Whatever happened to our vision of a learning society: The Learning Age 20 years on
‘The Learning Age’, a Government Green Paper published in the 1990s, includes a preface by David Blunkett which offers a generous vision of the value of lifelong learning. Lord Blunkett recognises the role adult learning plays...Read more »
Reflections on the Annual English, Maths and ESOL Conference
Last week, Learning and Work’s annual conference on supporting adults with English, maths and ESOL took place at UCL Institute of Education. This major event – organised in partnership with UCL IoE, RaPAL, NATECLA and UCU...Read more »
Are participation and achievement the same thing?
Last week’s further education statistics provided some thoughtful reading. As a researcher who reads a lot of adult educational statistical reports from across Europe, I’m always impressed by the amount of statistical analysis we go into...Read more »
Apprenticeships Starts – The numbers behind the headlines
Unsurprisingly, yesterday’s apprenticeships data has made headlines for the wrong reasons – with 70,000 fewer people starting apprentices this summer compared with last summer. As Stephen Evans said in his blog yesterday, it is too early...Read more »
Improving progressions from traineeships
Data published this week show a dramatic fall in publicly funded adult learning. Headlines across the sector are focussing on the 61% drop in apprenticeship starts following the introduction of the Levy, but underneath this are...Read more »
Going down: the continuing falls in adult participation in learning
The word disastrous is overused. But it feels apt when looking at the latest data on participation in learning by adults. Let’s start at the beginning. There are reports going back at least 200 years that...Read more »