What do the Cook Islands, Latvia, Bolivia and Malaysia all have in common? They’ve all published a lifelong learning strategy.
These are just some of the more recent ones. In the last 30 years, dozens of countries (including Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) have published a national plan or strategy collected by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning.
England is conspicuous by its absence; it has never attempted a full lifelong learning strategy. And the government and opposition parties aren’t likely to provide one any time soon.
In the meantime, adult education is left on “life support”, as the principal of Redbridge Institute of Adult Education recently described it; he said he “feared for the long-term future of our sector”.
So we decided to develop our own in collaboration with learners, partners, stakeholders and allies. A true People’s Strategy for Lifelong Learning.
Each of those countries with a strategy has attempted to place lifelong learning in the context of the wider challenges facing them, connecting it to work, health and the need to build stronger, more cohesive communities.
Most importantly, they have stated that lifelong learning matters, and can be part of every citizen’s life.
So maybe the question is not how we compare to the Cook Islands but rather what we can do to ensure a future for lifelong learning. This is where developing a long-term national strategy comes into its own.
We do it in other contexts. The NHS has a 10-year plan. The government has published its first long-term strategy to tackle homelessness. It even has an over‑arching document, Plan for Change, mapping its most important milestones over the course of parliament without mentioning lifelong learning. If things are to get better, we need a roadmap.
None of the recent policy initiatives; the skills white paper, or recent SEND reforms, add up to a national lifelong learning strategy for learners of all ages, backgrounds and postcodes.
Meanwhile, adult learning participation rates are far lower than 20 years ago, driven by a huge drop in funding levels – with the promise of further cuts to come.
So how can we build a strategy to fix this?
First, by connecting lifelong learning to wider agendas. Learning leads to better health and wellbeing; improved productivity and employability; a better understanding of our neighbours and the wider world; the ability to cope with everyday life in an increasingly complex world, lived in digital spheres as well as in real life.
For our strategy, we’ll be connecting with experts in other fields beyond education including health, community building and place making, employment rights and those tackling hate and misinformation.
A roundtable in Scotland after the May elections will consider whether lifelong learning is thriving and what the key messages for the new government might be.
We’ll be collaborating with the wider adult learning sector, unions, other charities, local authorities and of course our own tutors and colleagues. Anyone trying to do the best for adult learners who is held back by restrictive policies and inadequate funding.
Most importantly, we’ll be amplifying the lived experience of lifelong learners by holding events, publishing stories, undertaking research and providing a platform for them to tell their stories of the difference that access-to-learning has made.
The emerging strategy will have grown organically from a bed of shared experiences, knowledge and connections.
It will feel like an experiment, which is why we’ve called it Lifelong Learning Labs.
Like any experiment we’ll start with an idea – that our communities would thrive if lifelong learning were more central to all our lives. But we want to test the best ways of achieving that by sharing our collective findings and ideas.
By the end of the year we’ll have a core set of recommendations to take forward to the next general election, where we want to see parties adopting the idea of a lifelong learning strategy in their manifestos. We’ll have done some of the hard work for them already.
Please join us in the experiment.
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