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The burning questions of adult education: some thoughts on current issues in the university teaching and research in the education of adults

Paul F. Armstrong, University of Hull

The 1983 SCUTREA conference was held at Ruskin College in Oxford. Perhaps it would be unrealistic to have expected events to have been as dramatic and historically significant as those which occurred some 75 years previous. During that tumultuous era in the history of adult education, a pamphlet was published in 1908 describing the visit of Lord Curzon, Chancellor of the University of Oxford, to Ruskin College, to recommend a closer union between these two educational institutions.[1] This pamphlet was entitled ‘The Burning Question of Education’. In 1983, it seems that there are some ‘smouldering’ questions - to flare up or to be doused?

The conference was perhaps even more divergent than usual, with a miscellany of papers delivered on the first day, followed by three thematically (and perhaps conceptually) distinct groups focusing on specific and contemporary concerns, namely ageing, teaching and learning, and continuing education, which participants considered still worth pursuing even after Professor Alan Rogers’ prophetic and somewhat pessimistic opening keynote address.

To try to bring all this discussion together on the final morning of the conference, to identify the common links, to demonstrate that there were underlying themes and issues that would make the conference appear to have been more than a series of fragmented contributions, proved to be a stimulating exercise. The participants appeared to be stunned into silence - either because of the profundity of the issues which strike terror into the hearts of those of us who are not graduates in philosophy, who wish only to be able to get on with our jobs without having to think about, let alone resolve, such issues; or, because the issues were so obvious that it had all been said before. Rarely has one heard a body of such distinguished and experienced adult educators so quiet.

What, then, were these issues, these contemporary ‘burning questions’? Some of them had, in fact, been raised during the opening address delivered by Alan Rogers, who threw out the challenge that recent developments not only ‘threaten to undermine research’ but also groups such as ‘SCUTREA under threat of irrelevancy’. He proceeded to talk about being engaged in a ‘battle’, in a ‘war’, during which ‘basic assumptions about adult education are being challenged every day and the traditional answers no longer seem satisfactory’.[2] Perhaps 1983, like 1908, will be remembered after all, if only by historians of adult education!

The source of this challenge is, it appears, continuing education, in the sense of ‘vocational and closed group courses’, demand-led training programmes related to economic activities for the good of the nation, designed for those ‘who have’. As this was the theme of one or the three groups there was an opportunity for some or the participants at the conference to examine this challenge in depth. For a few years now, some teachers and trade unionists have become a little uneasy about the increasing interventions into both education and the labour market by such bodies as the Manpower Services Commission.

It has been said that schemes such as YOPs and now YTS have not so much been accepted as ‘not been vigorously opposed’. Some may feel that engagement with such bodies and organisations may be a more effective means of challenging them than the refusal to co-operate. Such concerns are no longer restricted to the FE sector, but are increasingly posing a challenge in secondary schools and now the extra-mural and adult education departments of our universities.

Perhaps Ruskin College was an appropriate venue for the expression of such concerns and exposition or arguments as to whether we should work within agencies that provide for continuing education or whether we should endeavour to keep adult education ‘independent’.

This debate is not restricted to continuing education, of course, nor to teaching. It is a parallel concern to that of the sponsorship of research. If we accept finance from a research grant-awarding body, how accountable are we to that body? The patronage of research has long been a sociological and methodological issue.[3] But now this concern for academic freedoms is not just found in research, nor even in consultancy work, but in an area which until the present administration was axiomatic - teaching and curricula. Frameworks for the analysis of constraints on our teaching have been developed and produced before, though generally applied to the compulsory sector rather than adult education.[4] Such a framework for university adult education or extra-mural departments will now include not only the DES, HMIs and the UGC, but also external bodies such as the Central Council for the Education and Training of Social Workers. These bodies have been ‘buying’ courses from adult education departments for a long time, and so in this sense the issue is not new. But what makes the issue alive again is that the list of agencies buying into adult education is extending, both in length and direction. But more significantly now include quasi-governmental agencies such as the MSC, which now have a good deal of money and influence.[5]

As teachers asked or invited to contribute to externally-funded courses, we may then need to ask those kind of questions (which researchers have been asking for years) to do with the ideology of such courses. How much do we need to know about the work and nature of the sponsoring agency? Should we, for example, spend time researching the sponsoring body before we accept their patronage? There are two points to note about such questions. Firstly, that they may be questions of values. Whilst we may find good academic grounds for refusing to take part in a particular project, ultimately it will be a matter of individual judgement and personal values. And - the philosophers will ask - on what basis may we or can we make ethical judgements about desirable or undesirable values implicit in courses we are asked to provide, or research we are invited to undertake? Secondly, for many of us such concerns will be hypothetical in the sense that the agreement to partake in such courses is made above our heads. The contract has already been made by heads of departments or senior managers. Our task is simply to do what we are told. Thus, the issue of power and authority relations enters into the debate. This should not, however, prevent us from raising doubts about particular courses or projects, particularly in our investigation into the sponsoring body reveals some ‘hidden motive’ behind the work we are being asked to do, which may not always be obvious to those taking the money. It is often said that it is more blessed to give than to receive. As one who is sceptical of altruism, I would argue that it might be necessary to always probe the question of motive on the part of the research grant-awarding or sponsoring body. It might be, for example, it is something quite socially acceptable as tax avoidance, in that by giving money for research or in-service training the patrons may be able to set this against income tax. But alternatively we may discover that the sponsoring bodies are using us to sort out their managerial difficulties, and we may find ourselves in the role of scapegoat. Further, it is possible that university extra-mural departments are drawn into courses or research because they bring to them status and legitimation.

