Accounting and accountability in adult and community education: reflections on the Scottish experience
Jim Crowther, University of Edinburgh, UK
Paper presented at SCUTREA, 33rd annual conference, University of Wales, Bangor,
1-3 July, 2003
When languages start to disappear it is not only the words that are lost but also more importantly what they signify in terms of the social practices which produced them. If this is the case for spoken languages the same logic applies to the colonisation of educational practices by discourses imported from the world of enterprise and the market. Increasingly the lingua franca of adult education is that of the administrator, manager and accountant reflected in concerns for 'inputs', 'outputs', 'outcomes', 'performance criteria', 'performance indicators', 'targets', 'quality' measures and endless plans and monitoring reports. Reference to education is also rapidly on its way out to be replaced with lifelong learning. Of course, none of these developments are neutral. As Martin and Merrill argue,
'the way in which we use language to discuss education as a social practice helps to constitute that practice; it becomes imbued with the values and aspirations (and, indeed, errors) we bring to the discussion of it' (2002:p.206).
This article addresses the changing language of adult and community education in Scotland through its incorporation into the managerial politics of the state. This trend is part of a wider process in which the language of lifelong learning plays a key role in mediating the political economy of capitalist globalisation along with the restructuring of welfare. This is the starting point for the article which then goes on to examine this development in the Scottish context.
From lifelong education to lifelong learning
During the1960s and 1970s progressive educational debate in Europe was dominated by discussion of lifelong education, promoted specifically by United Nations Educational Science Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and inspired by the failure of post-World War II school reform to create a more socially just and cohesive society. Lifelong education brought together an eclectic range of interests and ideas concerned with moral and political issues about the nature of society and the contribution of education to it in economic, political, social and cultural terms. The student movement, educational deschoolers, 'future-gazers' and the communications revolution contributed to this trend (see Field, 2000). The debate fostered about lifelong education was tied to the idea of the 'good society' and how the structure and curriculum of education could be part of its making. Its proponents stressed the importance of education arising from and contributing to people's lives in rounded terms. This was contested terrain but one primarily influenced by a humanist ideology concerned with personal growth in an increasingly consumer culture that emphasised having - one of the key UNESCO reports by Faure (1972) was titled Learning to Be! These concerns and interests are now marginal to the current policy discourse of lifelong learning.
Lifelong learning benefited from the progressive agenda of lifelong education by making it more acceptable to a wide range of conflicting ideological interests. At times the two are used interchangeably despite important differences in meaning and significant variations in the context in which they emerged. However, the cuckoo of lifelong learning has well and truly kicked its adopted sibling out of the policy discourse. As Griffin suggests, the movement from lifelong education to lifelong learning indicates 'a major shift in national and international policies for the development of education and learning systems' (1999a: p.392). It is a mistake, therefore, to assume lifelong learning is simply a recasting of the same ideas and values in a new context - the mistake, as Martin (2003) points out, is to think of lifelong learning in educational rather than political terms.
The popularity of lifelong learning in Europe was stimulated by the activities of the European Union (and before it the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) through a series of policy papers during the 1990s. The interest in lifelong learning, according to Murphy (1997), can be traced back to the European Round Table of Industrialists but it was the creation of the Single European Market in 1985 which really got things underway. The Maastricht Treaty (1992) aided this because it enshrined in law an active role for the European Union in promoting the educational policies of member states and therefore encouraging a common pattern to emerge (Tett, 2002). These developments taken together spurred the interest in 'human capital theory' set in the context of globalisation, economic downturn and crises as well as the growth of the so-called Knowledge Society and the Information Age. Two main influences began to shape European Union policy on lifelong learning. The first was the drive for economic competitiveness in a world market dominated by international capital units. The second influence was the welfare crisis which European countries faced, particularly at a time of pronounced stress on social cohesion through such issues as rising unemployment and migration. The conclusion to be drawn from all this, as Murphy suggests 'is that the needs of the European capitalist class are the ones being met by lifelong learning' (1997: p.364).
