Why is the provision of lifelong learning so important?
It is important at multiple levels. Obviously it's important for individuals, in terms of being able to access and progress in work. The pandemic, but also Brexit, has shown the importance for people to be flexible and mobile around the labour market and to make sure they are resilient to economic changes.
It’s also about changes to work, advances in technology and automation. People are working longer; you don't just have one career anymore. So I think making sure that you've got those opportunities throughout your life, to make sure your skills are current and relevant and then be able to change careers. That then has benefits for employers, making sure they have access to a skilled workforce, and for the wider economy. We've heard a lot from the Government wanting a high wage, high productivity economy. If we're going to get that, we need to invest in lifelong learning.
What is it that has held people back from lifelong learning and the means to re-skill that could have improved productivity and skills in the past?
Barriers to learning are longstanding issues, not new problems. Our annual Adult Participation in Learning Survey, which we’ve run for the last 25 years, enables us to see who's most or least likely to learn, their motivations and what the barriers are. While evidence shows that time and cost are the main barriers to learning – having to balance work and caring responsibilities, course costs, childcare and travel – for those least likely to take part, the problem is dispositional or attitudinal.
They may have had negative experiences of education; be unaware of opportunities; feel too old to learn or simply not have the confidence. To engage more adults in lifelong learning, we need to promote the value of learning and change some of those perceptions. Removing barriers is vital, but you can't just assume that if you remove all barriers that somehow people will just turn up. You have to give them a reason to think that learning could make a difference.
Do you feel that the Chancellor’s fiscal commitments to the Skills and Training sector, outlined in the recent spending review, are enough to bring about a permanent boost in lifelong learning?
The investment is really welcome, especially as the adult education budget has effectively been halved over the last decade, leading adult participation in learning to plummet. L&W has previously argued for an extra £1.9 billion per year, so I would say the Chancellor’s budget only gets us part way there.
How this money is invested is just as important. The Government's new Multiply Programme focuses on numeracy skills and that's greatly needed. But it's one of many programmes the Government has announced, and we need to know both if we are investing in the right places, and who specifically we are targeting.
Apprenticeships are a great example of this. With reforms from 2015, apprenticeships were seen as the answer to youth transition into the labour market and aiding social mobility, but also about workforce up-skilling. Those are big, but also very different challenges, and expecting one programme to fix that is difficult.
Investment gets us part way there, but we also need a strategy. I think there’s an opportunity with a new secretary of state for reviews to ensure we have coherency and a clear strategy.
What further measures are there that you feel could broaden provision even further?
Exploring different measures is important, but you first have to have that strategy, otherwise you risk creating programme after programme. It's about looking at who is participating and who isn't, because if lifelong learning is going to address social justice, social mobility and levelling up, then we need to look at who is missing out and what it is they need.
Rather than just multiplying the number of programmes, we need to look at where the gaps are at the moment, and develop a clear strategy to address them
With the national skills fund for example, it’s great to see the level 3 entitlement. But we need to think about what the level 2 route through is as well, as not everybody would be able to start at a level 3. We need to make sure those pathways are there.
Rather than just multiplying the number of programmes, we need to look at where the gaps are at the moment, and develop a clear strategy to address them.
How should any expanded provision be delivered? Through FE colleges? Should universities become more involved? Could businesses provide specific 'adult apprenticeships' for those looking to reskill?
It's not about one part of the system growing more than others. The adult education sector is messy; that also means there's flexibility in the system. We should support the full range of providers, and if anyone says one type of provider should get more expansion than another, they're probably biased.
At a local level, providers should be encouraged to collaborate and play to their strengths. This came through the Skills for Jobs white paper earlier this year we are getting some of the way there with the strategic development fund, the college business centres, and the local skills improvement plans. Connecting with employers too, which I think is really important. As an organisation, we are really interested in understanding what works. What makes these local partnerships work and how do you share that best practice?
On apprenticeships, we've seen greater adult take-up driven in part by the levy and having an employer-led system. It's absolutely rational that employers would use that money to upskill their workforce, but how do we use them to think about re-training and re-skilling? On the flipside, we also need to think about how we get more young people into apprenticeships too.