Education: Lifelong Learning

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I particularly congratulate him and the previous Government on the number of people who qualified under Skills for Life and who will pass those skills on to the next generation.

I want particularly to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for this opportunity, and to look with her and others at the Government’s intentions on general encouragement—and, above all, adequate funding—for all forms of lifelong learning. That is lurking in the background of all we say.

The best news that I heard recently may have been news or may have been rumour. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, whom I warmly congratulate on her new role, will be able to confirm—and I hope will not deny—that higher education, when provided on only a part-time and flexible basis as by the OU and Birkbeck, will not be disadvantaged, as was previously intended, in the allocation of government funds for this level of education. I realise that I am straying into an area that the noble Baroness was not particularly keen to address, but it is the only one that I shall ask about on this occasion. We know that the cost of all forms of educational provision has increased dramatically, and it is within that context that we need to understand the future situation for lifelong learning.

Lifelong learning is clearly vital for today’s citizens, who will certainly be required frequently to retrain and upskill as a routine part of any employment—and equally, if not more so, for today’s unemployed, who may well need new skills if they are to find employment once the job market begins to recover. The estimate of the percentage of the number of employees needed with a level 4 qualification by 2020 was put at 40 per cent when your Lordships discussed the Education and Skills Bill in June 2008. But the importance of accessible and affordable lifelong learning certainly applies to the many adults who, for whatever reasons, missed out on the opportunity that the compulsory years of education should have offered them to maximise their own life chances and earnings, as well as contributing more profitably to the international competitiveness of the UK’s economy. For them, access to affordable and effective further education and training, especially available on a part-time or flexible basis, will be essential. On their behalf, my second question is: how much in this economically crisis-driven world will the necessary upskilling and training cost the individual student who was short-changed during their compulsory education, when the cost was mainly if not wholly the state’s responsibility?

I shall continue in this same theme. The previous Government made remarkable progress for, and certainly deserve our congratulations on, focusing attention on the need to promote the status of apprenticeships, which had previously been in serious decline, as we must all acknowledge. That was a way to secure some of that essential upskilling that the British workforce needed. Further education colleges, universities and employers all joined together to provide the learning needed as well as the work opportunities, much of it part-time. Will this process be continued and, again, how much of the cost will have to be met by the student? Equally relevantly, will there be options to upskill on a part-time/flexible working basis?

Yet it is not just training for jobs by which lifelong learning benefits citizens. It also has considerable attraction for those nearing the retirement age who would like to develop new skills or, for example, take a course enabling them to put the skills learnt during their working life to further use, perhaps by developing a small business. The attractions of lifelong learning are not only for the economically active either. There may be many of this same generation who, now older and retired, would like to study a more widely educational subject such as art or literature. When the previous Government gave priority to the rebirth of apprenticeships one result was, sadly, that local authorities had less to spend on that kind of course, many of which disappeared. Can we please make sure that the Government are going to encourage and support this kind of lifelong learning too?

There is another point to be made about the availability of that kind of activity. We have all heard of people who have worked all their lives, retired with no interests and very soon faded from view, often spending far too many of their final years in care. Keeping people’s interests stimulated with the availability of such courses is surely another illustration, as other noble Lords have mentioned, of “big society” activity. Also, providing such local forms of companionship and stimulation will, one hopes, mean that people stay involved and active, enjoying themselves for longer within their own communities. I hope that that will mean reducing the ultimate cost to the state for end-of-life care.