Centre draws on the ‘popular education model’ workshops, led discussions and given lectures in which ‘teachers and students recognise that beneath the draughty canvas of the Tent City they have much to learn from each other’ and University. The facilities may have been basic approach education as a collaborative project. – not much more than a sound system with a Teacher and student are seen as part of a few tatty sofa cushions dotted around – but community, a cooperative endeavour, intended there was no shortage of speakers keen to swap to fulfil what Dougald Hine, founder of the the relative comfort of the lecture theatre for University Project to ‘reimagine and reinvent this sparse and lively space in which teaching the university’, calls ‘the promise at the heart was thought of more as a collaboration than of the university’: to cultivate knowledge and a process of transmission. They won a varied, promote the spirit of enquiry, rather than informed and, often, challenging audience of simply to enhance economic competitiveness activists, shoppers, students and tourists, as well and promote graduates’ employment prospects. as a cross-section of Londoners, many with no background of higher learning. Tent City University It is one example – albeit the most striking That there is an appetite for less formal – and and high-profile – of a wider movement keen less expensive – higher educational spaces is both to capture what campaigners see as the obvious from the spontaneous way in which spirit of the public university – as places, first some of these experiments have developed. and foremost, in which people are free to think, The Tent City University emerged in the to debate and to shape the future – and to resist early days of the Occupy London protest as the marketisation of higher education, a critical organisers sought to get their message out to a issue for many Occupy protesters, brought to wider audience. Within a few days of the camp a head by cuts to the teaching grant and the being set up last October, a series of informal trebling of tuition fees. ‘Alternative universities’ ‘teach-outs’ had been organised which quickly have sprung up in London, Liverpool, Leeds grew into a programme of lectures, debates and Lincoln, with academics more than willing and workshops. The organisers, says Katherine to volunteer their time and expertise to get Stanley, a member of the working group which them off the ground. While the organisers ran the Tent City University, wanted ‘not only to of these initiatives do not necessarily think hold workshops but to foster debate’, to create of themselves as providing a straightforward a space in which ideas could be exchanged and alternative to mainstream higher education – questioned, and where political and educational the public university remains for most a cause conventions could be challenged. They found worth fighting for – they do all recognise a a ready audience, not only among activists but pressing need to create new spaces, genuinely from passers-by, shoppers, tourists and others, public spaces, in which people who might be some of whom came to see the university as part reluctant to incur substantial debts in return for of their daily routine. their education can come together to share ideas The audience, Stanley says, tended to be and learn new things. more vocal and, often, better informed than For Mike Neary, Dean of Teaching and a typical university audience. ‘There’s a lot Learning at the University of Lincoln, and one more dialogue, a lot of energy, and a lot of of the organisers of the Social Science Centre – a discussion and opinion, and discussion of ‘co-operative education centre’ based in Lincoln opinion. The audience is dynamic and there’s (though it has no formal links to the university) quite a lot of movement in terms of numbers. We with no fees and no formal distinction between have regulars who don’t come from academic students and staff – the work of these activists backgrounds who have become increasingly is rooted in ‘the history of how those excluded involved.’ The dynamic nature of the exchange from higher education have organised their own has been welcomed by academics who have intellectual lives and learning in collaboration usually responded keenly to the less formal, with university academics’. He makes a non-hierarchical teaching environment. Word direct connection with some of the milestone about the space spread fast and speakers quickly

22 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 filled up the university’s online calendar with education and was, until recently, a mature ideas for lectures and discussions, on everything students’ officer for her students’ union, at from the banking crisis and the Arab spring to Goldsmith’s, University of London. ‘Having theology and forming a credit union. Speakers left the university environment and then have included the academic David Harvey, found myself in this one it has really blown journalist Polly Toynbee and US politician and me away,’ she says. ‘It is very different to what civil rights activist Jesse Jackson. I experienced at university. I don’t want to say it was a bad experience at university because Public debate it’s changed everything for me. But going The Tent City University was, Stanley explains, forward from that foundation I personally to an extent a reaction to the perception that have been really excited by the people and the ‘formal education is becoming more and environment, by the amount of dialogue. You more commodified and inaccessible’. The realise what is possible. Who knew it could be organisers wanted to challenge that. ‘It’s this exciting and dynamic and scary?’ about renewing the spirit of public debate [in Because the Tent City University took off and the face of] the cuts we are seeing, and the grew so quickly there was little opportunity to SWords in the window of narrowing of opportunity for people to access consider how to take the work forward, though the ‘Bank of Ideas’, one further education and, subsequently, higher discussions are underway to ensure that the of the buildings Occupy education. The idea was that anyone can teach initiative is built on and that education remains London took over near and everyone can learn. And it still is.’ Stanley a pivotal part of Occupy 2.0, whatever form the capital’s financial herself has spent the past four years in higher that takes. The university’s sister scheme, the district Maggie Sully/Alamy c

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 23 Bank of Ideas, based in an empty office block lifelong learning has made higher learning far near London’s financial district, offered several less accessible. short evening courses, and there is an interest in developing the Tent City University beyond Social Science Centre the lecture-and-discussion format. Only towards Lincoln’s Social Science Centre is perhaps the the end of the occupation did organisers turn clearest and best thought-out model of what a their thoughts to ‘asking what we are doing more accessible, collaborative form of higher and why’, Stanley says. ‘Consideration is being education outside the state-led sector might given to what we are part of and where we would look like. Mike Neary, who has been involved consider ourselves distinct and where we are in in the co-operative centre since it was first the same vein.’ What is clear is that the feeling mooted back in the summer of 2010, is quick to that the current higher education system is not emphasise that the model he has helped develop fulfilling all of the purposes of a university is is not intended to replace the traditional form widespread, among both activists and academics of institution, in which he and many of the – and, perhaps, too, among the general public other members of the centre are employed. ‘It’s for whom the steady erosion of university certainly not in competition with the University

24 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 of Lincoln, or indeed with any other university, Marxism, there are people who have awareness because we see ourselves as offering something of this kind of working-class, educational different,’ he says. The Social Science Centre, project, the Workers’ Educational Association, which will take its first students at the start of all connected to that kind of historical leftism, the next academic year, will not demand fees but we have no line that we’re pushing – we’re and does not insist on any formal distinction not educating students to think in a particular between students and staff. It is managed by its way, far from it. We’re producing a model of members – academics, students, administrators, higher education that will mirror as much as we educators, activists – much as the Tent City can the kind of world we’d like to live in while University was, ‘on the basis of democratic, we share and collaborate.’ non-hierarchical principles’. The centre intends The aim is to produce something that is to teach around 20 students, offering ‘portable’ both local and sustainable – and that is ‘in a qualifications graded to university level by real space at the heart of its local community’ volunteer staff. There is no set fee but if students (the centre will focus on face-to-face teaching and teachers are able to contribute and wish to, and learning). Although it is small in scale, and there is a fee structure whereby people pay one based around the social sciences, Neary thinks hour of their income a month.

