Adult Learning and the Big Society

1. Adult Learning and the Big Society

2. Adult learning and the Big Society Greg Coyne Regional Director WEA North West

3. Welcome • To the Peoples History Museum • Housekeeping • To our Big Society & Adult Learning Conference • The Take Part Programme • Supported by a range of partners • Giving an opportunity to discuss how the Big Society and adult education are interlinked • Speakers workshops and networking

4. The Workers’ Educational Association • WEA is the North West Region Take Part Champion • Largest provider of adult learning in the voluntary sector • Focused on the excluded and the disadvantaged • A nationwide charity recruiting 100,000 enrolments every year • Providing a wide range of courses giving • 2nd Chances to learn • Developing community Involvement • Cultural studies • A membership which organises and campaigns for adult education

5. Things to think about • IPPR research “Social fabric of our society would appear to be weaker where polarisation is greater” • The Guardian: “England's most deprived city faces its toughest budget yet as five town halls ratify savings of £200m “ • exacerbated by cuts to welfare benefit payments that underpin the local economies of the region's poorest neighbourhoods.

6. The Big Society? • Communities in the region faces a major challenge • Meeting the challenge may however be about drawing together as communities • Not to develop a new type of society but initially at least to resist and manage the ravages of the old • Less about opportunity more about necessity. • There is much to be gained by working collectively • Not necessarily for the government’s agenda • Perhaps for the community iself

7. Adult Education • Play a role in helping people come together • Adult classes gone, Libraries, University fees, Colleges focused on vocationalism • When the powerful wish to enforce their will • Does it help if the powerless are broadly ignorant of an alternative? • So if it is to play a role perhaps it needs to change • A proud history of involvement in social change • Perhaps we could learn form that history. • Rediscover a movement for education

8. Critical Action learning • The zeitgeist in adult education? • Community Organisers, NIACE, Democracy matters • Starting from where people are and building on their interest and knowledge with study that stretches • Helping them to engage with and change their world • Freire: Education is not neutral • WEA framework for this promotes a cycle of learning • Research, Context, Action, Reflection • Collaborative co-learning between educators & students • Obviously good for citizenship but potentially much wider topics • Opening possibilities of education for a change

9. Our day • Developing a realistic view of what the Big society might mean in cities and regions like ours and what part adult learning might play. • Delighted therefore to welcome guest speakers • Jess Steele - Locality • Alan Tuckett - NIACE, • Jimmy Devlin - NW Tenants & Residents Assembly • Bernard Godding - Educational Centres Association • Workshops and a museum tour • Lunch and networking