2.19 Despite the welcome expansion of numbers in both further and higher education and in opportunities for learning at work over the last decade, there still exist major differences of access and opportunities for learning for people from manual and routine non-manual backgrounds. Those who have fewer skills and are at the lower ends of hierarchies of authority, autonomy and pay at work also enjoy fewer formal opportunities for learning through work. It has now become necessary to talk of a noticeable and dangerous 'learning divide' at work as in the wider society. On the one hand, there are those who are already well qualified and who continue to be learners throughout life. On the other, there are those who either leave education largely unqualified or who neither engage in learning as adults, nor intend to do so in the future.
2.20 The persistent influence of social class upon learning opportunities and attainment has been vividly demonstrated in many different research reports and publications. NIACE found that more than half of all unskilled and semi-skilled workers say they have not participated in any learning at all since leaving full-time education, compared with under one fifth of professionals and managers. Four fifths of those who say they have not participated in learning since school think it is unlikely that they will do so in the future. (Sargant et al, 1997)
2.21 The Basic Skills Agency's study of the impact of poor basic skills on the lives of 37 year olds (It Doesn't Get Any Better, 1997), concluded that those with poor numeracy and literacy skills are more likely to be unemployed or in low income jobs. They have poor prospects of advancement and few opportunities for work-based training. They are also more likely than those with good skills to be in poor health or suffer from depression and take less part in community groups and voting in elections. By contrast, students in further education who have low levels of basic skills are more likely to succeed where professional support is systematically provided. (Staying the Course, Basic Skills Agency, 1997)
2.22 Both the Dearing and Kennedy enquiries confirm the divide. Research commissioned by the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education found that, while four out of five 18 year olds from senior managerial and professional backgrounds were entering higher education, barely one in ten from unskilled backgrounds did so. (Robertson and Hillman, 1997). In her report on widening participation for the FEFC, Helena Kennedy reported that the success of recent policies to increase participation and achievement in learning had been "mainly in providing opportunities for those who have already achieved or continue to do so". As one commentator on the Kennedy report wryly observed: "if at first you don't succeed, you don't succeed!"
2.23 At work too, the evidence indicates that learning opportunities, where they exist, are mostly concentrated on the already qualified, professionals and those in positions of authority. The Labour Force Survey shows that those in professional, associate professional and technical occupations are twice as likely as those in clerical, secretarial, personal, protective and craft jobs to have training provided by employers, and more than four times as likely to do so as plant and machine operatives. "Some employers who do not train employees at lower levels assume that they will not be interested, though it is clear from many studies that many of them are. Those who have no qualifications may be harder to get involved in training, but arguably constitute the greatest area of wasted potential." (DfEE, 1997)
2.24 So, the same groups of people who miss out on education after school are also likely to miss out on training opportunities at work. The key factors affecting participation for adults are early school leaving, poverty, lack of qualifications or skills, low status, lack of self- esteem and powerlessness.
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