Teaching grant The catalyst for the centre was the decision of the coalition government to withdraw the teaching grant from the arts, humanities Educators are looking for and the social sciences, Neary explains. Although what he terms ‘the marketisation ways to connect with the and commodification of higher education’ had been a trend under previous governments, movement but we have the withdrawal of public funding for teaching in these subject areas marked ‘a particular to be the movement – it’s intensification’ of the campaign against the public university. ‘It seems to me that is an act of not a movement to be intellectual vandalism against the university as a progressive political and sociological project connected to or to explain – and maybe against civilisation. That might sound a bit extreme but the whole sense of who we are as a society is being attacked, clearly. As things to – we are part of academics – the personification of the university, in our roles and in our academic life – a group the movement of us felt that we had to do something, to set up a different form of higher education, while at the same time fighting to maintain the public university and funding.’ it will produce a model that could be emulated What Neary hopes will emerge is a ‘new form elsewhere, in other subjects. The centre, he of institution’ run along cooperative lines, with hopes, will gain a ‘reputation for excellence’ teachers and students, as well as administrative which will be guarded by ‘associate’ members and professional support staff, working closely who, while they will not be involved in teaching together to run the centre and its teaching or in the day-to-day running of the centre, programme. Teachers and students have much will take on a sort of external examiner and to learn from one another, he says, and that review role. It will be important to have credible will be reflected in course content which will scholars in the role as it is the reputation of be subject to ‘a lot of negotiation and a lot of the centre that will ‘validate’ the degrees it discussion’. He also envisages students and offers, Neary says, whether at undergraduate, teachers working together on research and master’s or PhD level. Students will study for writing. Around 30 academic and support staff up to six years part-time to achieve a certificate have signed up to be involved, most but not equivalent to a degree. A master’s course will all from the University of Lincoln. ‘There are take up to four years and a PhD course eight people there from the transition movement, years. Each student will receive a certificate in people who are interested in autonomous higher education, with ‘an extensive written

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 25 transcript detailing their academic and an open day for those interested in studying intellectual achievements’. The plan is to begin and teaching at the centre in April. Mike Neary advertising the centre’s offer in the spring. is understandably reluctant to speculate about who the students will be, but he is convinced Public spaces there will be interest. ‘It’s kind of the moment, Rootedness and the need to create real, public and the time and people’s commitment spaces in local communities – while at the same to doing something is making it work. We time fully engaging with the world and wanting couldn’t have imagined it 10 years ago but now to change it – is a theme that runs through the it seems like absolutely the right time to be alternative university movement. Opening up doing something. I think history is important, such spaces, in places designed perhaps more timing. It’s a moment. People in this country with work and shopping in mind than learning and elsewhere are organising themselves and, I and connection, is critical, organisers believe, think, politicising the process as well – and the and can open up interior spaces in which to occupations and the student movement are all think, dream and imagine – for many, what the part of that. Educators are looking for ways to university should be all about. The idea of space connect with the movement but we have to be is at the heart of the Really Open University, the movement, we are the movement – it’s not a project, based in Leeds, which styles itself as a movement to be connected to or to explain ‘an ongoing process of transformation by those things to – we are part of the movement. It’s with a desire to challenge the higher education a sort of academic activism, bringing the two system and its role in society’. Committed to ‘the things together. People talk about them as creation of a free and empowering education though they are different things or they work system where creative and critical thought is against each other but I like to think of them as fostered’, it aims to change people’s perceptions if they are the same thing – academic activism.’ of higher education in order to create an ‘institution that works in the interests of all Something bigger people in common’. As well as organising public Katherine Stanley also locates the Tent City talks and other events, the group has developed University initiative, and the other educational the Space Project, a response to the problem work of the Occupy movement, as part of of where, other than on campus, to take their something bigger, one of many alternative learning. The idea is to create a space where education movements currently springing up. ‘meetings of thought, of practice, of people, It is, in part, a reaction against the current of ideas’ can take place, and where different environment in education but it is also about groups can collaborate and develop projects something more positive which has grown up together. The Really Open University would as part of the protest and now seems likely to act as a general facilitator and ‘matchmaker’ of outlive it, or at least its current incarnation. projects. The process of understanding what it is that is The Free University of Liverpool is another unfolding and what it relates to is difficult, she project committed to reimagining higher says, because, by its nature, the movement ‘is education as ‘a right for all not a privilege for about creating as many questions as it is about the few’. Although it is framed as a protest getting answers’. The example is catching on, against the increase in tuition fees, it is also a Neary thinks, but not in an easy-to-predict response to a longer-standing dissatisfaction way. ‘We are a model people can take up and with the structure of higher education. The use, but in a different way, hopefully. The last university, founded by a group of artists, thing we want people to do is clone what we do activists and educators who refer to themselves here. That’s the problem with a lot of initiatives, collectively as ‘The Committee’, promises a free they get cloned and the really interesting thing education, in the creative arts, to any student gets taken out of them. There are new forms wanting to study with them. Everyone involved emerging ... It’s very obvious that the marketised is offering their time for free. Its first course, a model of social development is collapsing. six-month foundation studies degree, began last We want to be part of the process of building October. A three-year BA in Cultural Praxis will something that is progressive, and education has be launched in October 2012. a key role to play in that. In the face of a crisis of The Social Science Centre will welcome everything, everywhere you look, the university its first in-take of students this autumn, in has to have a role, not simply in going with the subjects central to the social sciences, such as flow but in being the critical voice – that is the sociology, politics and philosophy. It is holding essence of everything we do.’

26 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 s unemployment levels rise, so as ‘workfare’, which he summarises as ‘an education and training move into the American term’ for programmes that force policy spotlight. For the government, jobseekers to take work as a condition of their A this is a very uncomfortable place to benefit claim. By contrast, Duncan Smith be right now. A number of large companies emphasises that the Work Programme – under have withdrawn from the flagship Work which unemployed people continue to receive Programme – under which jobseekers are Job Seekers’ Allowance (JSA) plus expenses – is invited to take up unpaid work placements of voluntary. between two and eight weeks – amid clamours Better by far, he argues, that the of ‘slave labour’, along with Marie Curie unemployed should find the ‘sense of purpose’ Cancer Care and Shelter. Worse, Thames and opening of opportunities that come Valley Police have arrested four staff from the from work than that they should sit at home, Work Programme contractors A4e on charges fantasising about appearing on X-Factor. of fraud, and the National Audit Office has Above all, he claims, the Work Programme works. ‘The fact is’, he wrote in the Daily Mail, ‘that thirteen weeks after starting their placements, around 50 per cent of those taking part have either taken up permanent posts or have stopped claiming benefits’. Nick Clegg supported his expanded Youth Does work Contract with similar arguments, pointing out that unemployment in early life can leave a permanent scar on people’s earnings later in life. The storms of protest that greeted these schemes have had a number of consequences. experience In the short term, they have caused a number of organisations to worry about their image, and question their involvement. This may or may not be a good thing, depending on whether you think the schemes themselves actually work? do more harm than good. In the medium The government’s work experience scheme for jobless people has been widely criticised, but does work experience actually work – and what more can be done to meet the needs of older unemployed people, asks JOHN FIELD

suggested that the scheme was introduced term, they have provoked a debate about the too hastily, with targets that are probably nature and purpose of programmes designed ‘over-optimistic’. Meanwhile, the Deputy to help the unemployed. I strongly welcome Prime Minister announced a new scheme to this debate, particularly if we appeal more to encourage employers to take on disengaged 16- evidence and logic, and less to the language and 17-year-olds. of hyperbole, dismissal and abuse that we can This is all, frankly, a bit of a mess. Iain hear both from Mr Duncan Smith and from Duncan Smith, defending his government’s many of his critics. So instead of howling about stance, has dismissed his critics for showing ‘an ‘sneering intellectuals’ or ‘slave labour’, let us unjustified sense of superiority and sporting ask the question: does work experience actually an intellectual sneer’. They are, he says, simply work? wrong to describe the Work Programme First, let’s broaden this out a bit. Many

