Educational Guidance for Adults in the UK: Developments Through the 1980S

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Educational guidance for adults in the UK: developments through the 1980s

John Taylor, Educational Counselling and Credit Transfer Information Service

Abstract

This paper surveys the recent growth of educational guidance facilities for adults in the UK from the publication in 1979 of Links to Learning and the Department of Education and Science Report on Educational Credit Transfer. Both reports advocated extensive developments. The former looked to locally based guidance services; the latter to national computer-based systems. Local services have since multiplied. Computerisation has become widespread. The emphasis has been on extending the quantity of provision; now it moves towards the improvement of quality. The paper concludes that adult guidance provision is now established, reflects on its future, and considers the contribution made by British universities.

Origins

In the early 1970s the Russell Report argued that ‘provision, however good, is pointless unless it is known to those for whom it is designed’, and went on to suggest this could be put right by ‘the provision of information to the individual enquirer’ in order ‘to identify and locate the most suitable activity for his (sic) educational needs’. The Report nevertheless came to a negative conclusion that since ‘a true counselling service ... would be a costly and elaborate undertaking’, it ‘could not recommend the diversion of resources in that direction at the present time’[1]. Events quickly overtook Russell’s caution as recognisably distinct guidance provision for adults began to emerge in the second half of the 1970s. Some initiatives stemmed from adult education, others came from further and higher education and from established information channels such as public libraries and the careers services.

Early Focus

The Open University’s Venables Report, published in 1976, called for a local, multi-institutional approach to providing educational guidance services for adults (EGSAs)[2]. Since then the OU, largely through its regional offices, has made a significant contribution to the setting up and survival of many EGSAs. The OU has been credited as a prime mover in persuading adult educators of the value of guidance provision[3]. The Advisory Council for Adult and Continuing Education (ACACE) published, in 1979, the first UK report to review and analyse the development of EGSAs. Links to Learning was unequivocal in insisting that EGSAs ‘should be recognised as the crucial link between the educational needs and demands of adults and the learning opportunities offered by educational providers’. The report advocated guidance as a two-way process - helping adults towards learning as well as feeding back information about unmet student demand to educational institutions. A further recommendation called for guaranteed financial support, with acceptance of responsibility by local education authorities, while at the same time insisting that EGSAs should be ‘co-operative and collaborative ventures rather than the exclusive preserve of any one professional group or institution’[4]. The Unit for the Development of Adult Continuing Education (UDACE), set up in 1985, has given such energetic attention to this field that it can now claim dominance in any list of UK publications about educational guidance. It is also noticeable that over the past couple of years every report on post-school education has included references to the need for, and value of, educational guidance for adults. Surely an idea whose time really has come.

Credit transfer

While educational guidance was gathering momentum, there was growing concern about the restriction placed on adult access to higher education by entry requirements geared to conventional school-leaving qualifications. This led to a perception of human and economic wastage, which might be reduced if institutions would offer ‘credit transfer’ opportunities based on prior experience and learning, in place of the normal entry and course progression requirements. The Department of Education and Science commissioned an independent report on the current availability of credit transfer and the potential for its expansion. The Toyne Report, published in 1979, argued from the value of the limited amount of credit transfer then available that much more should be provided. The key to this was seen to be a national computer-based information service about what credit transfer opportunities were available, where, on what terms, to whom, and for what[5]. The DES accepted this and, in setting up a national information centre, added the function of providing information about what courses were available, where and in what subjects and skills. Thus the Educational Counselling and Credit Transfer Information Service (ECCTIS), born in 1983, was both the first DES funded project in the guidance field and the first substantial attempt at computerised support for educational information services. In that same year the DES launched the PICKUP computer-based Training Directory and the Manpower Services Commission sponsored MARIS (Materials and Resources Information Service) as an open learning database.

EGSAs

Alongside these national developments in the early 1980s came a steady rise in the number of local EGSAs. Most were poorly resourced, slenderly staffed and largely voluntary exercises. Some did not long survive, and yet their numbers grew year by year. The first systematic attempt to survey them came up with 15 operational and three planned[6]. Since then an annual Directory of EGSAs has been published, from which the figures in Table 1 have been calculated[7].

Table I Number of EGSAs operating and planned in the UK.

Year Total EnglandWalesScotlandN. Ireland

19791817001
19834941332
19845347222
19856658242
19867872231
19878580131

In view of all the constraints over the past few straightened years, the growth recorded in Table 1 is remarkable. However that growth has essentially been an English phenomenon. Scotland has just about held its own (in 1988 it is down to two EGSAs). Wales has seen a steady decline. In Northern Ireland, in spite of officialdom’s pursuit of economy in seeking to close it, the Belfast EGSA, the first to be established in the UK, has survived and celebrated its 21st birthday last year.

Meanings

The definition of an EGSA is enshrined in the institutional membership criteria of the National Association of Educational Guidance Services for Adults (NAEGS). These have been described as being associated with ‘the linked values of improved access, collaborative provision, independence, client-centredness and advocacy’[8]. The 1986 Directory of EGSAs listed the criteria for inclusion in its pages - the offering of educational guidance independently of the interests of any supporting agency, as a primary function, for the general public, across the whole of continuing education, free of charge, and in most of its elements of information, assessment, advice, counselling and implementation[9]. That list of guidance functions has been amplified by UDACE to cover seven inter-related functions: informing, advising, counselling, assessing, enabling, advocating, and feeding back[10].

