7.7 We have already had cause to remark that the data we have about lifelong learning are inadequate and insufficiently robust to facilitate the development of a proper strategic framework. They are not yet good enough to enable progress to be measured against a host of national, local and institutional targets. Some kinds of learning and some forms of achievement are simply not recorded at all. Some targets wait to be set, including those to secure widening and deepening participation in lifelong learning.
7.8 Richer, more sophisticated measures of learning activity are urgently needed, especially locally, based upon new criteria and methods of data collection and reflecting the diversity of forms and locales of lifelong learning. This will require many different partners to work together to identify and map their various contributions to learning and agree the best ways of capturing them in audits of provision, so as to produce a fuller picture and better data on learning. In turn, this would enable strategic planners and funders of provision to 'tweak' their various initiatives and methodologies to stimulate or reward success in widening participation, changing cultures and contributing to the creation of a truly learning society, in novel and valuable ways.
7.9 Researchers and statisticians from universities and colleges can lend their support to the development of more sensitive and appropriate national indicators of involvement in lifelong learning. Such indicators should embrace more than age-participation rates alone, especially those which are concerned principally with the situation of young adults, important though these are. We need to know much more about learning activities and opportunities throughout life, in all sorts of settings, particularly in respect of those currently under-represented in lifelong learning.
7.10 Wider publicity should also be given to examples of good practice in opening up participation that are susceptible to more general application. We need more research and better consolidation and dissemination of research findings. Here is another arena in which university-based and other researchers, working increasingly in partnership, can make a further valuable contribution to building a culture of lifelong learning for all. As we have already suggested, all public bodies and providers with responsibility for data collection should consult on ways to promote more effective methods of data collection, research and dissemination of results in respect of lifelong learning.
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