Lifelong learning, Centre for Social Justice:
It might not get the same attention as other big-ticket items in Westminster, but poor access to lifelong learning is one of the great social injustices of our time.
Why?
Well first, adult learning is a lifeline for those who left school ill-equipped to grapple with the rough and tumble of the jobs market.
The number of people who fall into this category is just astonishing.
More than a quarter (around nine million) of all working aged adults in England, for example, have low literacy and/or numeracy skills.
More often than not, a poor start in school means a tough ride in life.
Millions end up in low skill, low-paid jobs – their life prospects dragged into the quick-sand. In the last ten years, just 17% of low-paid workers moved permanently out of low pay.
Even worse, an enormous wave of lost opportunity is about to come crashing down on the next generation of employees. Just 33% of pupils on free school meals get five good GCSEs. And a third of England’s 16-19-year olds have low basic skills.
For these individuals, it is vital that we offer a way back. And lifelong learning offers exactly that.
Not only are many low-skilled workers trudging through a land of scarce opportunity, things could potentially get a whole lot worse.
That’s because the jobs market of the future will look very different to the one we see today.
The march of the robots is coming.
Yes, estimates vary wildly, but it seems inevitable that many jobs will either change dramatically or disappear altogether.
According to one study, 28 per cent of jobs taken by 16-24-year-olds could be at risk of automation by the 2030s. And much of the displacement is likely to affect low-skill jobs.
With the destruction there will also be creation. But people will need to have the means to adapt. To reskill. To upskill.
And, they must be able to do this for a longer period of time than they do now - our population is ageing and we will have to work longer to maintain our standard of living.
Despite the clear need for world-class lifelong learning, we are not doing enough to boost our offer
In fact, in many cases, we’re letting it slide into disrepair.
Take part-time higher education, where the number of part-time students from low-participation areas has fallen by 47 per cent since 2011.
Or public investment in adult skills programmes. According to a recent study by the Social Mobility Commission, we spend less than many other rich countries on adult skills and the Government Adult Skills budget in England fell by 34% in real terms between 2010-2016.
Employer investment in training, too, is not what it once was. In England, it fell by 14.5% in real terms between 2005 and 2011. And there are no signs that it is about to pick up anytime soon. We lag many of our rich world counterparts, whose employers are more likely to dip into their pockets and invest in their workforces.
But worst of all, we are not doing enough specifically for disadvantaged individuals
Lifelong learning, it seems, is a more affluent person’s game.
Those who might benefit most from adult learning and training - low skilled people in low-income or no job - are by far the least likely to be doing it.
While just over half of those in higher socioeconomic groups engaged in learning in the last three years, just 26% of people in lower groups did.
49 per cent of adults from the lowest socioeconomic groups have received no education or training at all since they left education.
So how can we make sure that those who are most vulnerable in the jobs market of today, and the labour market of tomorrow, are able to thrive?
The answer is accessible, top-notch lifelong learning.
There are many forms this can take. And watch out for the CSJ’s upcoming report on lifelong learning, which offers a powerful critique and is packed full of refreshing ideas that would give adult learning the backing it deserves.
Today, I offer a handful of solutions. It is not an exhaustive list, but would go a substantial way to addressing our lifelong learning problem.
First, we need to start small. And local.
Adult community learning centres are the local lifeblood of adult learning. Some of the people they support cannot even see the ladder of opportunity, let alone climb it.
They give people with no previous qualifications, who are more likely to lack confidence than other learners, a platform to learn again.
They engage disadvantaged local communities.
Many courses are free. Functional English and maths. Digital skills. Family learning initiatives to support literacy and numeracy. Courses to help manage symptoms of mental health conditions.
The centres also work well. 85 per cent of learners finish their courses. Average satisfaction scores are high. The main reason cited for learning is to improve skills, but there are also health benefits - according to one official study, 52 per cent of learners who started courses with clinically significant symptoms of anxiety and/or depression no longer had the same symptoms when they finished.
You should see the centre in my Harlow constituency, which is rated good by Ofsted. It’s run by remarkable people, with big ideas and even bigger hearts. And Essex Council, which commissions it, deserves enormous credit.
The problem is that, despite all of these incredible benefits, there is a lack of focus on adult community learning centres.
I’d like one in every town in the country.
But when I was Minister for Skills, we did not even know how many centres there were in the country.
