European Agenda for Adult Learning: England Impact Forum Meeting

14.00 – 16.30, 25th February 2015, BMI, Birmingham

In attendance:Anna Connell-Smith (National Union of Students), Aoife Ni Luanaigh (UK Commission for Employment and Skils), Ashfa Slater (EPALE UK), Carol Azumah Dennis (University of Hull), Cath Harcula (Derby Adult Learning Service), Chris Minter (Education Centres Association), David Mallows (NRDC, Institute of Education, University College London), Emily Jones (NIACE), IramNaz (Workers’ Educational Association), Helen Chicot (Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council), Jan Eldred (NIACE Senior Research Fellow), Janet Solla (Health Literacy Group / Community Health and Learning Foundation), John Hacking (Network for Europe / Third Sector National Learning Alliance), Kay Sidebottom (Northern College), Kevin Robinson (UK National Agency), Lawrence Vincent (Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership), Mark Ravenhall (NIACE Senior Research Fellow—Chair), Rebecca Czechowicz (NIACE--minutes).

Apologies:Andy Gannon (157 Group of colleges), Ian Pegg (Department for Business Innovation and Skills, UK Government), Nigel Ecclesfield (JISC).

1)Welcome and Introductions

The chair welcomed everyone to the first meeting of the England Impact Forum, part of NIACE’s programme of work as UK National Coordinator for the European Agenda for Adult Learning. It was good to see such a good turn out and so many parts of the adult learning delivery and research community represented.

Members introduced themselves and apologies were noted from Andy Gannon, Ian Pegg and Nigel Ecclesfield.

2)Terms of Reference (TOR)

The chair took forum members through the TOR. There were no recommended changes suggested. There followed a brief discussion, in which the chair emphasised that the forum is a conduit for information and will present some opportunities for follow up work or dissemination activities, but these were not a requirement of membership. Members will decide to run with actions depending on their interests; each will have their own conduits for promotion.

Part of the role of the forum would be to share interesting issues from the other participating countries in the EAAL, or if other national coordinators are planning visits to the UK, forum members will be told of opportunities to meet them. There will also be the opportunity to meet members of the forums in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

In the Commission’s feedback on the 2012-14 UK work programme, it was hoped to improve the links between the four UK nations; as well as contextualise the work for the different policy environments in each of the devolved administrations.

The September conference (England, 2015) will bring together forum members and others. Some other forums are interested in meeting in England ahead of the conference. These links will emerge as we go on.

This is a one-year programme but the call for proposals for 2015/7 and the next two years is next month. NIACE has been asked to put together a proposal and, currently, we intend to continue with the Impact Forums in future. So it is not intended that this is a short term initiative. However it may morph and change as members give feedback on its effectiveness.

Part of Dr. Jan Eldred’s role as evaluator is to share feedback from other forums that she has attended. We can make this a regular agenda item. Each forum sets its own agenda, but will use the same tool to collect notes on impact, will cover their own subjects, so we can hear about this in the proposed agenda item next time.

Action: agenda item for next meeting on feedback from the other UK Forums as well as updates from the meeting of National Coordinators in Brussels in late March. (Chair)

The chair asked if any partner organisations were missing from the group. It was suggested that FE colleges could be represented. It was noted that Lawrence Vincent (attending for Dorset LEP) is the principal of a FE college, and Andy Gannon, of the 157 group, a membership organisation of 30 UK colleges, was unable to attend today but will be contributing to future meetings. AoC was invited but were unable to contribute. However, it was felt that FE colleges were sufficiently represented.

3)Introduction to the European Adult Learning Agenda for Adult Learning

The chair thanked Kevin Robinson from the National Agency for bringing copies of the ‘Education and Training Monitor’ as a resource for the meeting. Jan Eldred took the group through her briefing note (circulated in advance), which was well received. The following points were made by forum members:

