On the 9th February, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) issued a press release about some recent research on adult learning ("One in three adults go back to learning"). The findings of the YouGov poll in December showed that 30% of adults wished they had achieved better qualifications when they were younger and that those that didn't work hard at school were more likely to be unemployed now. It also showed that 35% of adults had returned to learning to gain more qualifications, and if those qualifications were achieved, this has had a positive effect on their careers.
All of this intelligence is good stuff and provides useful pointers for how to sell the benefits of learning to the vast numbers of adults who do not recognise that they have done any formal or informal learning since leaving school. Sadly this is not the way it is being used.
The supporting quotations from the LSC and ministers went on to highlight the importance of staying in learning for as long as you can when you are young, and the wide and attractive range of learning opportunities and funding that are available, primarily to those aged under 25.
Both the LSC and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) are obsessed with young people and their qualifications, yet the Leitch report on skills - endorsed by both organisations - points out that the majority of the workforce for 2020 has already left compulsory education.
It has also been a mantra of the skills and vocational education sector for at least 10 years now, that there is no longer a job for life, and that individuals will change career up to 5 times - entailing gaining new skills and retraining along the way.
So why - given the excellent news that 35% of adults have chosen to go back to learning in later life, and that it has benefited them - must the policy leaders push this message with young people? Could it be that if adults picked up the message and decided to act upon it, the system would not be able to support them? Or are there more rewards from Treasury for involving young people in learning?
To meet the targets set out by Leitch for 2020, everyone needs to be involved in learning, not just selected segments of the population. Getting this message out to everyone and helping everyone access learning must be the objective for DfES and the LSC.
An interesting difference here between adults who willingly go back to education to further their careers and the multitude of youngsters who seem to be at 'university' with the sole intention of keeping the jobless figures down for the three or four years of their degree. (Because I can't believe they are at Uni getting an education!)
Posted by: Dennis | 02/14/2007 at 01:52 PM