Another potential problem is that the numbers of people undertaking community learning have dropped - from around 650,000 in 2011/12 to around 500,00 in 2017/18.
There may be perfectly good reasons for this, but there could also be problematic ones. Until we gather better intelligence on what is going on, we may be missing out on the chance to better support vulnerable learners to engage in vital learning.
We should, therefore, get a better steer on what provision exists across the country. Once we have this, we can fill in the gaps. That does not need to involve funding new buildings; we can use the infrastructure that although exists – for instance, FE colleges – and just recruit the experts.
We must also support other local organisations that are not strictly community learning centres but meet a similar need. Like the WEA, one of the most remarkable institutions in the country. It is the largest voluntary sector provider of adult education in the country. In 2017-18, its 3,000 amazing volunteers taught more than 48,000 students in England. 82 per cent of students who had mental health conditions reported improvements, and 58 per cent improved their confidence in helping their children with reading, writing or maths.
The Government should redirect money from other schemes - like, for example, the £60 million support fund for apprentices, to create a new fund geared towards supporting organisations like the WEA.
As well as supporting community learning centres, we must also nurse part-time higher education back to full health
Access to part-time higher education, which includes many vocational and technical higher options, has been decimated.
Which undermines organisations like the Open University – one of the greatest education reforms of the last century.
And other national treasures like Birkbeck, which has pioneered incredible childcare schemes to meet the needs of the many adult learners who have dependents.
These are bastions of social justice that provide flexible learning for those who need it most.
Yet, in just four years between 2013 and 2017, the number of people starting a first degree decreased by around a quarter.
And those starting other courses at level 4 and 5 decreased by nearly half over the same period.
That is an unbelievably sharp fall in such a short period of time. And it has had a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged areas.
A number of factors have driven this decline. But we now know that the student finance reforms in 2012 played a major part.
Taking away tuition fee grants and replacing them with student loans was always going to cause part- time learners problems – particularly those on lower incomes.
The part-time learner cohort is very different to the full-time one. Learners tend to be highly debt averse. They are, on average, older and have more financial commitments. Over a third have dependents to think about. Many are from disadvantaged or very modest backgrounds.
We should reinstate fee support for the most disadvantaged learners who do courses that are likely to command a decent return in the jobs market.
We should also demand that more of the £817 million a year that is spent on higher education outreach is directed towards part-time learning.
Lastly, we need to re-energise employer-led training.
Employer-led training is a crucial component of our overall lifelong learning offer. And yet it has declined over the years.
We must find a way of supporting employers to invest in the development of their workforces, and we can do that through the tax system.
Employers who pay corporation tax currently receive £3-5 billion worth of tax relief for training investments, including health and safety. We should restructure these tax reliefs, so that employers receive more generous relief when investing in low-skilled employees.
And we should go further.
We should also introduce a social justice tax credit to expand the number of companies that qualify. This credit would have social justice right at its core. We would link it to skills needs, and to training people with lower level skills.
Today, I have shared with you some of the concerns I have about our current approach to lifelong learning.
And I have outlined how we might start addressing those concerns. To re-cap, we need three guarantees.
First, an community learning guarantee.
- Put an adult community learning centre in every town in the country.
- Top-slice the existing £60 million support fund for apprenticeships and use this to support more organisations like the WEA.
Second, a part-time higher education guarantee.
- Reinstate tuition fee support for the most disadvantaged learners who do courses that are likely to command a return in the jobs market.
- Demand that more of the £817 million/year that is spent on outreach is directed to part-time learning.
And third, an employer guarantee.
- Restructure the existing tax reliefs that are available to employers who invest in training, so that they receive more generous relief when investing in low-skilled employees.
- Introduce a social justice tax credit, which would expand the number of employers who benefit from tax breaks when they invest in training for low-skilled workers in areas of skills need.
Ultimately, what we have to ask ourselves is this:
Do we want to live in a society in which today’s divisions multiply themselves because those who have
the most to gain from learning continue to be the least likely to access it? Or do we want to build something else?
A society in which people have the tools to adapt and prosper in the face of adversity - whether that comes from a tricky past or an uncertain future.
I know where I stand.
And that it why my colleagues and I in the Education Committee have decided to launch an inquiry into the current state of adult learning.
I invite you all to join us. And help get this right
