It is six years since NIACE published the findings of its Committee of Inquiry on English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). Its report, "More than a language," made significant and wide-reaching recommendations aimed at addressing the quality of provision, unmet demand and the structure of ESOL teaching qualifications. The…

Choice is important to everyone, for one's identity as well as one's material satisfaction. Everyone has choices, but even the head of state's choices are constrained. In recent years choice has risen up the political agenda in the UK. It has become a key component of the drive to reform public services such as health and education. The…

Few university leaders can speak with as much authority about the transformative power of learning as Mary Stuart, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lincoln. She knows first-hand both what it is like to be poor and down on her luck and how "second chance" education and a willingness to work hard and take risks can turn lives around.…

Melaneia Warwick has never found it difficult to empathise with her adult students. She knows first-hand how untidy and unpredictable an adult's learning journey can be. She also knows how difficult it can be to take the first step, and how rewarding the experience can be if the teacher manages to create an atmosphere that is both supportive and…

The rapidly changing picture on localism and the government's focus on local economic growth have significant implications for adult learning and skills providers in England. Government now sees a sense of place as key to economic growth and recognises the need for a renewed debate on how business and state interact with localities. There is a…

With women bearing a disproportionate share of economic hardship, their poor representation on training designed to tackle barriers to work is a critical concern. The author asks what can be done to improve women's access to this sort of learning. As the underrecruitment of women to ESF pre-employment programmes demonstrates, the author suggests…

As people celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day this year, NIACE has organised an event, "Every woman's right to learn," that will offer an opportunity for educators and learners to celebrate women's progress and achievements in and through learning, to find one's hopes and aspirations for the future and work…

The first decade of the current Labour Government had been characterised by a whole raft of education reforms aimed at driving up standards--a focus on early literacy and numeracy, standards funds to push up exam results, the much greater use of technology to track individual pupils' progress and to ensure a growing number achieved the benchmark…

As Chief Executive of the National Youth Agency, the author was asked to give her perspective on the lifelong learning prospects for young people. She believes that one's capacity to be a learner and to learn, at whatever stage of life, is directly influenced by every other aspect of one's life, from one's attitudes to one's income. As a young…

The statutory right to request time to train for all employees is the right way forward for UK plc and for workers. The coalition government not implementing this legislation in full would be a backward step. The author says this with such certainty because the status quo in which a third of employers don't train their workers and 10 million…

The role of universities in contributing to lifelong learning is likely to undergo significant change in the next few years as the higher education sector grapples with the government's overhaul of university funding. Opportunities for progression to university for those studying outside of A-levels are particularly uncertain in the emerging…

Much recent discussion about the skills needed to secure Britain's economic recovery has focused on skills for employability. However, too often, these fundamental skills are understood in narrow functional or vocational terms. So-called "soft skills", what Penelope Tobin, in her 2008 paper "Soft Skills: the hard facts", terms "traits and…

"Ambition 2020: World Class Skills and Jobs" is the UK Commission for Employment and Skills' annual assessment, to the four UK nations, of their progress towards becoming "world class" in productivity, employment and skills by 2020. "Ambition 2020" provides a robust independent account of economic and skills…

Hardly anyone can have failed to pick up on the recent flurry of stories in the national press about the Big Society, sparked off by Dame Elisabeth Hoodless's remarks that funds for volunteers are disappearing at an alarming rate, and that this is undermining the very idea of a "Big Society". At the same time, under the government's…

The work unions do in providing and supporting learning for their members rarely makes the news headlines, but it will be essential if people are to engage those workers who most need to acquire new and better skills to cope in the economic downturn. In this article, the author talks about the power in a union and describes UNISON, a comparatively…