These problems related to course or research ideology are by no means peculiar to continuing education, and they were issues raised also in both the ageing and teaching and learning sessions. For example, a concern that emerged from the ageing group was to do with the ‘hidden curriculum’ of pre-retirement courses, as the question of social control and socialisation was discussed, and the extent to which we as educators were ‘colluding’ with sponsoring agencies, engaged in a process of control or controlled change in the re-socialisation of retiring workers. In this sense, it would be foolish to pretend that we are merely neutral outsiders called in to do a particular job, bridging the gap between employers and employees. However, it may be argued that we are engaged not just in the process of socialising or re-socialising special groups such as the elderly or specific professional groups, but also in a wider educational activity - educating the public at large, to change attitudes and ideas toward such groups or their behaviour. Again, it could be argued that in any case we are paid to do a particular job, whatever the intent of the sponsor, or the consequences of our teaching or research (which we may rarely have control over anyway) and therefore we should seek to do it faithfully, to the best of our abilities.

All this must inevitably point to the whole debate about how we are to perceive the tutor’s or researcher’s role in adult and continuing education. There is no doubt that continuing education is challenging the traditional role of the university extra-mural tutor. As Alan Rogers said, ‘continuing education is tending to make traditional liberal adult education provision irrelevant to the needs of the nation’. And whilst we may not be in total agreement with this, we may find the justification of the traditional role of the extra-mural tutor more difficult to sustain and make convincing. Slogans such as ‘education for its own sake’ begin to sound tired and rhetorical, and are in desperate need of revitalisation through both empirical substantiation and ideological argument.

The degree to which our traditional role is changing, and the direction which this change is taking or will take in the future is again an area for research. At the present moment, at least two directions have been observed. Firstly, there is the novel experience (for university adult education) of team work. This may mean not only working conjointly with colleagues, not only with students in their own learning, but also developing ‘partnerships’ with external sponsoring agencies in the provision of continuing education. Whether these are likely to be equal or democratic partnerships is a matter for conjecture and dispute. Secondly, there is a sense in which adult education tutors will no longer be expected to be subject specialists. Our postgraduate knowledge of history, philosophy, sociology or whatever will cease to be as important as our teaching skills. Process rather than content will be in demand. Our abilities to teach, to communicate and to organise will be what external bodies come to buy, not our knowledge. There is, of course, already a vocabulary developed to enable us to engage in this discourse - we will be ‘facilitators’ or ‘catalysts’. Not only might our specialist knowledge be required, but we may find that we are now expected to provide answers. As liberal adult education tutors we are often skilled at analysing problems, to unravel their complexity and able to suggest a range of alternative answers. We might now be required to go one stage further - to commit ourselves to one of these solutions and to be able to defend it. After years of objectivity some of us may find taking sides uncomfortable.

Perhaps at this point an actual example may illustrate some of these hypothetical problems. This example is typical of several cited at the conference.

A university extra-mural department is approached by a social services department for help in sorting out their ‘selection interviewing’ procedures which do not appear to be as effective as they would like. The required help is asked for in the form of the provision of a short residential course for senior managers in the social services. The extra-mural department has a little expertise in the theory and practice of selection interviewing, and it feels it would benefit from a closer relationship with the local social services department and so agrees to do it. The organisation of the residential course is left to a junior staff tutor who finds that the little expertise that is in the department will not be available, and is left to work out a programme in conjunction with the local training officer. It is then realised that specialist knowledge of selection interviewing is probably not only not necessary but undesirable, for what the participants do not want are traditional lectures summarising what is known about the theory and practice of selection interviewing. If this had been provided, it would have had to have been made clear that what the research evidence on this points to is that the selection interview is no more reliable than more or less random selection from applicants. The participants did not want an ideological critique of selection interviewing, but only to find out how to improve their practice and to make fewer selection errors. These errors have always been made but in the past there had been a fairly rapid turnover of staff so these ‘errors’ did not remain long. Now that job turnover was almost at a standstill, such ‘errors’ appeared more serious. This was the motive behind the request.

The tutor’s task, then, was reduced to devising a series of role play and simulation exercises, and leading the subsequent discussion. Occasionally, the tutor was asked to make comments and even evaluations as a ‘detached observer’, but more time was spent checking that the video machines were operating and that practice interviews followed the timetable. It should be clear from this that the skills required of the tutor are somewhat different in emphasis from those typically employed in extra-mural classes. These are not new skills that tutors will need to develop, for they are those used in the everyday organisation and management of adult education classes. What is different is that the range of skills required is narrower and, in a sense, more routine. Obviously such examples of actual practice require a more systematic and detailed analysis than I have been able to provide here.

Such analyses are important, however, because if we are to survive we will certainly need to recognise our skills as well as our knowledge, and seek to sell them to prospective buyers. Within the work of the MSC, at the moment, there is a good deal of rhetoric about ‘transferable skills’, which has little empirical substance, particularly of a recent nature. What we as university extra-mural tutors are increasingly likely to be involved in may require us to ‘transfer' our skills. But at the same time, we must make the opportunities to research into our own roles as both tutors and researchers, and pay particular attention to this ‘transfer’ so that we can increase our knowledge of what is understood by this much-used but vague phrase.

What the 1983 SCUTREA conference has succeeded in doing, then, is to remind us that there are questions that should be ‘burning’ because ultimately they will affect us all. Naturally, some of these questions are of an ideological nature, and their answers may be a matter of opinion, belief or theoretical viewpoint. But other questions will require empirical data on which to base answers, and such research may need to be independent of any evaluation projects which sponsoring agencies may require. That is, we need more research into teaching and into research. There is a clear role here for a body such as SCUTREA. Will they take up the challenge or allow the questions, and university adult education, to burn themselves out?

[1]This is reported in Millar, J. P. M., The labour college movement, NCLC Publishing Society Ltd. Ch 1, 1979.

[2]Rog