  • Current discussion about entry to labour market is all about young people, so provision for adults ends up starved of funding. Member states sometimes find it hard to define ‘adult learning’, and try to define it mostly by what it isn’t. It is definitely post-compulsory but that means different things in different countries. This is also a challenge at the European level.
  • The data for UK was questioned in terms of the level of participation (16%) . As Professor Field said at our most recent UK conference for EAAL, looking beneath the data we see that it’s a smaller age range, with short episodic bouts of learning.
  • Data is weak across the whole survey but give us a general picture. Members felt that 15% may be too low an ambition. The 15% doesn’t include people we want to target. It’s a trade-off, in which traditional forms of adult education may suffer if the emphasis shifts to engage others.
  • The UKCES UK Employment Skills Survey shows people in work with higher levels of skills, in highly-skilled occupations, are more likely to get training. So having a wide range of evidence bases is key. Some will be qualitative, some ‘hard’ numbers, however weak.
  • It was felt important to share data between Impact Forum members, so we get a better idea of participation levels. For employers, informal learning doesn’t count in the figures. A member referred to an anecdote offered at the NI Impact Forum – 700 jobs were available, 800 young people who applied had the right certificates and qualifications, but only a handful were employable. So some measurement of soft skills and competences was felt to be important alongside qualifications.
  • An interesting question therefore is what participation counts or has an impact on people’s lives. Someone may have a qualification but not be competent to do a job. The OECD Survey of Adult Skills was a competence-based analysis rather than using qualifications as a proxy for skills. It was discussed as to whether UK policy will be designed around job and life competence in future as opposed to qualifications gained.
  • The National Adult Learning Survey (2012) said that any participation is a good thing, even very short duration (2hours). Yet policy tends to be to fundlarger programmes leading to qualifications. It was discussed whether this was because such qualifications were easier to quantify. Meanwhile large employers (such as McDonald’s) are pushing for greater competence in soft skills before individuals enter the workforce. How can adult learning be proved to have an impact of the acquisition of such soft skills? (see
  • Members also felt that learners being in control of their learning, and the type of learning or the curriculum, means that they are more likely to develop soft skills. No evidence was cited for this view, however.
  • We could say that adult learning happens everywhere, all the time, and this is the inclusive definition that is used in the NIACE annual participation survey.
  • How do we count informal learning, not access through funded routes? Why should we try? The voluntary sector has a perspective on this to analyse.
  • EU policy makers have tried to define adult learning in terms of formal, informal, non-formal and this was felt to be useful in the UK context too, but the terms were not widely used.

4)PIAAC / Basic Skills

NIACE Research Manager and strand leader for this workpackage, Emily Jones, gave a background presentation on the OECD Survey of Adult Skills and the PIAAC initiative.

[EJ noted a typo above– ‘Level 1’ in the key should read ‘At or below Level 1’.]

Highly literate adults likely to have high wages - social inequality relates to skill levels.

Does this show an aging effect (skill levels rise while individuals are in high-level education, then they go into work and don’t use all their skills) or a cohort effect?

Are qualifications a good proxy for competence?

David Mallows, from the National Research and Development Centre for basic skills

David emphasised that there was tendency for providers to focus on the low hanging fruit, not those most in need. Does “low-skilled” equate to those with a low score in English and Maths?

He noted the focus has been on unemployed people, immigrants, and workplace literacy and numeracy provision. There is little robust data on what funding achieves, and no expectation of this changing soon.

It was felt that UK should look to high-performing countries (e.g. Republic of Korea, Germany, Norway, Canada) for the best approaches. It was clear from the data however that size doesn’t matter – the Netherlands have 9% participation but have good results in PIAAC. There are huge numbers of adults whose literacy and numeracy is not sufficient. It’s about the nature of the population.

Those who score low in Sweden, for example, are mostly migrants. We need to know – who are they? Where are they? The people who score at Level 1 or below are not a homogenous group. They are more likely to be unemployed than other groups, but the unemployed still only account for 10%. We must not make assumptions about people.

It is also important to talk about the supply of skills. The government can set up training, funding levers and supply side mechanisms, but we don’t know enough about the demand for skills. If people’s skills aren’t goodenough to function in society, what are they doing? We need a better picture of what people actually want. We can’t do this by learning provision alone. We need to understand the ‘literate environment’ – we need to meet demands. It is very unlikely that we can do this with big programmes leading to qualifications, because we are dealing with a heterogeneous group.

The message from the Netherlands is that they are doing stuff. High-performing countries are those which are active in response to PIAAC. The message from the research to UK policy makers is ‘you need to do something’. We know very little about the demand for adult skills. We need to think of this in terms of the demands on people’s lives, and acknowledge we can’t solve this by skills alone.

Discussion:

  • IALT survey in the late 90s led to the Moser report. The scores for the UK have improved but our position in the table has not improved.
  • Audit on impact of change since then? Centralist funding model – relates to products which are centrally defined. Any form of participation impact on PIAAC? 10% of those at L1 or below have tertiary education – a degree. Skills can decline if they are not used.
  • Demand for skills – e.g. adults in the workplace – if we are not careful, people in work will lose skills assessed previously. Get people to use skills in the home, workplace, faith setting etc.
  • UK drops Maths and English too early? Should be compulsory in university courses? We currently drop maths at age 14 / 15. There is the idea that it’s ok to be bad at maths.
  • Functional skills approach – the maths we study is not required for e.g. Engineering. Maths at schools is pure maths that you might study at university.
  • The French Baccalaureate has more applied than pure maths. Norway and the Netherlands managed to get funding for the right things – a salutary lesson for us.
  • Invite national coordinator from the Netherlands to talk to us? Talk to other home nations?
  • Anglophone countries – any similarities in the data? For example, Finnish is very phonically regular, while English is not – this may have an impact on literacy levels. We need to drill down in the data.

