Informal Adult and Community Learning Infrastructure
A key aim of the Transformation Fund was to transform the landscape of informal adult and community learning (ACL).
Larger projects involving strategic partnerships took the opportunity to:
- work across a whole city or county, opening up new learning venues, creating new learning networks and improving access to information, advice and guidance -Nottingham Loves Learning; Learning Leicestershire; My Hull
- use new technology to create comprehensive websites pulling together information about learning opportunities - Hertfordshire Learning Revolution
- develop a network of community learning champions, and facilitate self-organised groups - Learning Revolutionaries - WEA; Learning Links - Bourneville College
- enable large organisations (colleges, museums etc) to connect with local residents and work together to open up street-level learning opportunities in innovative ways - Inspiration Market - London Borough of Camden
Partnership working was key to the success of these projects. The lead bodies developed innovative partnerships with a wide range of organisations across their communities. This enabled them to reach local people who hadn't previously been aware of learning opportunities and to bring diverse groups within their communities together. Partnership working gave projects access to:
- existing websites through which they could promote learning opportunities;
- a range of venues which could host learning events, such as children's centres, community centres and vacant shops;
- people and organisations with a wide range of knowledge and skills to share;
- a variety of progression routes for learners, including further informal learning, volunteering, vocational training and employment or self-employment.
Partnerships established through Transformation Fund projects demonstrated the value of adding a learning dimension to the work of many different organisations. Now that relationships between the organisations have been established they can be built on to embed learning across communities in the future.
Volunteers played a key role in many of these projects, acting as community learning champions and facilitators of self-organised groups. For more details of these roles see the page about intermediaries.
Many of the Transformation Fund infrastructure projects managed to develop partnerships in a very short period of time, but ideally partnerships need a longer time to become well established. Organisations planning to work together in partnership over the long-term need to:
- identify where they have priorities in common and where they might come into conflict;
- recognise the different contributions that each organisation can make to informal ACL;
- develop clear communication channels;
- build trust between partners;
- establish Service Level Agreements so that each organisation is clear about its own responsibilities and the responsibilities of others in the partnership; but
- also be prepared to 'give-and-take' and be flexible when the situation demands it.
There is a great tradition of informal adult and community learning (ACL) in Britain. Some has been provided by publicly funded bodies such as local colleges and local authorities, not only through evening classes but also through the work of local libraries, museums, galleries and through publicly funded community centres. A wide range of voluntary organisations are also involved in providing learning, including trades unions, the Workers' Educational Association (WEA) and the University of the Third Age (U3A). Some of these voluntary organisations receive a measure of public funding. The private sector has also contributed to this provision.
Many public priorities can be better achieved by adding a learning dimension. For example, adult learning has an important part to play in achieving health improvement targets. In recent years there has been a lively debate about the priorities for publicly provided ACL provision and a drive to make it more accessible to those people who have benefited least from formal education. However there is continuing demand for a wide range of informal ACL provision, and an ongoing debate about how that can best be funded and provided.
In times of financial stringency it's important to establish how public funding can best be used to encourage and support the creative efforts of voluntary organisations and private individuals to deliver a rich mix of informal learning across the community. The Transformation Fund infrastructure projects provided an opportunity to explore a range of options and evaluate their effectiveness. They demonstrated that working together to improve access to informal ACL not only enables many individuals to gain new skills but also contributes to stronger and more resilient communities.
Web Links
Learning through Life
report of the Inquiry into the Future of Lifelong Learning (a summary is available as a free download)