Lifelong learning also serves the interests of the new 'market state' which is replacing the nation state (Bobbitt 2002). This new formation (exemplified in the USA and UK) involves a fundamental reconstitution of the legitimacy of the state because it can no longer guarantee the security of its citizens or the general good of the community. In order to regain its legitimacy the new form of political administration has to shift people's expectations of it. The compact the 'market state' seeks to make with its people is that its role is a strategic one of extending individual choice rather than providing goods and services. These are the responsibility of individuals to achieve for themselves through market transactions. In this context, lifelong learning contributes to redefining citizens as consumers in the market place rather than political actors in the public arena. To meet these challenges public services are being reorganised along the lines of the private sector and market-driven systems of performance. In the UK context, with its 'neo-liberal welfare reform policy approach' (Griffin, 1999b p.432), government is less willing to fund education provision and is, instead, shifting the costs of learning onto learners. This is part of a wider process of welfare restructuring. Instead of universal provision based on need, 'learning to do without welfare is what lifelong learning is all about' (Griffin,1999b: p.432).
The creation of a market for learning reduces the public sphere, because education has been a legitimate object of public debate whereas the system of lifelong learning is aligned with a discourse of consumer choice. The moral and political questions about a society which education should contribute to are ruled off the agenda in this process. Markets do not simply empower the learner as 'consumer'. This view assumes markets are free, neutral and passive - the reality is they are structured by powerful interests, serve to reinforce them and are active in this process of construction. The market is not simply a mechanism for facilitating choice in that it too is a means of social control. Ranson puts the point forcefully:
Within the marketplace all are free and equal, only differentiated by the capacity to calculate their self-interest. Yet of course the market masks its social bias. It elides but also reproduces the inequalities which consumers bring to the marketplace. Under the guise of neutrality, the institution of the market actively confirms and reproduces the pre-existing social order of wealth, privilege and prejudice. (1992: p.72)
The seductive nature of lifelong learning is its recognition of learning beyond schooling. It is a mistake, however, to see it as aimed at the type of change for individuals and collectivities that inspired proponents of lifelong education. Running the two together muddies the waters and obscures changes taking place in the politics of learning. Lifelong learning is shifting the responsibility for learning to individuals, undermining welfare, disguising the reduction of the democratic public sphere, and working on people as objects of policy to ensure their compliance with the brave new world of global capitalism.
The Scottish experience: from community education to community learning and development
Since 1975 the organisation of lifelong education in Scotland was by designated community education services controlled through local authorities. Local authorities developed provision for adult education, youth work and community work through a generic service of dedicated community educators. Whilst there was never ideological clarity about what community education meant there was a broad understanding that it involved working with people, mainly in disadvantaged areas, around their own, self-defined needs and interests. This is now being undermined in a number of ways. The factors contributing to this include the squeezing of local authority budgets, the restructuring of provision away from generic community education services through targeted work to meet national policy goals and the development of short-term voluntary sector projects funded through social partnerships.
The Osler Report (1998) and the subsequent Scottish Office (1999) circular which followed it (known as circular 4/99) signalled the significant changes in policy to come. The main recommendation of the Osler Report was that community education would no longer be viewed as a service but as an approach which would be relevant to other professional groups too. This paradoxically raised the profile of community education by bringing it to the centre of policy development whilst it marginalised the value of dedicated provision. Community educators had a brief spell of thinking their 'time had come'. However, it seems on reflection more likely that its real meaning was their 'time is past'! The Osler Report also prioritised the need for a 'framework of targets', 'with success monitored' in order to create 'transparency and accountability'.
Circular 4/99 reiterated the need for national and local target setting, monitoring, evaluation and quality assurance procedures which were also to be framed in relation to Best Value. The underlying thrust of Best Value is to introduce market disciplines into welfare services, previously untouched by compulsory competitive tendering, through the imperative to continually improve 'efficiency and effectiveness' (Geddes and Martin, 2000). The four 'Cs' of Best Value are to challenge the need for a service, compare performance, consult with 'customers' and compete with other potential providers (HMIE, 2002a). Judgements about success or failure are decided in relation to targets set by policy which provide local and national benchmarks. These are shaped by broader economic and political priorities that set a framework for local and area community plans to articulate with. For example, the Scottish Executive has established social justice milestones (predominantly based on getting people into employment and off welfare) which are being promoted as a way of measuring the success of community-based adult learning (Communities Scotland, 2002). This process is one of increasing centralised managerial control coupled with devolved responsibility for meeting policy objectives and a battery of performance measures which community education teams use for the self-surveillance of their work.
Dismantling community education took a further step in 2002 with the winding up of the national agency, Community Learning Scotland. Its function in relation to adult learning has been re-housed in a community regeneration agency, Communities Scotland, and in a voluntary organisation called the Scottish Adult Learning Partnership. The final step has been the ditching of community education to be replaced by services for 'community learning and development'. This is to involve 'a way of listening and of working with people' to generate
'informal learning and social development work with individuals and groups in their communities. The aim of this work is to strengthen communities by improving people's knowledge, skills and confidence, organisational ability and resources' (Scottish Executive, 2003a: p7).
