The Centenary Commission on Adult Education “A Permanent National Necessity...” Adult Education and Lifelong Learning for 21st Century Britain “A Permanent National Necessity...” - Adult Education and Lifelong Learning for 21st Century Britain The Adult Education 100 campaign #AdultEducation100 Early in 2018 a group of adult educators, recognising We have been delighted that a number of leading the historic importance of the 1919 Ministry of public figures and adult educators agreed to be Reconstruction Adult Education Committee’s Final patrons of the campaign. They are: Report, set up the Adult Education 100 campaign. We wished to encourage a programme of activities, centred ■ Ba roness Joan Bakewell, President of on the centenary of the 1919 Report, which would both Birkbeck University of London recover and re-evaluate the twentieth-century history of ■ D ame Mary Beard, Professor of Classics, adult education, and set out a vision for life-wide adult University of Cambridge education for the century ahead. ■ L alage Bown, Professor Emeritus of Adult & The campaign has four interacting themes: Continuing Education, University of Glasgow i. The ‘Centenary Commission’, composed rather ■ A ndy Haldane, Chief Economist, Bank of like the Ministry of Reconstruction Adult Education Committee, and with essentially the same brief. England ii. Research and educational projects around the ■ M el Lenehan, Principal, Fircroft College history and record of adult education, ranging from ■ J ohn Sentamu, Archbishop of York adult education classes and undergraduate student projects to research funded by research councils. ■ Si r John Hayes, MP iii. Archival and curatorial projects to preserve the ■ M ichael Sheen, Actor records of adult education. ■ R uby Wax, Comedian and Mental Health iv. ‘Knowledge exchange’ activities to build public Campaigner discussion about the role and significance of adult education. Working closely with partners from across the adult education world, the #AdultEducation100 The campaign’s Steering Group, chaired by John Holford campaign is co-ordinating a programme of events (Robert Peers Professor of Adult Education, University to communicate and discuss this Centenary of Nottingham), also consists of Sharon Clancy (Chair, Commission Report and its recommendations over Raymond Williams Foundation & Senior Research the months following publication. Fellow, University of Nottingham), Phil Coward (Regional Manager, Workers’ Educational Association), Jonathan Michie (President, Kellogg College & Director of Continuing Education, University of Oxford), Cilla Ross (Vice Principal, Co-operative College), and Nigel Todd (Chair of Trustees, Co-operative College & WEA Ambassador). Contents Preface by Andy Haldane 2 Foreword by Dame Helen Ghosh 3 Our Vision 4 Focus 1: Framing and Delivering a National 11 Ambition Focus 2: Ensuring Basic Skills 16 Focus 3: Fostering Community, Democracy and 19 Dialogue Focus 4: Promoting Creativity, Innovation and 28 Informal Learning Focus 5: Securing Individual Learning and 36 Wellbeing Focus 6: Attending to the World of Work 40 Adult Education and Lifelong Learning in 46 Scotland and Wales Conclusion 50 Appendix A: Centenary Membership 52 Appendix B: Evidence and Consultations 54 Appendix C: Glossary of Terms 57 Appendix D: The ENLIVEN Project 58 Endnotes 59 References 60 1 “A Permanent National Necessity...” - Adult Education and Lifelong Learning for 21st Century Britain Preface The 1919 Report was a clarion call. It suggested the UK The economic benefits of doing so are crystal make adult education a ‘permanent national necessity’. clear. Skill-building the workforce is a foundation The reasons were in part economic – the need to rebuild stone for growth in the economy’s productive and reskill after the first World War, to boost economic potential and in the pay packets of its citizens. With growth and prosperity. But they were also social – the growth in the economy’s potential, and its citizens’ need to repair and reweave the post-War social fabric, pay packets, having stalled for more than a decade, the to build social cohesion and satisfaction. timing could scarcely be better. In the century since, it is clear adult education has The social and civic benefits of reworking adult not been nurtured as a permanent national necessity. education are, for me, potentially greater still. Social Indeed, numbers in adult education have shrunk problems of disadvantage, disconnection and division materially over the past couple of decades. Adult loom larger than for some time. An improved adult education and vocational training in the UK lag, in education and work offering is one means of tackling some cases badly, our international competitors. those three d’s at source. This is not because the case for adult education, Doing so will not be easy. It will require purposive action economic and social, has weakened. To the on a number of fronts and by a number of actors - not contrary, those economic and social arguments have just governments, but companies and individuals. It will strengthened, significantly so, in the course of the past need a strategy set nationally, but executed locally. 