State policies regarding workers' education and the education and training of adults and communities have been hugely influenced by the political and ideological perspectives and approaches that have informed such policies from the onset of the post-apartheid period. These approaches have had pervasively negative effects on especially workers' education. Yet, there is a powerful and instructive legacy of theorisation and practice that suggests other possibilities towards the development of a progressive, even radical, agenda for workers' education and its associated forms. These possibilities have been abandoned by the prevailing regime of policy and practice, which could have drawn on the work of trade unions, progressive social movements and organisations, including some of their negative practices. We consider these historical possibilities briefly with a view to opening up a discussion about the possibilities they represent for educational theory and practice.