Building Futures: Advent Day 4

I can hear the chatter, I can visualise the groups of people in my head, I can see them brimming with excitement and optimism ‘2021 is going to be the best year yet-look what we’ve been given-the best opportunity in more than a decade. Funding Allocated to Adult Learning.’

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us, at a huge cost the significant mistake of continually separating public policies relating to education, health, work and the environment. We’ve forgotten all of the promises made at the beginning of the year already-‘we’re going to Build Back Better-this is our chance to change how we support and involve disadvantaged communities in the services developed that address the issues of inequality’ we heard everyone from Government Ministers to Senior Civil Servants say. ‘We won’t leave anyone behind and even came up with a twitter hashtag to keep the idea going that things would be different’.

So why isn’t that the case for everyone? Where has the talk of growth and development of the individual in all areas of life, family, community and work gone? Community based adult learning has the tools at its disposal to help people look at their ultimate potential and provide real solutions to our ongoing needs caused by the pandemic. 

Why is it not at the top of the list for funding and priority investment and why is it the least supported link in the learning family?  We won’t answer that one you can have a go…

Significant bodies of research confirm that community-based adult learning in Scotland remains underfunded and has received no dedicated or conscious funding stream for over 13 years.  An FOI to local authorities around two years ago now found that it had lost between 50 and 75% of its core funding in the preceding decade, scary we know. Now though in 2020 considering the significant and growing current need that is spelled out every day by the numbers of people living in very difficult circumstances it seems that we might need a change of heart, policy and resource allocation if we are to truly include everyone.

Our learners’ forum members run over 484 small organisations-volunteer led, organised and delivered, but the scale of the task just keeps growing, the number of adults needing literacy support has increased as the number of staff to provide help has decreased, the pace of technological change has increased yet two thirds of our local group members (18,700) have no access to even the basic forms of technology that can help them develop these skills. Together with environmental and climate change concerns, increasing mental health and health issues and exclusion from community empowerment activities it seems reasonable and realistic to expect that there would be significant investment in adult education. 
Democratic participation it seems isn’t quite what we think it is-the ‘touchy feely’ bit of adult learning that supports this area is completely misunderstood-for one it is the single most effective vehicle for teaching social and emotional intelligence skills-the kind of skills that people need for all of their life, for another these are the kind of skills that are rebadged frequently changing their name from, key skills to core skills and even now meta-skills. 

I guess though that what troubles us most is that the human rights of adult learners in Scotland are becoming a concern-no funding at all means no involvement in community activity by those we proclaim to want to include, no funders supporting adult learning means the vast divides in society continue to widen. 

Peace, prosperity and participation don’t arrive in society by themselves, they need significant support from progressive governments, they are too important to be left to chance and cannot be left to the free market, private funders and foundations. 

Our Christmas hope is that Scotland becomes a leader in the community-based adult learning field again, that we truly believe in the potential of our communities to build a new future for generations to come and that we give adults a meaningful chance to change their lives, even if it is their second, third or fourth chance. 

A little investment would be the best Christmas gift ever and one which gives long into the future. Just imagine what our country could be like then-it really is time to Build Back Better.

Love 

National Learners' Forum