Protect Adult Education
The Goverment has announced a cut to Adult Education of 6%, in addition to a 3% cut to the skills budgets of the devolved Mayoral Authorities. This comes on the back of austerity which saw 7 million fewer qualifications as a result. In addition, there has been a 26% fall in employer investment in skills*
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We are used to cuts, so much so that cuts like these are lost. But it matters. And it's even more disappointing that it has been done by a Labour Government. Below is a webinar I recently organised within UNISON which looked at the current situation.
*Data from the Learning & Work Institute
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“There is perhaps no branch of our vast educational system which should more attract within its particular sphere the aid and encouragement of the state than adult education. How many there must be in Britain, after the disturbance of two destructive wars , who thirst in later life to learn about the humanities, the history of their country, the philosophies of the human race, and the arts and letters which sustain and are borne forward by the ever-conquering English language?...I have no doubt myself that a man or woman earnestly seeking in grown-up life to be guided to wide and suggestive knowledge in its largest and most uplifted sphere will make the best of all pupil in this age of clatter and buzz, of gape and gloat. The appetite of adults to be shown the foundations and processes of thought will never be denied by a British Administration cherishing the continuity of our island life”
Winston Churchill, in response to the TUC's demand that the Government re-think their plans for a 10% cut to Adult Education.