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 27 people believe that work experience does work more likely to escape wage scarring, but for students and others who take internships are also more likely to be in employment in large and successful organisations, from than unemployed people who take no adult Oxfam to Barclays Bank. Indeed, the success education programmes. So learning works, of unpaid internships – in terms of experience, provided that it is either linked to work CV and network building and general skills experience, or is congruent with people’s development – has led to calls for the reform other life aspirations. Learning may have and opening up of such schemes, because unintended negative consequences, though, they can give an advantage to those who take where it is narrowly defined in terms of job part. It is ironic, then, that some of those who skills programmes for the unemployed – want greater equality of access to internships without a job! So the first thing to say is that also dismiss work experience for unemployed Nick Clegg is right to warn about the scarring people. effects of unemployment, and that the idea of Second, do we have evidence on the incentivising employment of young disengaged people is a good one. My main concern about the Youth Contract is its scale and focus: it is too small, and it should be extended to stigmatised and disengaged people over the How can we best support age of 17. unemployed adults back Work Programme If work experience can play a positive role, into work? Evidence from what of the Work Programme? Iain Duncan Smith is in no doubt, as can be seen from his longitudinal studies suggests claim that half of the participants were either in lasting jobs or off benefits within 13 weeks. The minister took this figure, which is entirely that training tied to work, accurate, from a study of 1,300 people who started the Work Programme early in 2011. or education tied to other Can we therefore assume that the programme is doing what it was intended to – namely, life interests, are most likely moving people from welfare to work? To answer that, we need to know much more about to deliver results this apparently simple figure. In a recent blog post, the economist Jonathan Portes argued that Duncan Smith’s figure was ‘not very meaningful’. For a start, effects of work experience specifically for the as any social statistician would point out, we unemployed? We know from longitudinal simply don’t know how many people would studies – that is, surveys where the same have found work or left benefits without joining people take part over a period of time – that the programme in the first place. We know that work experience is one of the most effective most people who claim Job Seekers’ Allowance ways of preventing long-term damage from move off benefits quite quickly anyway, and we experiencing unemployment. Studies of can also predict that Jobcentre Plus advisers unemployed people in longitudinal surveys will ‘cream off’ the most acceptable claimants showed that those who had entered subsidised for work-experience schemes in order to meet employment were less likely to experience their targets, neglecting more stigmatised and wage scarring later in life than unemployed disadvantaged claimants. Then, as Duncan people who had only entered training. In Smith pointed out, the 50 per cent figure fact, the best results, both for Britain and for includes all those who left JSA, whether for other European countries, were obtained when jobs, full-time education, or to drop out. And, people entered employment together with of course, the figures relate to early 2011, since training. when unemployment rates have continued to Longitudinal studies also show that creep upwards. unemployed people who take adult education So while Duncan Smith is technically programmes while out of work – especially accurate, we cannot conclude that the Work if they gain a qualification – are not only Programme works. Even if the language

28 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 of ‘slave labour’ is excessive, it does seem And this is reinforced by the experience of likely that current work placements are too the REPLAN programme during the 1980s short-term, and also poor in quality, with recession. feeble requirements for employers to invest Last, but not at all least, should employment significantly in real upskilling. We also know be the only valuable outcome? Can new that younger claimants are the most likely to combinations of work and learning help us leave JSA quickly, which begs the question of share employment more equitably between what needs to be done for older unemployed those who want and need it? What kinds of claimants. work – paid and unpaid – should we require The recent debate has focused on the young, and value, in what remains the seventh richest and particularly on the young NEET group. economy in the world? On balance, European From a policy perspective, it seems that ageism societies like ours consume far too much; begins at 25! For adult educators, this poses poverty, scarcity and want are more the result three big challenges. The first is how to bring of current social and political arrangements the adult unemployed back into the policy than unavoidable economic imperatives. frame. The argument cannot be a matter of It is the task of an open and democratic robbing the under-25 Peter to pay the over- approach to adult learning to explore long- 25 Paul, but about how to combine economic term questions about the purpose and nature recovery with social justice and cohesion. of work as we grapple with the continuing Second, how can we best support immediate crisis of the recession. unemployed adults back into work? Evidence from longitudinal studies suggests that training John Field is Professor of Lifelong Learning and tied to work, or education tied to other life Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Lifelong interests, are most likely to deliver results. Learning, University of Stirling

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 29 ’ve recently taken part in two events to previous patterns of behaviour? do with offender learning. The first was These are longer-term questions, and can organised by the Prisoners’ Education only be answered by longitudinal research. (I ITrust, whose director Pat Jones was very declare an interest as Director of Longview, supportive when we pursued the theme of whose function it is to promote longitudinal crime and lifelong learning in the Inquiry into research). Only by tracking ex-offenders and the Future for Lifelong Learning. seeing what happens to them after their release The trust is working on a ‘learner voice’ can we get a grip on how far what they learn initiative that seeks to involve learners more in in prison really affects their prospects, and the development of prison education, helping reduces recidivism. Yet tracking ex-offenders them to express their views and helping has all kinds of difficulty associated with it, providers to respond to them (see http://www. as you can easily imagine: the sheer logistics prisonerseducation.org.uk/). It’s an important of knowing where they are and what they are Learning for life outside way of improving the service, as well as of doing, of maintaining contact and then of motivating students and potential students. confidentiality. The initiative is funded by a consortium of three charities, and in the advisory group we Maintaining links discussed how it might be evaluated. Evaluation The same issue came up the very next day is an issue of increasing importance, for when I visited HMP Belmarsh, a high- charities as well as public funders. Everyone security prison in South London, as part of agrees it’s important, but it’s not so easy to a meeting organised by Safe Ground. This decide how to do it appropriately – in other admirable project concentrates on helping words, to measure what should be measured prisoners maintain links with their families, rather than what is easy to measure. and especially on fathers staying in touch with In the case of offender learning, there are their children (http://www.safeground.org.uk). thorny issues to be confronted when deciding Upwards of 40 per cent of male prisoners lose on what is appropriate in terms of evaluation. touch with their families, and you can imagine The first is how much to focus on what the the consequences for them and for their learners achieve in the way of learning, as families, especially the children. (The single distinct from what effect the learning has on most startling statistic for me in the whole their rehabilitation. Even assessing the learning Inquiry was that two out of three boys with a is not easy, where this involves some very father in prison end up in prison themselves.) personal issues of self-confidence, self-image The Family Man/Fathers Inside initiative and so on. But let’s assume all the learning puts on 10-week courses in over 20 prisons objectives are satisfactorily achieved. Ideally, around the UK. Through drama, creative we would then like to know what this led to, writing and other exercises the prisoners learn especially when the offender is released from to build trust and communication skills, first prison. Does it enable them to reintegrate into with each other and then with their families. society, to find a job and move away from their A family support officer works from the other

30 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 end, helping the families understand what the and found their way in society. Especially men are trying to do during the course. We telling would be evidence on how the learning visitors sat with 11 yellow-shirted prisoners, has helped them overcome the inevitable heard them act out some of the scenes and setbacks they will encounter (including, to be then joined with them in exercises dealing with realistic, the possibility of recidivism – some stereotyping. will find their way back into prison, in spite of I would defy anyone sitting in on this the course). As enthusiastic ambassadors for the activity, and listening to the men, not to course, their evidence is not exactly objective, believe in its effectiveness. They spoke very but that does not invalidate it, especially if they directly about what this had meant to them, continue to bear witness after they have been as individuals but also as members of a team released. This kind of evidence-building needs helping each other to overcome barriers. It’s time to accumulate, but it is possible. transformational. As a practical example, These two events made me think again

Offender learning can be transformational, but evaluating the work can be tricky, particularly when it comes to tracking ex-offenders in the wider world they encounter on release, writes TOM SCHULLER

they learn to plan their 10-minute phone calls about the ‘teachable moment’ idea, and how home, to ask open-ended questions rather than we need to be smarter in planning educational ones that can be answered with a yes/no and so interventions and opportunities so that they encourage their kids to talk more; and to think occur at the time when they are most likely to about how to make the family visits a positive have effect. We know now, from neuroscience experience for all the family. The prison research, that the prefrontal cortex which officers responsible for delivering the Belmarsh controls our executive function takes longer course also spoke about what it had meant for to mature than was previously recognised. No them. For one, it had completely relaunched surprise to many parents of late teenagers, his career, from being a jaded officer with no maybe. But many young men desist from job satisfaction to someone who looked forward crime in their mid-twenties, or at least wish to coming into work each day. to, but lack obvious alternatives. This is a key So it works at the level of personal change, moment of potential development, with major at the time the course happens. But is this consequences for themselves and for the rest sustained, and what happens afterwards? of us. Many of them go on to do further courses in We are perfectly happy to subsidise prison, including Open University courses. courses, sports fields and cultural facilities They deal better with problems in the prison, for undergraduates as part of their personal so that some prison officers who had previously maturation, and rightly so. To offer an been suspicious of the course as a soft option equivalent to young offenders, mainly men, were persuaded of its efficacy, seeing the who come to a teachable point in their lives has improvement in the individual behaviour of exactly the same logic. They should not avoid prisoners and in their positive influence on the punishment. But the offer of a real learning prison climate. pathway, funded, say, to the equivalent of a Harder questions involve the impact on year’s undergraduate degree, would not be a families. We heard something about the reward for crime but a real public investment. plans for evaluating the activity, including It could be offered around their twenty-fifth whether there is an impact on the children’s birthday, and be conditional upon completion performance at school. In principle, this should of the kind of course that Safe Ground offers. be the case, and I’m sure that it happens, but I’d bet heavily that it would pay for itself in I’m doubtful how possible it is to demonstrate short order. results on any statistical basis. I think the most powerful testimony will come from graduates Tom Schuller is Director of Longview and of the scheme once they have been released co-author of Learning Through Life