Other services

While EGSAs rightly see themselves as the specialist centres for adult educational guidance, there have long been other public services which respond to educational enquiries from adults, notably the public libraries and the local authority careers services. The British Library’s Research and Development Department co-operated with the Open University’s Yorkshire Region and ACACE in research which led to a number of reports. Some public libraries work closely, often as collaborative member institutions, with their local EGSA. Careers services are established to assist young people, they are not required to offer services to adults. While some are keen to help adults, they are often reluctant to stretch scarce resources to a new and potentially large clientele. The Institute of Careers Officers regularly surveys careers services about their policies in regard to adult enquirers and promotes conferences on the subject. Some careers services look askance at their neighbouring EGSA, others co-operate. The big newcomer on the adult guidance scene is the Manpower Services Commission and its TAPs (Training Access Points) scheme. This multi-million pound project aims at a country-wide network of local enquiry centres, each of which will be supported by computerised local databases linked to national databases, such as ECCTIS and PICKUP. Its starting point of guidance in vocational education and training is being interpreted broadly to include the whole of adult, further and higher education.

Information technology

There is a vast amount of education and training on offer. To compile, store, maintain and make data instantly available to enquirers calls for investment in the latest computer systems. The national databases have led the way with on-line mainframe systems. ECCTIS has recently made its entire database (of over 50,000 further and higher education courses) available on a single compact disc (CD-ROM). To date the investment required has limited developments at the national level. Now TAPs is addressing the computerisation of local databases. UDACE has encouraged the same line of exploration in its latest report[11]. Progress in the more effective provision of information services is undoubtedly linked to the new technology. But how quickly will educationalists and adults in general come to terms with computers as information channels? The TAP Unit has currently commissioned studies on this in relation to simplified ‘user systems’ and public acceptance.

User needs and demands

Student dissatisfaction and drop-out rates are measures of the lack of guidance for those who have actually got into the system. Most adults have never got that far. Widely available and well publicised guidance facilities could help change that and transform need into demand. The actual demand for educational guidance is not easily measured. A recent study[12] concluded that ‘many adults are unclear about what guidance is available and where to find it (and) the problem is compounded by the fact that guidance agencies are, in general, difficult to find. They are located in inaccessible places, and poorly publicised’. Arithmetically more precise is the evidence from the ECCTIS on-line database search service which received 18,000 enquiries in 1985, over 40,000 in 1986, and 110,000 in 1987. Thus latent demand emerges when facilities become available. Just as encouragingly the recent UDACE study shows that 30% of the adult population ‘has sought some form of guidance about training or education in the past’[13].

User satisfaction

The problem with measuring satisfaction is knowing what to regard as ‘success’ in guidance terms. To measure effectiveness by the take-up of recommended study courses might be seen as too recruitment-oriented. A research study of four EGSAs criticised the EGSAs’ performance after a follow-up of their users revealed that some went on to ‘resolve their own information needs ... without further recourse to the EGSA’, ‘advice was sometimes inappropriate and irrelevant’, and ‘counselling seemed hardly to reach those clients who were in need of it’[14]. Brighter results can be found in a UDACE study: ‘few users express dissatisfaction with the guidance received, most expect to act on it and would return to the same agency in future’[15].

Current issues

Areas to which attention is now being directed include: organisational structures, funding, accessibility, staffing and staff development, and information management. The UDACE proposals for developing educational guidance advocate local collaborative structures with the local education authority playing a ‘key role’ to help ensure continuity of funding, while independence is maintained in the shape of a local education guidance unit, involving one or more from among at least the local EGSA, careers service and public library. Information management is coming to the fore as services attempt to be comprehensive in their coverage of learning opportunities; the ubiquitous UDACE has tackled this in a very recent report[16]. A National Unit for Educational Guidance has just come into existence, incorporated within UDACE, with joint funding from the DES and the MSC. It will soon begin its advisory and developmental work, aimed initially towards management, organisational and staff development.

Future

The future appears to be reasonably assured. Both the MSC and the DES continue to show interest backed by financial commitment. Whether EGSAs continue to grow and multiply could well hinge on more local education authority support, helping to assure funding for the local unit and network arrangements proposed by UDACE. Greater professionalism is going to be important; that means appropriate staff training and perhaps professional qualifications. More computerisation is inevitable. More guidance staff are needed for the front line work, backed up by computer-based information tools. The same demographic shift which is now boosting continuing education will in turn boost the need for guiding adults into the newly expanding provision. All of this depends on a corresponding increase in the amount of research and development.

Universities

The university contribution to this research and development seems to have been relatively limited so far. The MSC has contracted commercial information consultants, and UDACE has looked largely to independent researchers. The Open University has been prominent in developing ECCTIS with its spill-over into several other computer-based information service projects. The OU has also been active through its regional offices in helping promote and run local EGSAs, and a few university continuing education departments have shown similar interest. At least two universities, Lancaster[17] and Edinburgh[18], have published research on adult guidance. The professional education of adult educators, which several universities provide, might be a suitable vehicle for much needed guidance staff training. No doubt there is some individual provision now in some certificate and diploma programmes and through individual higher degree theses, but guidance could become more prominent as a specialist staff development programme in its own right. Guidance is one of the strongest growth areas in continuing education and more university involvement can only be mutually beneficial.

[1] Department of Education and Science (1973) Adult education: a plan for development. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery