UK: An old but endangered movement

Britain has a long tradition of adult education, from the self-help days of the Victorian Samuel Smiles to the Workers' Educational Association and the Open University. Lifelong learning was part of the "education, education, education" mantra of Labour when it came to power 11 years ago. David Blunkett, then Education Secretary, presented a vision of a "learning age" in a Green Paper, but since then his successors have focused resources and policies mostly on young people.

Despite cuts in funding since the Thatcher years of the 1980s, millions of adult education classes take place all over the country for what the government calls "informal learning". These "night school" courses range from pottery and flower arranging to languages and electronics and don't necessarily lead to a qualification. At the higher education level, over-25s make up nearly 38% of full-time undergraduates and more than 80% of part-time students.

Labour, however, has not made life easy for mature-age students. Professor Bill Jones, head of higher education at NIACE, the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education, said: "The policy focus on vocationalism and on youth disadvantages many adults."

The government's widening participation initiative, part of efforts to get 50% of young people into higher education by 2010, is aimed at the under-30s and vocationally-oriented foundation degrees, introduced in 2001, are also targeted at the same age group.

Yet Prime Minister Gordon Brown, when he was Chancellor, commissioned leading businessman Sandy Leitch to investigate the skills needed for Britain to become a leader in the global economy by 2020. Lord Leitch's report called for a step change in the proportion of higher-level skills going from the current 30% to 40%.

The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills acknowledged that, as 70% of the 2020 workforce had already left school, this meant the country needed to produce about four million extra people with higher-level qualifications between now and the end of the next decade. "We need a system that reaches out beyond school leavers doing traditional degrees to more flexible courses designed and co-funded by employers," the department said.

Shortly after the publication of the Leitch report, Education Secretary John Denham told the Labour Party conference that "every second one of us must make up our skill lack for Britain to succeed". However, adult educationists were baffled by Denham's subsequent decision to switch funding from students taking equivalent or lower qualifications (ELQs) to spend more on those entering higher education for the first time. The Open University will be especially hard hit as it is set to lose some 29,000 students and £19 million in income by 2010.

Despite fierce opposition from politicians of all parties, lecturers' unions and the great and good of the education world, Denham is pressing ahead with this decision. Jones said the policy would have a heavy impact on adults in higher education, especially women returning to study after raising a family, workers who wanted to update their skills, disabled and older students.

"As these are all likely to be part-time, this adds to the already disadvantaged position of part-time students," Jones said. "It means about 200,000 of them are to be sacrificed to pay for 20,000 extra funded places for young full time students. So much for the Prime Minister's recent comment about the need for second, third and fourth chances in lifelong learning."