LIFE LESSONS a National Education Service That Leaves No Adult Behind

FABIAN POLICY REPORT LIFE LESSONS A National Education Service that leaves no adult behind Edited by Kate Murray, with an introduction by Angela Rayner and contributions from Gordon Marsden, Shakira Martin, Sally Hunt, David Blunkett and more General secretary, Like all publications of the Fabian Supported by the University and College Union, Andrew Harrop Society, this report represents not which has no editorial control over its contents Deputy general secretary, the collective views of the society, Olivia Bailey but only the views of the individual Editorial director, writers. The responsibility of the Kate Murray society is limited to approving its Media and communications publications as worthy of consider- manager, Claire Sewell ation within the Labour movement. The University and College Union (UCU) is the union FABIAN SOCIETY for academic and professional staff in post-school 61 Petty France First published in December 2017. education. We represent 110,000 academics, lecturers, London SW1H 9EU trainers, researchers and academic-related staff working in 020 7227 4900 (main) Designed by Georgie Lowry, [email protected] universities, colleges, prisons, adult education and training 020 7976 7153 (fax) www.gslowrydesign.co.uk www.fabians.org.uk organisations across the UK. 2 / Life Lessons Introduction Angela Rayner MP 5 1. Progression for the people Gordon Marsden MP 6 2. The numbers game Andy Westwood 10 3. Keeping it in the family David Phoenix 12 4. Inspiring growth Stephen Evans 14 5. Access for all Claire Callender 16 6. Success within reach Peter Horrocks 18 7. Voices of experience Sally Hunt 20 8. Learners in charge David Blunkett 22 9. In the right place Jessica Studdert 24 10. Principles for a purpose Shakira Martin 26 Conclusion Andrew Harrop and Kate Murray 27 3 / Life Lessons 4 / Life Lessons Introduction By Angela Rayner MP ducation has always been at the heart For years, these challenges have been This will enable young people, whatever Eof Labour’s offer to the British people, exacerbated. Changes to higher education their background, to continue their studies and as we face the challenges of this cen- funding have left mature and part-time stu- at university or college without fear of tury and our exit from the European Union, dent numbers in free fall. The introduction crippling debts. But it will also ensure that we must once again place education at the of loan-based funding for further education those who need to return to education the heart of our programme for government. has, by the government’s own admission, most will be able to do so, and will break One of the most important, and most led to a sharp decline in participation in FE, pervasive cycles of low-skilled, low-paid overlooked, challenges we face as a coun- and the continued belief that supply-side work and intergenerational disadvantage. try is the fact that there are 5 million adults skills initiatives will transform lives is failing Time and again it has been Labour, in living in the UK today who lack basic to reach those who need it most. government, that has helped to lead the literacy and numeracy skills. This situation will become more sig- British people into new eras in our country. Politicians talk of preparing the next nificant in the years ahead. The combined From the Attlee government, that built a generation for the jobs of the future, but challenges of our departure from the new Britain from the ashes of the second too often we ignore the generations who European Union, the increase in automa- world war, to the Wilson administration, are already here. They are the people who tion, and the growth of new industries will that forged a new Britain in the white heat didn’t get the skills they needed the first require more people to move to new jobs, of the technological revolution, to the Blair time around, and have been paying the for which they will also need new skills. and Brown governments that took our price for it ever since. These are the people Managing these transitions will not only country into a new millennium. who live in communities that many have help individuals gain new skills and break At Labour conference we took the first called ‘left behind’, but we are yet to do the out of cycles of low pay, but it will also step towards turning our National Edu- difficult work of bringing them together transform communities as new industries cation Service from a vision into a reality, with the rest of the country. take the place of those that have been lost, outlining the key principles on which it Growing up in towns now removed and it will help our economy to prosper in would be founded. I have said that we will from the high-skilled industrial jobs that the future. begin to consult on these principles, and once tied communities together, they have This is the mission of Labour’s National the essays in this collection play an impor- often not had the chance to acquire the Education Service. Not just to underpin our tant part in this debate and how we take it skills to move beyond the low-skilled work economic prosperity, but to transform the forward. I look forward to the work ahead that is now rife in these areas. These are the lives of individuals and society, and bring in building a National Education Service very people who will have spent the last meaningful opportunities to all those areas that will transform Britain into a country decade on chronic low pay, as only one in that, for too long, have been left behind. for the many, and not the few. six moved out of low pay in the last decade, That is why one of the most important and despite being those who would benefit pledges we made at the last general the most from gaining new skills, they are election was to provide higher and further Angela Rayner is the Labour MP for the least likely to return to education as education free at the point of use, for all Ashton-under-Lyne and shadow education adults. those who need it, whenever they need it. secretary 5 / Life Lessons Progression for the people Labour’s plans for a National Education Service build on the best traditions of improving the life chances of all of our citizens. Now we need to be bold enough to build on that vision, writes Gordon Marsden he three-fold repetition of ideas has so doing he echoed the great self-help who had benefited from financial and Tlong been a powerful tool in politics. movements in working class communities communication globalisation, and those Think of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address concerned with how people could be left behind by it. Whatever Labour does with its ‘government of the people, by the enriched and inspired at the same time as now must reflect both ethical and practical people, for the people’. Or Labour’s slogan their working lives were improved. objectives to benefit all our citizens. of ‘education, education, education’ – a Ethics, citizenship and practical im- The initiatives laid out in The Learning cornerstone in its 1997 landslide victory. provement were twined together for fig- Age were largely sidelined in government Too often education has been something ures like John Ruskin and William Morris. from the mid-2000s onwards. They now done to the people – rather than by, for or They inspired the passion for education in need to be revived in an overarching offer with them. What if we were to merge the the early careers of both Nye Bevan and to all our citizens, and this is the great op- scripts from 1863 and 1997 and talk about Clement Attlee and helped create beacons portunity the National Education Service ‘education of the people, for the people, of adult learning such as the Workers’ Ed- represents. by the people?’ That in essence is what we ucational Association (WEA), Birkbeck and The ideas never went away – many of have the opportunity to do now, making Ruskin colleges and the Open University, them were embedded in the powerful and that rhetoric a reality for all our citizens. A Harold Wilson’s great achievement, with unduly neglected 2009 book ‘Learning reality badged within Labour’s developing Jennie Lee. Through Life’ put together by the late Sir idea of a National Education Service, with David Watson and Tom Schuller. Citizen- lifelong learning powerfully at its core – a The issues this country ship and the need to relate it to learning national offer and a covenant to invigorate, faces now echo strongly has remained key for parliamentary groups enable and empower. the fears and challenges of and select committees. Aspects of that vi- For more than a century the passion sion have permeated initiatives, fostered by to transform the life chances of ordinary progressive thinkers from local authorities and devolved administra- working people has been part of the labour the 1860s to the 1960s tions, as well as the work of Union Learn, a movement’s gene pool. When David Blun- survivor from Labour in government. kett swiftly followed up Labour’s landslide The issues this country faces now That gave me the encouragement to with his 1998 Green Paper The Learning echo strongly the fears and challenges of continue addressing the lifelong learning Age, he worked closely with his former progressive thinkers from the 1860s to agenda – first in a speech I gave as shadow tutor Bernard Crick, whose work was shot the 1960s. They feared, as we do today, skills minister in 2012 at Ruskin College through with the theme of empowering that massive industrial and technological and then developed in a chapter in the citizenship for all.

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