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 31 ichael Gove has correctly lambasted students will be enticed away from productive the current curriculum for engineering, including software engineering. information and communication Mtechnology (ICT): his proposed Vocational qualifications solution is as wrong as the current curriculum, The second problem is constructed from as findings from the Penceil Research Project on incoherent attempts to measure school how to engage non-users of ICTs demonstrate. performance through GCSE results. Gove’s Penceil, a joint project run by NIACE and more recent dictum removing most vocational the London School of Economics and Political qualifications, including engineering Science (LSE), explored how the basic IT skills qualifications, from credit for school’s GCSE curriculum needs to be transformed and the performance tables compounds the situation. lessons from that also tell us much about how The problem lies, at base, in the singular young people can best learn about ICTs. measure of school performance through The dominant mode of teaching computing, measuring good GCSEs (in the prescribed both in schools and to adults, is as part of combination) with drastic penalties for imputed training students to survive in an office (and under-performance. The nostrum administered dominantly an MS Office) environment. will deter schools from providing courses that A curriculum for curiosity Michael Gove is right to criticise the way in which information and communication technologies are taught, but his response will do nothing to create the sort of curriculum we will need if we are to produce a generation of thoughtful users and co-creators of ICTs, argues MIKE CUSHMAN

Learning how to use a word processor and a meet the needs and wishes of students who want spreadsheet is a useful low-level enabling skill to develop much needed, but further derided, but it has little to do with learning to engage technical knowledge. creatively with information and communication Software engineering, computer science technologies. and programming must be available options, Gove’s response is a disastrous elision of two but options not core. The core skills lie, separate problems. The first and most refractory unsurprisingly, in the words information, issue is the British low regard for engineering communication and technology. The above are skills. This is a looming catastrophe for all devices for managing information and enabling engineering-based industries: automotive, communication, and students need to be given aerospace, civil and software engineering the chance to develop the skills to do this well. are all fearing critical skills shortages. The Locating and critically analysing information solution to this is not to make either civil on the web is a more complex task than entering engineering or software engineering part of a phrase on a search engine. Constructing a core curriculum. The answers lie in the far search terms that will put the items you want more entangled realms of cultural and financial at the top of the list is a complex task that valuing of engineering skills. As long as is infrequently taught and only slightly less financial engineering is rewarded 10 times more infrequently learned (leaving aside the strange favourably than any other kind, then bright world of the advanced search link). Evaluating

32 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 the quality, authority and reliability of the (and politicians) alternately present us with a items on the list provided requires linguistic heaven of unlimited services and opportunities sophistication, awareness of sources of bias, and and a hell of threats, frauds and dangers. We social and political shrewdness. have to learn how to navigate between a naïve Online information is thin in its indicators of trust and a debilitating fear – and for this we provenance and its hinterland of assumptions need social skills and a technological awareness. about the world. While it is relatively A basic understanding of what happens when we straightforward to discuss with students the click on an icon or a hyperlink is also necessary. differing assumptions behind a report in the We do not yet have a guide to how far to Guardian and one in the Mail; it is far more explore the insides of our machines and, of complex to locate, for a British reader, the course, this will vary with the interests and assumptions behind the Sydney Morning Herald aptitudes of different groups of students. What or the Des Moines Register. Similarly, when will intrigue some will mystify and alienate seeking health information, finding the hidden others. Decisions as to what to do when are best commercial sponsors of a medical information left to competent teachers and their students site, and thus adjusting for the special interest and not to national politicians prescribing for an that may be promoted there, is hard. unknown universal pupil. A curriculum for curiosity

These are essential skills for twenty-first An added complication is that whatever century information literacy, that must be part technologies we teach now will be dated in 10 of any ICT curriculum. Otherwise, unwary years time, unusable in 20 and museum pieces readers may be led to believe Mr Gove’s in 30. We need to ensure that learners are pronouncements to be well-informed and curious and flexible in their approach so they authoritative. can adapt, adapt to and embrace unthought-of future devices and not be left floundering as Appropriate register they grow older: a curriculum for curiosity not Communication is equally important. The certainty. internet allows us to communicate with We need a discourse of engagement with people distant from us both culturally and ICTs to accomplish tasks which are important geographically. We do not know how our reader and meaningful to learners, not the mandating will understand what we write; whether that of one menu of irrelevant skills in place of a which is inoffensive in our home town may redundant set. Teaching about and through be deeply offensive elsewhere; how to find ICTs is more complex than imaginatively an appropriate register and language for a summoning a phantom cohort of software multitude of forums. We need the skills and engineers to drive the economy forward. A insights of English and language teachers to thoughtful curriculum will foster a generation of inform our ICT teaching efforts. thoughtful users and co-creators of information Finally, this is a technology, or more and sufficient programmers to code all our accurately an array of technologies; and erratic dreams. and troublesome technologies at that. We all need to learn how to keep our technologies Mike Cushman is a member of the London working well and deal with mysterious error School of Economics Department of Management. messages and sudden breakdowns without He worked on the LSE/NIACE Penceil Project on panicking or spending excessive money and how to engage non-users in the use of ICTs: time on ill-qualified repair services. The media http://www.penceil.lse.ac.uk.

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 33 t is six years since NIACE published the findings of its Committee of Inquiry on English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). Its report, More than a language, Imade significant and wide-reaching recommendations aimed at addressing the quality of provision, unmet demand and the structure of ESOL teaching qualifications. While much has changed in six years, the report’s statement of the importance of ESOL and its critical role in addressing a wide range of social and economic policy objectives, remains as relevant today as it was then: A challenge we can’t afford to shirk

Effective ESOL is critical to empowering adults to gain Welsh ministers have an independence and control over their lives, to increasing social inclusion and cohesion and to the country’s skills agenda. It is opportunity to look again at also of increasing importance to a wide range of key government policies, including community regeneration, combating racism, how best to coordinate efforts improving health and housing, as well as the obvious areas of to meet the needs of ESOL education and skills. The recommendations made in More than a language were learners. Concerns raised aimed at and accepted by the then UK government for delivery of ESOL in England. While many, if not all, the by practitioners in the field challenges presented in the report were applicable to both England and Wales, responsibility for ESOL in Wales is suggest they need to take it, devolved to the Welsh Government and differences remain in the way ESOL delivery is planned and funded across the writes CERYS FURLONG UK nations. Reflecting that, and the broader devolution of education policy, the Welsh Government has taken its own approach to the delivery of ESOL in Wales. ESOL has historically developed alongside adult literacy and numeracy in Wales as part of the basic skills agenda, empowering and enabling the local population. Since 2006 there have been a number of significant reports on ESOL provision in Wales, highlighting the challenges for learners and providers. In 2008, education and training inspectorate Estyn published a report on the impact of increased demand for ESOL, largely as a result of the significant numbers of migrant workers entering employment in Wales. Whilst a significant proportion of those workers from EU accession countries have since returned home, many

