Education: Lifelong Learning

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for the opportunity to debate this vital Question today. In the report, Learning Through Life, to which the noble Baroness referred, Tom Schuller and David Watson start from a premise that we should all endorse—that the right to learn throughout life is a human right. Yet our current system of lifelong learning has failed to respond to the major demographic challenges of an ageing society and to the variety of employment patterns as young people take longer to settle into their jobs and older people take longer to leave theirs.

Furthermore, for a society theoretically supportive of fairness, total expenditure on post-compulsory learning, including by the Government, employers and the third sector, as well as by individuals, is, as the noble Baroness said, heavily skewed towards young people and those who succeed initially, and we know that those who succeed initially are from the most advantageous of families. The £15 billion spent on teaching provision and student support for colleges and universities is weighted heavily in favour of young, full-time students. Currently, part-time students get only one-10th of the support of full-timers. The report of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, is a welcome recognition of this and a move in the right direction, but more is certainly needed.

Participation is very closely related to social class. Basically, the higher up your socio-economic position, the more likely you are to take part in learning. Therefore, our approach should be to tackle the current weaknesses and to put continuing education in the path of late developers, those from disadvantaged social classes, the disabled, ethnic minorities, women and, yes, us older people. We know that an ageing society makes health issues—both physical and mental issues have been mentioned—increasingly important. As has also been said, it has been proven that adult learning promotes good health.

I have to declare an interest as a long-time member, though dreadfully poor attendee, of the council of Ruskin College in Oxford. I should like to say something of the college’s pioneering work, which has led the way for over a century in offering high-quality “second-chance” education to generations of men and women from the less advantaged parts of society. As formal qualifications for entry are not required, the normal barriers to educational institutions therefore do not exist.

Traditionally via trade unions, Ruskin picked up some of the brightest of working-class, early school leavers whose union activity had brought them to the attention of canny union officials. Ruskin then offered them—perhaps by then people of 25 or 40 years of age—the chance of a post-16 education tailored to their experience and needs. Perhaps I may give just three examples of the life-changing nature of adult education, in these cases at Ruskin.

The first is now a successful partner in a law firm but she left school at 16 with few qualifications, enrolled on a hairdressing course in Chesterfield, moved to the production line at a local factory, became a trade union branch secretary, went to that union’s training college, caught the learning bug and went to Ruskin. Although earlier she would not have dreamt of going to university, she went on to get a law degree and thence qualified as a solicitor. So Ruskin offered her a second chance to start her life again.

The second Ruskin graduate, originally from west Yorkshire, did poorly in school exams, probably because nobody diagnosed that she was dyslexic. She did manage to get an RSA typing certificate and worked for an accountancy firm but then stopped working full time to raise her daughter before going back into business. However, rather like in the case of Irene, when her daughter left home for university, she herself packed her bags, jumped on a train before any self-doubts could stop her, and enrolled on a one-year residential course at Ruskin. She said, “I knew money would be tight but I also knew this chance to learn would be my salvation and change my life, and it certainly has”. Ruskin opened a new world for her. She went on to university where she got an honours history degree, then a PhD, and she now teaches at university. Of the opportunity for others to go to Ruskin, she says, “You have nothing to lose and a whole new world to gain”.

Finally, no one will be surprised by my third example—it is our own, my noble friend Lord Prescott, who often says that he owes everything to Ruskin. He had worked for 10 years before as a merchant seaman, went there and afterwards completed his higher education elsewhere. He went into politics, I think, became Deputy Prime Minister, and then came to your Lordships’ House. Not bad for a Ruskin student.

So lifelong learning is just that. It offers both a second chance to those not privileged to enter higher education at 18 and provides return-to-learning opportunities for adults with few or no qualifications. It is also not bad for those of us who did have the privilege of a post-18 education. I myself got that PhD just a little before I received my old-age pension at the age of 60. Lifelong learning is good for students who want to develop themselves but it is also good for society. Educated workers are good for the economy. Many with this life-changing experience also want to put something back into society.

Ruskin and similar institutions change people’s lives but they also enrich society. However, this provision cannot live on fresh air any more than can its students. Adult learning is currently seriously vulnerable in places such as Ruskin, with its vital residential facility, and working men’s colleges. Such institutions do not fit into the mainstream mould but they meet the needs of exactly those who missed out on the normal post-school chances.

The Government threaten to remove family allowances from 16 to 18 year-olds—just the time when working-class children need every incentive to continue their studies and aim at higher education. We heard from Michael Gove yesterday that the Government may cut the all important education maintenance allowances, which have done so much to bridge that gap between compulsory education and university. Lifelong learning should start with the maximum of pre-work education and the Government need to invest in that as much as they do in other parts of the economy.

We as a country then need to plan for and help everyone to learn throughout their lives, enriching all of us as well as society. Public and private resources invested in lifelong learning amount to more than £50 billion. Their distribution should reflect a coherent view of our changing economic and social context, our longer working lives and our increasing life expectancy.

Today’s Question for Short Debate asks of the Government,

“what steps they are taking to support and encourage institutions which seek to promote lifelong learning”.

We await their response with interest.