This reasserts commitment to a community development approach set within a discourse of Best Value and a vocational imperative for lifelong learning and social inclusion. By implication a deficit model of people is reaffirmed and the solution is to be sensitive probing of 'customer' requirements (a way of listening). The new guidelines for the training of community learning and development workers reaffirm this trend (Scottish Executive, 2003b).
The changing organisational structures, institutional processes and working practices identified above are reflected in the new language for this work. The impact of the market discipline of Best Value is at an early stage but is bound to be highly significant. The loss of the term education is critically important too. Education is about the curriculum of learning and involves the type of questions about society which stimulated adherents of lifelong education discussed in the earlier part of this article. Also community education has a history and sets of values which provide a reference point for thinking about practice and its purpose. Dumping education for learning contributes to neutralising legitimate spheres of public debate and gearing services for the marketplace of lifelong learning.
'Looking up' not 'looking down': evaluation as ideology
The above developments are highlighted by a recent publication to evaluate practice produced by the Inspectorate for Education in Scotland (Her Majesties Inspectorate in Education (HMIE), 2002b). 'How good is Our Community Learning and Development?' is described as a 'good practice' manual for use in assessing the 'quality' of provision. There is nothing wrong, of course, with the interest in evaluation and making people accountable for spending public monies. To argue otherwise is indefensible. However, there are ideological issues about what we mean by evaluation, accountability and quality that need proper discussion. The manual starts by claiming 'at the heart of the process of evaluation' are the questions of how are we doing and how do we know. This technical approach begs the prior and more important question of what are we doing and why.
The technical approach to evaluation reduces it to a checklist of performance measures which disguises ambiguous and conflicting values about the nature and purpose of adult education. Proper discussion about evaluation inevitably involves making political and moral judgements which are contestable and controversial. Similarly the issue of 'quality' is treated unproblematically as if its meaning was beyond dispute and divorced from visions of purpose (Gardiner, 1996). In the Foreword to the evaluation manual the Senior Chief Inspector points out that it is based on 'best practice' as seen by Inspectors in recent years. The tenor of this claim is to present evaluation as neutral. Nothing is further from the truth. The apparent erasure of values is a strategy of introducing them surreptitiously under the guise of professional wisdom and disinterest summarised in the term 'best practice'.
What is best and what constitutes practice in adult education is contested and problematic. In this context, however, 'best practice' is defined by a centralised and regulated view of adult learning linked to a vocationally driven agenda for lifelong learning, social inclusion and active citizenship. The problem for the state is that it has inadequate information systems on which to base its policy and is therefore seeking to extend systems of control into adult learning and community development which have previously been neglected. In other words, its interest in evaluation is not in 'looking down' to develop a democratic system of accountability for individuals and communities. It is, instead, a managerial tool for 'looking up' in order to regulate and audit provision in a manner deemed acceptable to the state.
Foucault (1979) was right to suggest one of the most crucial forms of control in the modern age is administrative power. The surveillance that goes with instruments of bureaucratic control tie people up in the wrong type of work or leads them into playing games with the system. Compliance with the dead hand of managerial politics, on the one hand, or ‘creative accounting’ in terms of 'form fiddling', on the other, replace genuine engagement with what evaluation should be about.
Conclusion
Arguably, adult education was always weak on the issue of evaluating practice and therefore in justifying its demand on public resources. But all that is beginning to change and there is a value to be attached to examining what we do and why, with whom, how well we do it and to what effect. In the current context, however, the language of the ‘new managerialism’ is ubiquitous and hegemonic. This undermines opportunities for practitioners to debate the meaning of accountability and a more democratically organised practice genuinely attuned to the interests and needs of communities. 'Gaming', which involves implicit ways of subverting the system but avoids direct confrontation with the issues involved, is one likely form of resistance in these circumstances. Opening up the issues for debate involves more direct resistance and the recent policy changes which are redefining community education, and its training, may create possibilities for collective and critical discussion to emerge. However, the prospects of this making substantial change to current practice are not promising. Increasingly, practitioners are expected to conform to a managerialist model of public service driven by deep-seated change in the nature of the state involving a redrawing of the public sphere and welfare in favour of the market. The latter is dominant and its language, values and practices corrode education and the role of the adult educator.