100 years. This Report contains a sequence of powerful and People born today can be expected to live 90 or 100- compelling recommendations for transforming and year lives and to spend the larger part of it – maybe, embedding adult education, making it at last that 60 years – in work. This means it is now an arithmetic ‘permanent national necessity’. It is an ambitious fact of (longer) life that lifelong learning – for long a blueprint, but circumstances today and especially convenient slogan – needs to become a practical reality. tomorrow call for no less. At the same time, the world of work is being up-ended I hope the Report can change the contours of by a new technological revolution, with widespread the national debate on our educational system. automation and artificial intelligence. This will see As in the past, the UK could lead the world many, perhaps most, jobs disrupted and a large number in creating an educational system that surfs destroyed. This too will make a necessity of reskilling (rather than is sunk by) the next technological those displaced and disrupted on a systematic and wave, lifting the pay, prospects and potential comprehensive basis. of all its citizens. For three centuries, the UK’s education system has had a singular – and very successful – focus: developing cognitive skills in the young. That model is not fit for tomorrow’s purpose. The education system of tomorrow needs to span the generational spectrum – young to old – and the skills spectrum – cognitive to vocational to Andy Haldane interpersonal. Chief Economist, Bank of England 2 Foreword A hundred years ago, as Britain recovered Manchester meetings we heard from adult education from a devastating World War, the Ministry of providers from Brent Council, trades unions, and local Reconstruction published an extraordinarily powerful community groups. report, visionary in its scope and practical in its detail, on the key role adult education had to play in fostering The Centenary Commission on Adult Education was an active democracy, enriching communities, and funded by the independent think tank, the Further nourishing curiosity and a love of learning. Adult Education Trust for Leadership (FETL), whose education was it argued, ‘a permanent national support we acknowledge. Their funding enabled necessity’. us to undertake fascinating case study visits to groups and organisations across Britain, including The authors of the 1919 Report were drawn from a the Welsh Government, the CBI and the TUC, and a spectrum of those with an interest in rejuvenating the economy and society after the devastation of world range of community educational providers. We are war, along with those with experience in delivering grateful too, for the work of our joint secretaries, adult education. Members included the founder of both distinguished Professors at Nottingham and the Workers’ Educational Association. The committee Oxford, John Holford and Jonathan Michie, and our was chaired by the then Master of Balliol, A.L. Smith researcher, Dr Nick Mahony. – given that the University of Oxford was at the forefront then of the ‘university extension movement’. We have been struck by the strength of feeling across the country, and from the full range of organisations, Our Report on Adult Education, published one that it is now vital and urgent to invest in adult hundred years on, like its predecessor comes at a education and lifelong learning – for the good of critical time, as we face a series of social, political, our democracy, society, and economy, and for the economic, technological and demographic challenges. wellbeing of our citizens. This has been conveyed by It aims to be equally visionary in scope and practical representatives of all the main political parties, as well in its detail. Our members again included the Chief as the Welsh and Scottish governments, the CBI and Executive of the Workers’ Educational Association, as TUC, local government, and an inspirational range of well as the President elect of the CBI, a senior trade community organisations, including informal groups unionist, and leading voluntary and educational sector practitioners. Most of its members came from England who have come together to try collectively to make but we had members from Wales and Scotland, too. sense of the world around us. As for the 1919 Report, the