A hundred years of teaching adults
If the struggle for adult education has not been won over the last century it is not because it has enemies, but because it needs a generous environment and the full, focused attention of its supporters.
Throughout the 20th century, the government periodically funded and directed voluntary efforts in adult education towards what it saw as the national interest, and according to what it thought it could afford. Meanwhile, campaigning individuals and organisations sought to expand the range of what adult education should include.
After the first world war, local authorities were charged with providing adult education and there were grants for voluntary organisations, such as the Workers' Educational Association. "The 20s and 30s saw a big expansion of local government provision, often designed to help women manage tight budgets and keep men off the streets with activities like boxing and car repairs," says Alan Tuckett, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education. Despite the expansion of "night school" part-time classes, however, the global economic slump led to savage spending cuts and few post-war aspirations for a better educated nation were realised.
Even so, pioneering work was carried out by Niace's forerunner, the British Institute of Adult Education, established in 1921 to advocate adult education. It helped create a hospital education programme, a trust to promote learning among the unemployed and organisations that went on to become the British Film Institute and the Arts Council. During the second world war, it worked with the Army Bureau of Current Affairs to produce pamphlets on political and social issues for service personnel and supply books for air-raid shelters.
Further education expansion after 1945 focused on vocational training for young people. "Adult education continued largely in response to articulate demands from members of the public who already knew they wanted to learn," says Tuckett. "And formidable champions like Richard Hoggart emerged in the 1950s with his hugely influential book The Uses of Literacy." And so, from the 1960s there was a widening of access through the Open University, new universities, polytechnics and more part-time courses appropriate to mature learners with jobs.
It was in the 1960s and 70s too that momentum really built towards widening participation through new youth and community centres, the Plowden report's emphasis on the importance of family in a child's educational development, the involvement of parents in the Pre-School Learning Alliance and the BBC's On the Move broadcasts to support literacy.
The Russell report on adult education in 1973 called for broad educational opportunities to improve the quality of life as well as its economic value.
But successive governments have often seen the issue as a dilemma between funding measurable economic development through skills for employment or fluffy notions of "quality of life" and "social cohesion." While research showed informal learning could make people happier, healthier and more confident, the Moser and Leitch reports raised concerns over the UK workforce's lack of skills for a modern economy and society, noting that millions of adults were "functionally illiterate or innumerate". Leitch says: "Continuing to improve our schools will not be enough to solve these problems. More than 70% of our 2020 workforce have already completed their compulsory education."
Promoting equality
New Labour governments clearly demonstrated the conundrum. In the Learning Age green paper in 1998, the then education secretary David Blunkett set out the broadest vision yet of "learning that promotes equality, spiritual development and citizenship". But, despite record spending on adult learning, the switch of funds to skills saw 1.4 million learners lost to the system in recent years.
Now, under the coalition government, emphasis is again on informal adult learning, with a strong advocate in the further education minister, John Hayes, who has ringfenced £210m for the purpose. But, says Tuckett "as FE faces cuts of 25% over four years, the future for adult learning still looks precarious".