5)Basic Skills and Social Inclusion

Emily Jones presented on NIACE’s workpackage which focused on the development of a Citizens’ Curriculum – a practice-based approach that, at a local level, could address some of the challenges highlighted by the PIAAC results.

The curriculum integrates literacy, language and numeracy with civic, health, financial and digital capabilities. As well as improving skills, it aims to have wider outcomes, including motivation to learn, participation in the community and resilience.

An example of how Citizens’ Curriculum promotes social inclusion: English for Action. This pilot supported ESOL learners to access their GP service, but to take a critical approach so as to suggest ways of improving services. Learners recorded their experience on a blog, improving their digital capability.

NIACE is carrying out an evaluation, collecting evidence from all stakeholders. Report to BIS spring 2015 – NIACE will feed this into the forum.

Discussion points raised were:

  • Content of curriculum? It’s an approach, not a prescriptive curriculum – adapt at local level. What learner needs for their life. The learner may be a group or an individual? Depends on context and provider.
  • NIACE Family numeracy pilots and evaluation, funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Pilots are taking blended learning (face-to-face and online) and flipped classroom approaches. NIACE is due to report to Paul Hamlyn in the Autumn.
  • Ambition for Citizens’ Curriculum? We always do useful projects, everyone likes the model, but often it’s not sustainable to roll it out. The idea is a model / framework. The provider wouldn’t have to change the programme, but it’s how they package it.
  • Change how we evaluate provision? Monitoring and evaluation, and evidence gathering. And wider impact of learning, not just skills.
  • How wide could a case study be? Mencap’s work with ECORYS was cited– making GP’s [primary health] service more suitable for people with learning disabilities – this would include improving people’s basic skills.
  • Skills for Health – national evaluation case studies in different sectors were cited as useful.
  • The UKCES Futures Programme – economic and social inclusion – competition was cited. Pay and progression in hospitality would be a useful case study.
  • Another possible study cited was Northern College’s social purpose model of education. Strands include Functional Skills and literacy embedded in all courses, case studies follow up individuals and groups. Open Badges to recognise digital courses.
  • It was noted that some elements of Citizens’ Curriculum were embedded into the social reform pilots. For example see
  • Big Local programme from Big Lottery is led by local residents for different geographic areas, decisions are all made by residents. Skills such as running a committee – they commission us (local council) to run learning for them with this money.
  • Northern College one of providers nationally for Big Local people to skill up for the project. Leadership, soft skills – build capacity locally.
  • The157 Group might be able to supply case studies from FE colleges.
  • It was noted that the 2011 Sharp report ( stated that policy makers were not entirely to blame, and providers very compliant, asking what do you want of government – a pragmatic approach that maximises funding but is not always in the learner’s best interest, particularly those with low skills.

6)Discussion future focus of the forum and areas for investigation

The chair thanked Emily for the thought-provoking input and opened up the discussion on how this research could feed into the future workplan. It was felt that the focus of the group’s work should be on the impact of adult learning provision at a number of levels. Jan Eldred would bring forward a paper to the next meeting to facilitate a discussion.

It was felt that it would be useful to hear from members on their analyses of impact, such as the Northern College’s, or the WEA longitudinal impact, or the BIS community learning survey. Northern College’s community-based and access to higher level diplomas was cited wheresomeone may come on a weekend residential through an offender programme, a year later they are accessing higher education. The college tracks progress.

Other items discussed were:

  • How to measure social inclusion alongside qualifications and skills. Especially in a Europe now experiencing terrorism as a challenge to social inclusion. Will it capture this? Relate to the NIACE wider outcomes tool.
  • It was noted that there were different ways to capture impact, but these can’t always be compared. If all community learning providers collected the same data, we presume it would show the same positive outcomes.
  • John Brynner’s research shows a correlation, not causation. Someone might fail a course, but the learning experience might still have a big impact on them. This needs to be noted too.
  • Study on immigrants receiving training in the 1980s – in London went on to jobs, in Liverpool went on to more training. This is a result of the environment as well as the learning programme.
  • What is our global aspiration? Human development. Try to generate data sets to demonstrate how we can achieve this. Raise our eyes above the numbers to the testimony of individuals and the impact from participating. Outcome – social engagement, social inclusion, activity.
  • WEA uses qualitative case studies which capture indicators tagged for employability, health and wellbeing. This is time consuming to collect, but it is a useful intelligence source. .
  • Apprenticeships are being prioritised by policy makers as these learning programmes have the greatest impact on wage growth, but there are other measures that policy makers should consider. There is so much information on the wider impact of learning but difficulty with talking about learning as opposed to provision
  • It was asked who the target audience for the work was. The EAAL’s three target groups are – learners (especially low waged and disadvantaged); relevant stakeholders (BIS, funders, policy makers); and practitioners working with learners.

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