34 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 of the challenges identified by Estyn remain. These include and language). The segregation of policy lead between, on the need to: review the funding arrangements for ESOL the one hand, ESOL, and, on the other, adult literacy and so that providers are better able to plan for, and respond numeracy, caused confusion for practitioners who deliver all to, increases in demand; review the guidance on residency these areas of curricula within the Essential Skills (in Wales) requirements so that providers are clear about how to apply Framework. these when enrolling learners; and consider ways to improve Despite these significant changes, and tumultuous times training opportunities for ESOL teachers and strengthen for practitioners, the need for opportunities for learners to arrangements whereby providers can share good practice and access ESOL remain as important as ever. The report by GHK support each other, regionally and nationally. Consulting, commissioned (but seemingly not acted upon) The latter point in particular merits further consideration. by the Welsh Government in 2010, highlighted evidence to In 2006 the Basic Skills Agency established the National suggest that across Wales only 44 per cent of ESOL needs are Support Project in Wales as a way of delivering the Welsh being met. That report also highlighted concerns that still Government’s strategy for basic skills, Words Talk, Numbers need to be addressed by the Welsh Government: Count. ESOL was clearly identified as a priority area within the strategy, with commitment to enhanced support for ESOL q There remain disparities between individual authorities learners and practitioners to ensure ‘that no-one is prevented and between North and South Wales; from playing a full part in society by lack of basic English or q The dynamic nature of in-migration illustrates the need to Welsh language skills’. The ESOL National Support Project continue monitoring the changes in supply and demand (NSP) was given that task of providing additional support to for ESOL on an annual basis; practitioners and the broad range of organisations involved q The lack of suitably qualified and experienced staff is a in the delivery of ESOL and supporting ESOL learners across barrier to the delivery of ESOL; Wales. Widely regarded as hugely successful, the NSP came q There is little investment in professional development to an end in April 2008, despite the clear ongoing need despite the introduction of new qualifications; and for support for practitioners, and co-ordination across a q Opportunities for the sharing of good practice should constantly evolving and wide-ranging network of providers of continue to be supported. ESOL. In January 2009, following the merger of the Basic Skills The fact that these concerns continue to be highlighted in a Agency with the Welsh Government, Basic Skills Cymru range of reports, and by a dedicated, but frustrated, group of (the part of Welsh Government that took over responsibility practitioners, should ring alarm bells for Welsh Government. for literacy, numeracy and language, including ESOL) If it is accepted that ‘Effective ESOL is critical to empowering established the ESOL Development Advisory Group. adults to gain independence and control over their lives, to Membership included a range of providers involved in the increasing social inclusion and cohesion, and to the country’s delivery of ESOL, as well as other stakeholders including skills agenda’ then there must be urgent consideration given NIACE, Estyn and Colleges Wales. In part set up to continue to the challenges that have been highlighted. The GHK the work of the successful NSP, the remit of the group was to report estimated that there are 40,000 people who do not ‘Establish a strategic approach to the ongoing development have English or Welsh as a first language, and 26,000 of these of ESOL provision, in order to improve standards, and better have ESOL needs at Level 1 or below. In 2006 More than a meet the needs of ESOL learners and teachers’. Facilitated language concluded that ‘having a successful system of ESOL by officials from the Department for Education and Skills, is of fundamental importance to this country’ and that there the Advisory Group published an action plan, which made were significant issues to be addressed to meet that challenge. recommendations for the future delivery of ESOL. The action That remains as true today in Wales, as do the final words of plan called on the Welsh Government to: that report: ‘This is not a challenge that, as a nation, we can afford to shirk’. q Establish an ESOL strategy and plan for Wales; Current work to remodel the Essential Skills in the q Review and reshape ESOL provision to improve the Workplace progamme, and ongoing developments around relevance to learners’ English language acquisition needs Essential Skills Wales more broadly, should offer an and meet demand; opportunity for Welsh Government to look again at how q Support ESOL learners’ needs to enable learners to access best to meet the needs of ESOL learners. Responsibility for and benefit from learning and employment opportunities; ESOL has recently transferred to the further education policy and division within the Department for Education and Skills (now q Urgently address the shortages of qualified ESOL tutors. responsible for all post-16 policy). This should be welcomed by those in the field who have raised concerns about ESOL However, since its publication the change brought about in Wales, and we should take the opportunity to ensure that following reorganisations with the Department for Education the voice of ESOL learners, and providers, is heard loud and and Skills saw responsibility for ESOL in Wales transfer to clear in Wales. the Support for Learners Division, alongside English as an Additional Language (and away from adult literacy, numeracy Cerys Furlong is Programme Director, NIACE Dysgu Cymru

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 35 f you love reading and love to discuss books actively work together, talk to each other and then you may well be in a reading group. engage in reading collaboratively. Reading Chances are that you meet at someone’s groups can build confidence in speaking in Ihouse with a glass of wine and some nibbles groups and develop oral communication skills – maybe even in the lounge of a suburban, to express opinions, summarise information semi-detached house if we stretch the traditional and present an argument or train of thought image of a reading group or book club to its in a coherent way. Adults can draw on their life limit! As part of the Quick Reads outreach work experience to join in discussions and, whatever this year, NIACE has worked hard to break their starting point, can improve and develop this stereotype and bring the simple pleasure their confidence to speak in a group. of reading and discussing books to a wider audience – to people who don’t necessarily see Skills and confidence themselves as readers let alone ‘book group Participants can interrogate the text, voice their types’. opinions and listen to the opinions of others and Reading groups or book clubs have become not simply be passive recipients of information. increasingly popular in recent years, with many By framing questions carefully, facilitators can libraries, bookshops and workplaces hosting develop reading skills and confidence. Asking a The joy of reading groups

Reading groups have a cosy, suburban image – but NIACE, through its Quick Reads outreach work, has been working to challenge the stereotype, says SUE SOUTHWOOD

meetings, while a wealth of support is available participant to form an opinion on their reading, online. They provide a chance to read, share checks for understanding but also allows opinions, chat and have fun – each one will reflection on what’s been read and understood. be unique in how it works. Discussing books This encourages reading for meaning and can help to reinforce, change or challenge develops critical thought. Asking someone to perceptions and help to build knowledge and explain the writer’s perspective can encourage appreciation of the views of others. There is no critical evaluation of a text and also to explore test, fear of failing or other negative associations the purposes of the writer. Detailed questions that some people may associate with formal about the writer’s choice of particular words learning. and phrases can deepen an understanding of Reading is generally seen as an individual a text and encourage learners to ’read between activity but a reading group creates a climate the lines’. Higher-level questions can allow that is conducive to learning as participants learners to reflect on what they’ve read and

36 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 open questions allow learners to express their to provide support to get started, with a plan thoughts in their own words. for continued sustainability. The frequency and Reading groups provide opportunities to length of the meetings was left for each group to read aloud, to talk about a text and ask and decide but it was hoped the participants would answer questions relating to it, and to develop reflect on and discuss the book in ways that best skills in working out what words mean by the suited them and their individual circumstances. context or by directly looking them up in a Generally, reading groups can extend dictionary. Reading is not a passive process, reading, and the Quick Reads reading groups it involves problem-solving, active prediction are no exception. Participants are involved in (guessing), searching and an ability to use making choices about the books they choose past knowledge and experience to make to read and the aspects of the books they sense of what we are reading. Reading is an active process in which readers interact with text to reconstruct the message of the author. Facilitators can help adults to improve their reading by using these different strategies. Reading is not a passive

Community settings process, it involves problem- The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has funded NIACE to kick-start solving, active prediction reading-group activity in a variety of community settings. With just a simple toolkit and a few (guessing), searching sets of Quick Reads to start them off, we now have 34 reading groups, including a teenage and an ability to use past parents’ group, a mental health support group, a lesbian, gay and transgender group, and a group of women living with or affected by HIV, knowledge and experience as well as groups in prisons, on housing estates, in a riding school and in a care home. The to make sense of what we accessibility of the Quick Reads means they can open up reading groups for a wider audience are reading but also allows those who already enjoy reading to come along too. The Southwark Community Reading Group has come together because of existing discuss. Hopefully, the reading groups will connections with the learning centre but has continue to meet regularly and go on to choose helped people from the community meet a variety of other books to read, discuss and others who are like-minded: ‘It’s more fun than enjoy. At Rampton Hospital, some of the pilot reading on your own – to talk about it with participants have gone onto read other books others.’ Some are attending courses and others and evaluate them too. Some have taken out are friends or family members: ‘My daughter longer books written by the same authors. One told me about the group. I’d not heard of Quick member who read Bloody Valentine has become Reads but it’s on my doorstep so I thought I’d a James Patterson fan! He commented: ‘I was give it a try.’ One member has brought her unable to put this book down and became “lost” grown-up daughter along to encourage her to in the story, watching things unfold.’ read, whilst another reads regularly but enjoys ‘the chance to talk about a book, not just read it Sue Southwood is Programme Manager, NIACE on my own’. One member commented: ‘I joined because I wanted a challenge and it has made me want to read more.’ The Quick Reads Reading Group Toolkit, Our approach was to start Quick Reads Reading Breaks Toolkit and new resources reading groups in places where adults already to support the new 2012 titles are available were and support a key worker to become from: www.quickreads.org.uk/resources. a reading group facilitator by producing a NIACE is currently working with UNISON toolkit to help them get started. In this way, the to produce a toolkit for union learning reps to reading groups were embedded into the existing facilitate reading. community or workplace setting. The aim was

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 37 38 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 The Reader Organisation The Reader c Big books and small marvels The Reader Organisation’s Get into Reading programme is all about getting people together in groups to engage with serious books. The groups are mixed and the participants sometimes challenging, but the outcomes are often remarkable, writes PAUL STANISTREET

here is a moment during Eleanor She runs reading groups in a range of mental McCann’s reading session with a group health settings, including psychiatric wards, of mental health inpatients when two secure hospitals and addictions services, as part Tyoung men connect over boxing. Both of the Reader Organisation’s Get into Reading have boxed at amateur level and one, David, programme. The scheme brings people has met Mike Tyson, his hero, the boxer he together through weekly read-aloud groups – considers ‘the greatest’. Did he spar with him, around 300 across the country, delivering over asks fellow-inpatient, Mark, fascinated. He 200,000 hours of reading each year – taking didn’t, says David, and wouldn’t want to. ‘He had place in care homes, libraries, day centres, hands like shovels,’ he says. It’s a trivial incident prisons, schools, community centres, hostels, but in the context of the closed, isolated world refugee centres and workplaces. The aim is to of the inpatient unit such connections can lead make serious literature available to those most to real breakthroughs. A quarter of an hour in need, enabling them to improve their health later, overcoming his earlier reluctance, Mark and wellbeing, to engage with others and to agrees to read aloud from Eleanor’s chosen text develop a lifelong love of reading. For some – Norman Mailer’s The Fight – a description of participants, the groups provide a critical way of the 1974 world title bout between Mohammed building confidence, independence and a sense Ali and George Foreman, better known as the of personal happiness. For others, they offer ‘Rumble in the Jungle’. Mark and David are a quiet, calm space, somewhere to escape the both familiar with the fight. ‘It was more a game pressures of sometimes difficult lives. David is a of chess than a boxing match,’ Mark says. ‘Ali good example. Troubled by the thought that he was a master tactician’. Before the end, Mark is has been put under a curse, today’s group is the reading one of his own poems out loud to the first session he has taken part in without talking group, delivered with fierce conviction, in a about it. The concentrated effort involved in thick Liverpudlian drawl. It’s good; really good. reading and discussing a piece of text means his He turns to me with a grin. ‘Are you getting this mind is absorbed by something else, if only for down?’ he asks. an hour. Eleanor McCann has been a project worker at Many of those Eleanor works with come to Mersey Care NHS Trust for around 18 months. reading at a point of crisis in their lives. ‘There a Beverley La Roc hosting a Get into Reading group at Toxteth Library

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 39 would have had to be some kind of explosion to them ‘think about things in a different way’ and bring them here,’ she says. Progress for these 70 per cent said they now understood other patients can mean sitting still for 10 minutes, people better. Ninety-six per cent said they making eye contact or speaking in front of a enjoyed listening to what other people had to group for the first time. ‘One woman was here say while 79 per cent said that in the group they for eight months and when I first met her she were ‘able to be myself’. A 12-month evaluation wouldn’t look at me,’ Eleanor says. ‘She always of the Get into Reading reader-in-residence used to sit in the dark. I used to see her in the programme at Mersey Care also found clear evenings. I didn’t hear her speak to anybody benefits, not only to service users, who reported and in the first few sessions I would give her a increased confidence, improved communication poem – I just left it near her. And one time she skills, enhanced memory skills and enjoyment actually took the poem. It was quite incredible. I and stimulation, but among staff, who reported eventually got her to look at me and to speak to gains in terms of professional development, me. And she would come to the groups and sit interest in literature and their relationships with with the lights on with four or five other people service users. and read out loud for an hour.’ The isolation The Reader Organisation has now trained experienced by this patient is common on the more than 500 people to run reading groups, wards. One man Eleanor has worked with for many of them working or volunteering in four months spoke in a group for the first time mental health or care settings. Work with the week before. Most of the interaction in older people, particularly in sheltered the group is through Eleanor and the sort of accommodation, has been another growth connection made by David and Mark is rare. It’s area. Reading aloud – or being read to – has the regular association with others, at their own proved particularly helpful in supporting and pace, which breaks down barriers and gradually stimulating people with dementia. Last year builds confidence, Eleanor says. the Reader worked with Bupa to deliver a six- month pilot project working with residents, Biggest developments staff and family members in eight care homes Eleanor doesn’t pretend that the reading group in Liverpool and London. The organisation is the only factor involved in these patients’ has since been working with the University of recoveries but it is, she believes, an important Liverpool on analysing and understanding the one. Dr David Fearnley, Medical Director effects of the project, but an internal evaluation and Deputy Chief Executive of Mersey Care, noted among the outcomes reduced agitation, agrees. Get into Reading, he has said, ‘is one improved mood and concentration and better of the biggest developments in mental health social interaction. Many of the carers who took practice in the last 10 years’. Jane Davis, who part in the pilots have subsequently approached founded the Reader Organisation and continues the Reader about training to run their own to oversee Get into Reading, has witnessed a groups. massive growth in interest in the groups and It’s the enthusiasm of individuals that what they can achieve, from a wide array of explains why Get into Reading has grown so individuals and organisations, including mental dramatically since the publication of Blake health trusts. ‘That’s where the work has built Morrison’s Guardian article on the project most spectacularly,’ she says. ‘A lot of trusts are in January 2008, Jane says. ‘After the article interested in doing what Mersey Care has done hundreds of people got in touch with me to and develop a reader-in-residence programme. say, “I want to do this”. That’s why we set up We’ve got five of those now and a lot of the work the training programme in 2008. It’s grown is training people who work within the trusts because of individual people just really wanting to read with people who are inpatients. It’s a to make it happen.’ The project has spread fantastic feeling to think that poetry or novels across the country from its base in Liverpool or short stories are finding their ways into those and the Reader has even been commissioned closed environments and becoming a normal to run projects in Australia and Denmark. The aspect of life.’ organisation has also developed a partnership A survey of mental health groups run by the with the University of Liverpool’s new multi- Reader in London and the North West found disciplinary Centre for Research into Reading, that 78 per cent of participants felt reading Information and Linguistic Systems, run by had improved their mood, while 84 per cent Jane’s husband Philip Davis, former head of said they were better able to relax as a result. the university’s School of Arts. The work of Three-quarters said that the groups had helped the centre is to ensure that what goes on in

40 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 The Reader Organisation The Reader c

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 41 the groups is evaluated, both qualitatively and people,’ Beverley says. ‘One of the things I have quantitatively, and to see that the benefits of really noticed, working with teens, in particular, reading are translated into policy. is that they learn empathy. They will take on Jane is in no doubt that there is something board other people’s views, whereas before special about the activity of reading that sets it they would have sworn or smashed something. apart from other activities, such as meditation or They think only their view is right. Through playing a musical instrument, which also require being part of a reading group they start to concentrated effort. ‘The fact is it’s social – so it’s take account of other people’s opinions and not so much like playing a musical instrument, voices.’ Beverley’s open groups tend to be very it’s more like being in a string quartet. You are mixed, and can include people with basic skills reading others as well as reading the book. needs alongside highly-educated, professional Reading is not a passive activity. It’s probably the people. Social cohesion is one important pay- most primal creative activity, after procreation off, but the groups also help people become and the eating of food, and I think that’s to more stable, confident and independent. One do with language. Language helps us survive, group member, Gita, is a former barrister so we can say things like, “Look out for that with a history of mental health problems. rock”, but we can also say, “I feel hurt because Before joining Beverley’s group Gita had been my child is sick”. So it’s emotional as well as sectioned under the Mental Health Act four purely practical. I think written language is the times, but not once since joining. Although most intense and complex form of language, Gita’s group is open, Beverley estimates that so having access on a weekly basis to that and around half of the participants have mental Making open sharing the difficulties of that with other people, health issues of one sort or another. ‘I think they I don’t think there’s anything else that would be feel comfortable in this environment because quite as creatively demanding.’ people are so accepting,’ Beverley says. ‘They accept each others’ differences.’ Something meaningful Just as the groups are diverse so too are the educational The story is important, Jane says, but just as outcomes, Jane says. ‘Progress for some people important is the opportunity for people to come could mean joining a library,’ she explains. ‘For together, with a purpose. ‘I’ve been reading someone living in a hostel for street people that with a group at a drug and alcohol facility, with would be a great outcome. Another outcome people with some pretty hefty life and personal might be that someone will say, “Can I take practices a reality problems to sort out. It’s not been a very stable this poem home and keep it?” That’s progress group. You need to do a new thing each week. for someone who never thought a poem was But they’ve settled down over the last month ever going to be any use to them. Some people into a relatively stable group and I said to might go on to do a formal course but some of them a few weeks ago, “Shall we start reading the people most in need aren’t ready to be in a a novel?” We started chucking a few ideas classroom.’ Even in Eleanor’s inpatient groups around, and one guy just said to me, “Come there is a mixture of people who are very unwell on everyone, it doesn’t matter what the book and people who are about to be discharged. The is, Jane, just bring us something meaningful”. informal nature of the groups and the fact that I thought to myself, this is really important no-one is pressured to read aloud means that because the story is a nice thing and it gets us anyone can take part and anyone can benefit. ‘I along but what all of these people with bloody suppose it’s about giving people a vocabulary for big problems were mostly enjoying in that group their experiences,’ Eleanor says. ‘I read a poem was being together with a cause to talk to each on the women’s ward and one of the women other, about something very serious – that’s the said to me that if she was to write down what nub of it, I think.’ she was feeling it would be that: “That is what I Beverley La Roc, who runs nine Get into want to say myself”. It’s giving words to people Reading groups from her base at Toxteth for feelings they might not be able to express for Library, also stresses the importance of people themselves. I think it’s the richest thing you can coming together, learning how to be with other do, personally. I love music. I’ve been to some of people, to listen to others and to respect their the music sessions here. But unless you play an views. Beverley’s groups include a group of instrument you are just listening. With this you young people expelled from school, a group at are actually actively engaged with it.’ a hostel for pregnant teenagers, and another at a dementia home, as well as open groups run Some of the names in this article have from the library. ‘You can see how it changes been changed

42 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 he concept behind ‘open educational community of users for non-commercial resources’ (OERs) has been around for purposes. several years. The principle of OERs is Tsimply that teachers and lecturers make The majority of the work on OERs has so far their learning materials freely available for been undertaken within the higher education others to use. sector. The focus has been predominantly on At first, this might sound like a radical, the development of OER repositories. These even controversial, idea. Why, after all, should repositories consist of learning materials that practitioners share materials that they spent are freely available and are often based on hours preparing? Don’t the resources belong well-tested and effective learning materials. to that individual’s employer? And who would Many organisations use these repositories as want to use other people’s materials anyhow? showcases of their educational offerings. Yet the concept of sharing materials has Organisations like UNESCO and the gained some ground over the last decade. The Hewlett Foundation have supported the movement and have provided considerable help both in terms of networking and funding. There is now a plethora of OER repositories, and many organisations have signed up to be part of the OpenCourseWare Consortium (http://www.ocwconsortium.org/). Making open The thinking behind the creation of OER repositories was that if these were created and promoted, then learners would use them and teachers would repurpose them. However, this has not been borne out in practice. educational OERs are being viewed and used by some teachers and learners but they are not being used extensively. Evidence of individuals re-purposing materials is even more scant, particularly among further education and practices a reality informal adult learning practitioners. Evaluation of the use of such repositories

The concept of open educational resources has gained ground in the last decade but they are still not being used extensively. GRAINNE CONOLE and ETA DE CICCO ask how we can ensure a better uptake and enhance the quality of shared resources

large quantity of resources on services like indicates that uptake is relatively poor. Why is YouTube, Edu and iTunes U demonstrates that this? many are increasingly willing to share their Well, actually taking someone else’s work and reuse the work of others. resource, understanding it, taking it apart The term ‘OER’ was defined in 2002 at a and then rebuilding it for a different context UNESCO-hosted forum as: is a complex process. Add to this the potential technical and organisational barriers, and The open provision of educational perhaps the lack of uptake is not so surprising. resources, enabled by information Research conducted as part of the Olnet and communication technologies, for initiative (http://olnet.org) investigated why consultation, use and adaptation by a this was the case and looked in particular

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 43 at how OERs could be redesigned and wide initiatives in which teachers are asked used for collaborative learning purposes. It to create, find, adapt and share materials showed that practitioners found it difficult to across the institution; understand the implicit design inherent in • teachers who are encouraging learners open educational resources and found making to produce, share and validate learning choices about how to repurpose the materials content; and for their own context challenging. • learners who are using open, available Would shifting away from a focus on the content to study in ways that better fit their resources to the practices that surround their needs. use help? That is, if we could better understand how teachers and learners are creating and The OPAL initiative began by gathering using OERs perhaps we could get a better more than 60 case studies of OER initiatives idea of what the associated barriers and issues (http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/ might involve. We could then put in place view/2085) and from these abstracted a set mechanisms to address these. of dimensions of what we are terming ‘open This is at the heart of the OPAL open educational practices’. On refinement, four educational quality initiative (http://oer-quality. OEP dimensions were identified: strategies org/). The overall aim of OPAL is to support and policies; barriers and success factors; tools open educational practice, defined as the: and tool practices; and skills development and support. We used these as the basis to enable use of OER to raise the quality of education individuals and organisations to assess where and training and innovate educational they were in terms of level of OEP maturity practices on institutional, professional and (see Figure 1). individual level. OEP Maturity Model A database or repository of open educational The OEP Cube Maturity Model has four levels resources is not open educational practice. of maturity: Initial (not yet started); Manae The use of these open educational resources (little or no evidence of OER activity); Defined in a traditional, closed and top-down, exam- (evidence of OER activity) and Optimizing focused learning environment is not open (embedded/advanced practice). To illustrate the educational practice. Only if OERs are used use of the cube, here are a couple of examples. to create resources which are more learner- An organisation might be considered to be centred than the ones existing before; if the mature in terms of the dimension of strategy role of learners in the creation of content is and policy if it has clear and effective strategies taken more seriously by teachers/facilitators; and policies in place about OERs. This might if teachers move away from content-centred be evidenced by the existence of an innovative teaching to ‘human resource’ based delivery; business model for generating open resources and if learning is considered a productive and making them widely available. process where some of the outcomes of Another organisation might be classed as learning are ‘artefacts’ worth sharing and mature in terms of tools and tool practices if debating, improving and reusing, can we talk there is evidence of it having an online Web 2.0 about open educational practices. environment to enable teachers and learners The belief behind OPAL is that if we can to share and discuss the use of OERs. This better understand the practices around the practice might be considered innovative if the creation, use and repurposing of OERs, we are Web 2.0 tools were being used to improve the likely to see better uptake and use. Further, quality of teaching and learning through peer the vision is that this will lead to improvement reflection. in the effectiveness of teaching and learning We see the cube as having a number of uses, by enhancing the quantity and quality of open principally for benchmarking purposes, and educational resources. for guidance in terms of how to improve open Stakeholders of open educational practice educational practice and for reflection and might include: comparison with others. As part of the OPAL project, we have • national policymakers who are promoting validated the cube through a number of the use of open educational resources; workshops and expert panels. Overview • leaders of educational and training feedback on its value is positive and we hope institutions who are initiating organisation- to map existing OER case studies to it. From

44 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 Figure 1: The OEP Cube Maturity Model

this we have now developed a set of guidelines even more crucial. The OEP Cube Maturity for stakeholders (for learners, teachers, Model could form the impetus for providers institutional managers and policymakers). to initiate discussions in their organisations These can be used by individuals or institutions about how best to find and share resources, in to benchmark their current OER practice essence, about open educational practice. and then to guide them through a vision for the further development of OERs and an implementation plan. The guidelines are Grainne Conole is Professor of Learning available to download from the OPAL website Innovation and Director of the Beyond Distance (http://www.oer-quality.org/the-opal-initiative/). Learning Alliance, University of Leicester. She is a Given the current financial context, member of the core team of the OPAL initiative. Eta where public funding is likely to decrease De Cicco is an education consultant, specialising considerably over the next few years, finding in the use of technology to support teaching and ways to share resources effectively becomes learning.

