The world of work is changing. We need more adult education, not less
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Loading... - SIOMI KENNEDY
- 19 Apr 2021
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The current crisis at the Open University illustrates how public support for adult learning has gone so badly wrong in the UK. For nearly half a century, the OU has served a unique role in British educational life, complementing face-to-face learning in place-based institutions with distance education. While the 2012 tuition fees rise increased budgets for most universities, they have been disastrous for the OU, Birkbeck and others serving part-time mature students.
But the crisis in adult higher education participation is not limited to specialist institutions. Step by step, opportunities for adults to learn have been eroded. First, the 100-year tradition of university extra-mural departments aimed at adults closed one by one. Second, state funding for mature students to study at the same level or below their highest qualification went out of the window. Meanwhile, widening participation strategies were concentrated more and more on school leavers. Then the fees rise devastated mature and part-time study, especially at sub-degree level. And once the student number cap was lifted, most universities opted for the easily administered full-time young entrant over the less tidy part-time adult.
Plummeting part-time and mature students
The result of all this is that the number of mature students in higher education has dropped by more than a half since 2011, while universities’ budgets have increased by 25% overall.
In spite of this, the case for public investment in the education of adults is easily made. There is powerful evidencethat adults who keep learning enjoy better health, are more productive and have more secure and better-paid jobs, and are more active in civic life. Equally, offenders who take up learning are less likely to re-offend. And people recover better from mental ill health if they engage in learning.
In too many countries a narrow utilitarian neoliberalism shapes policy, despite the evidence that learning leaks out – as long as someone is learning something they are passionate about, their learning and curiosity spill across to benefit work, family and social life.
Lessons from elsewhere
There are, however, continuing examples of a creative commitment to lifelong learning in the world, and lessons for the UK aplenty.
In Europe, all the Nordic countries maintain substantial public financial support for open exploratory liberal education, where citizens can learn a wide range of subjects. In Switzerland, Austria and Germany vocational education enjoys high esteem and public investment, in stark contrast to the weakening of funding for the vocational education sector in the UK. Investment in lifelong learning, meanwhile, has attracted significant and impressive commitment, backed by legislation, in several Asian countries.
Learning cities have also become a major engine for driving lifelong learning. The challenges of inter-departmental co-operation are better managed at a regional or sub-regional level, and, from China to Mexico, South Africa to Sweden, creative examples abound. They offer a perfect opportunity for civic, business and academic co-operation.
For example, the city of Suwon in South Korea guarantees a library within 10 minutes’ walk and a learning centre within 20 minutes’ of every citizen’s home, with close co-operation with the city’s universities. In Singapore, too, the combination of national investment, support for business and individual learning accounts, backed by active support from higher education, creates optimal conditions for creating a learning society – using measures many of which were introduced and too quickly dropped in the UK.
Back in the UK, Bristol Learning City is led by the city mayor, with the two
universities offering active support for measures to narrow inequality, support
student aspirations and achievements in school, and improve access and transition for young people and adults alike. In Swansea, the university is playing a key role in the new city deal, which will support the development of an entrepreneurial, innovative and inclusive city region. This will build skills development to meet the challenges facing local businesses in a dramatically changing global environment, alongside improved lifelong learning provision.
The changing world of work
Last autumn two papers, one from the Government Office for Science Foresight
team, the other from the World Economic Forum [pdf] highlighted the scale of the demographic and industrial challenges facing us all. The coming of robotics and artificial intelligence promise to do for white collar jobs, as globalisation did for their blue collar counterparts. Equally, in our ageing society we need people to work longer, and to keep learning to minimise their demands for health and care. These challenges call for serious investment from government, employers, higher and further education and individuals alike. But they need, too, a recovery of commitment to lifelong, life-wide learning in higher education.
