Milton Keynes

A Learning Culture in Milton Keynes

Strategic Initiatives

As the only city in the UK with a built-in cable network and with its young and rapidly growing population, there is tremendous potential in Milton Keynes and North Buckinghamshire for developing lifelong learning throughout the community.

In order to facilitate this development, the Milton Keynes and North Buckinghamshire Lifelong Learning Partnership was formed in April 1998. This body is the Strategic Forum for Education and Training for the area, and works closely with the Milton Keynes Economic Partnership. Membership of the Lifelong Learning Partnership is comprised of representatives from education, business, Milton Keynes Council, Aylesbury Vale District Council local Universities, Schools, Milton Keynes College and the Milton Keynes and North Buckinghamshire Chamber of Commerce, Training and Enterprise. These representatives form the executive board of the Partnership, and they meet on regular basis to steer the work of the Partnership in developing lifelong learning in Milton Keynes.

As the whole community has a part to play in the development of a learning culture and the promotion of lifelong learning, the Partnership recognises that representation should be drawn form a wide cross section of the community. So, to complement the work of the Executive Board of the Partnership, a larger stakeholder forum has been established comprising of representatives from a wide range of agencies who have an important part to play in the development of lifelong learning in the area. This forum will meet 2-3 times a year.

The primary task of the Lifelong Learning Partnership is to develop, after consultation, a Lifelong Learning Strategy for the area, which will provide a focus for all members of the community on the part they can play in developing a lifelong learning culture through a targeted action plan.

Lifelong Learning in Action!!

A whole range of activities have taken place to further the development of a lifelong learning culture within Milton Keynes and North Buckinghamshire.

These have included:

• Milton Keynes hosted the First National Conference of the Learning Cities Network in May 1998. This event generated local publicity, which in turn helped to raise awareness locally about lifelong learning and learning cities.
• Regular features in the local newspaper and other media coverage, along with the adoption of "Milton Keynes - the Learning City" branding for publicity materials
• The development of a local community IT network, which links schools, into a community intranet to facilitate learning.
• Work with local schools on developing key skills accreditation gained through work in National Curriculum subjects. The aim of this was to raise students' motivation and sense of achievement.
• Further development of adult guidance through offering an enhanced service which would include personality profiling, CV presentation and interview techniques.
• Work to develop literacy and numeracy skill in unemployed adults.
• The setting up of a training centre for use by local companies to provide training for their employees.

These activities were organised by a Steering Group set up to develop the Learning City. The key challenge has been and continues to be, to obtain the commitment of providers, individuals and employers to realising the concept of developing a Learning City.

Target setting and action planning

An integral part of any lifelong learning strategy is the measurement of its impact. Another of the key roles of the Lifelong Partnership is to promote and support Local and National Targets for Education and Training, which measure the skills levels in the local area. The monitoring of the achievement of the goals of a learning city is more difficult to quantify. However, work is underway to consider ways that this could be done, which could embrace both economic indicators such as employment levels, business growth rates and unemployment rates and social indicators such as levels of income support claimants and crime rates.

Progress so far

Prior to the advert of the Lifelong Learning Partnership in April 1998, responsibility for promoting and developing the Learning City in Milton Keynes rested with COUNTEC, an Organisation owned by the Chamber of Commerce, Milton Keynes Council and Buckinghamshire County Council. COUNTEC was highly successful in promoting lifelong learning and bringing partners together to develop innovative ideas to encourage learning. The Lifelong Learning Partnership will build on and develop this work.