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 45 n January the 157 Group launched a policy impartial and informed support is available paper making the case for professional to help young people and adults to fulfil their careers guidance. With the launch of potential. With the demise of Connexions and Ithe National Careers Service in April, reforms to the careers service, it is important information, advice and guidance is a hot topic that we ensure learners’ ambitions do not slip within the education and skills sector and one through the net. that is regularly debated. When the House of The 157 Group welcomes moves to develop Lords debated the National Careers Service, an all-age guidance service. A split at age Lord Roberts of Llandudno said: 18 does not accord with the reality of many people’s lives. We are concerned, however, Are we certain they are going to be trained that in the transition from local authorities, at the top level and that the interviews valuable expertise will be lost and many young they conduct will not just be online or by people will lose the option of face-to-face computer but will be face-to-face discussions guidance. Consequently, we fear that services with the youngsters, who are often among for adults will not be able to meet the demands the one million unemployed? In respect of placed upon them. Learners need face-to-face advice

In times of economic hardship, it is crucial that adults and young people alike get the impartial and informed support they need to make the right choices. Professional, face-to-face guidance is essential in making the most of the information available, writes LYNNE SEDGMORE

the face-to-face discussions, do we realise At the same time, we need to reinforce the that only seven per cent of young people hard work of existing FE colleges in delivering know the meaning of apprenticeships? What sound information, advice and guidance. Our are the government going to do to make policy paper exemplifies the good practice apprenticeships far more widely known embedded within FE colleges with regard to about and better accepted? the delivery of effective support services for learners. For example, in relation to potential The combination of policy changes, including students, colleges already help school leavers the introduction of further education loans in to make effective choices through participation 2013, the changing higher education landscape in careers fairs; offering speakers and visits; and rising unemployment, means that now, and providing written information on local more than ever, we need to ensure that opportunities. Colleges allow young people

46 ADULTS LEARNING SPRING 2012 contact to gain experience of a vocational area and benefits is supplied. through collaborative provision for Careers guidance is a professional role. Editorial those aged 14 to 16. They help adults to There is a role for teachers in advising consider up-skilling or re-skilling though students about academic progression Paul Stanistreet, open days, taster sessions and outreach and the requirements of educational Editor, Adults Learning programmes and publish information programmes. Careers guidance is, NIACE, about the destinations and achievements however, a distinct professional role and 21 De Montfort Street, of college graduates. all young people should have guaranteed Leicester LE1 7GE Not only are colleges effective in access to a qualified adviser. As the Tel. 0116 2044211 delivering supportive information, advice participation age increases to 18, so Email [email protected] and guidance to prospective students, should the entitlement to face-to-face they support existing students through support from a qualified adviser. John UK subscription rates specialist staff, to help them research Hayes, Minister of State for Further (print copy and e-edition) potential careers and make effective Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, Individuals £41 choices about further education or clearly understands this point. He said Organisations (single-user access) £67 employment. Colleges build links with at the Institute for Career Guidance Organisations (full-site access) £110 local employers through visits, talks and conference last year: Concessionary rate (part-time tutors project work to help inform young people and learners) £25 about the nature of work opportunities; We ask too much of our teachers when we Extra copies £27 each and they seek to identify and promote expect them to be excellent pedagogues opportunities for students to progress to and professional careers advisers. So too Overseas subscription rates apprenticeships. It is clear that colleges many schools are not equipped to provide (print copy and e-edition) provide robust services to prospective and young people with a full understanding of Individuals £54; Organisations £85 existing learners. the options open to them. As a result, the ambitions of some are prematurely limited. Electronic subscription only ‘Someone like me’ (UK and overseas) However, if information, advice and Colleges can be local hubs for guidance Individuals £35 guidance are to become even more services. They are well placed to bring Organisations (single-user access) £55 effective, a number of improvements together the National Careers Service, Organisations (full-site access) £90 should be made. Information needs to Jobcentre Plus and their own advisers to To subscribe or to order back issues: be interpreted better. We agree that well- offer a one-stop shop for adults and young Tel. 0870 6002400 informed customers are a key part of people needing advice and guidance Fax. 0870 6002401 effective markets, and that the education in relation to careers. Many colleges Email [email protected] market requires students, employers and have already formed such partnerships http://shop.niace.org.uk/adults-learning.html parents to have ready access to the right and are taking the lead in promoting a information to support their choices. The collaborative approach to information, Adults Learning is published by the simple provision of summary information advice and guidance. National Institute of Adult Continuing is not enough, however. People need to FE colleges are clearly making the Education (England and Wales). know how average figures might apply to most of their resources and at the heart It is a forum for debate on all issues ‘someone like me’. of all of their missions is the drive to see affecting adult learning and contributions People need face-to-face advice. We learners progress. However, if colleges are welcome from those in the field. The value the online and telephone services are to continue to succeed in their views expressed are those of the authors offered by learndirect and Next Step objectives then we need to encourage and not necessarily those of NIACE. and see the web as having considerable greater collaboration across schools, local The National Institute of Adult Continuing potential to make data easily accessible. authorities, employers and government Education (England and Wales) represents Most people, however, including those agencies. We believe that ensuring all the interests of adult learners. who are technologically sophisticated, school pupils have access to face-to-face All contributions © NIACE. need the added support of face-to-face careers guidance is a crucial component contact with a specialist to make the most to progression. In a time of economic No reproduction in any form or by any of available information. challenge, face-to-face careers guidance is means is allowed without the express School pupils need impartial guidance, pivotal to ensuring success. permission of NIACE. and the evidence is that schools with sixth Volume 23, Number 3 forms frequently withhold information Lynne Sedgmore is Executive Director of the Spring 2012 from pupils in order to influence their 157 Group of large further education colleges. ISSN: 0955-2308 choices. Adults too need impartial Information is not enough: making the guidance, and care should be taken to case for professional careers guidance is Designed and typeset by ensure that information about the costs available from www.157group.co.uk Prestige Colour Solutions Limited, Leicester Printed in Great Britain by The Russell Press, Nottingham

SPRING 2012 ADULTS LEARNING 47 Widening Participation in Adult Education

Adult Learners’ Week 2012 National Policy Conference NIACE in partnership with the Open University

Tuesday 15 May 2012, London The Institute of Mechanical Engineers, One Birdcage Walk, London, SW1H 9JJ

This conference will provide an opportunity for attendees to explore current and emerging challenges and approaches to widening participation in adult education. Delegates will hear from John Hayes MP, Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, and keynote speakers will be drawn from a range of different sectors to discuss barriers to access, how they can be overcome, and visions for the future of widening participation in adult education. The event will be hosted by NIACE in partnership with the Open University. Both organisations have a history of promoting widening participation in learning, particularly among non-traditional groups and in pioneering settings. Delegates will be among the first to hear the findings of the 2012 NIACE survey of adult participation in learning, which tracks current and recent participation in all types of learning. The conference is one of a series of national events to celebrate Adult Learners’ Week 2012, the UK’s largest festival of learning. More details of other activity taking place during the week (14–18 May 2012) are available on the website: www.alw.org.uk.

Visit the NIACE website for more information and to apply: http://www.niace.org.uk/events Enquiries to NIACE Events: [email protected].