Section 1 - Substantive Policy Lessons
1.1 Improving Access to Learning: Widening Participation
One common element running through the analysis of issues on which many of these programmes and projects is based, is the low level of attainment and skills, associated with low rates of participation. Identifying and overcoming barriers to participation is thus a key theme of many, if not all, of the schemes reviewed here.
There are perhaps three distinct sets of approaches adopted by the SRB schemes in this sample.
i) Providing 'hooks' into learning, both to attract those not participating, and to retain those in danger of dropping out. Examples include:
- attracting parents (and other carers) back into learning through their children - family literacy schemes, ostensibly designed to improve children's reading, also help develop reading skills among parents, grandparents and other family members;
- giving incentives to undertake vocational training through the direct offer of employment opportunities that customised training provides; and
- building the self-esteem and confidence of disaffected school students through the provision of activities outside the range of formal education.
ii) Designing and funding project activities to overcome specific obstacles to participation in learning. Examples include:
- perhaps most obviously, providing childcare support to enable parents (and especially lone parents) to take up learning opportunities;
- supporting language training for minority ethnic groups as a first step towards equipping them for participation in wider training and education; and
- overcoming lack of knowledge about provision, and the lack of confidence to pursue inquiries, by providing financial support for outreach workers to liaise with particularly excluded communities.
Examples of these two categories are dealt with elsewhere in this Section.
iii) Projects to improve the accessibility of learning opportunities. Within the sample there are examples of two kinds of response:
- establishing (or extending) physical centres within which accessible learning activities take place; and
- promoting wider access to learning through electronic means.
Those schemes that have improved the accessibility of provision include:
- Sowerby Bridge Forum's Carlton Mill: The original local adult education facility was run down and the closest provision was therefore some miles away in Halifax. The solution was to bring back into use part of a disused mill as an adult and community education facility.
- Barnsley Highway to Success Priory Campus: Opened in 1995 as a flagship under City Challenge, Priory Campus provides a wide range of resources for a broad spectrum of users, including adults and local schools.
- Medway Ruler's Bridge Warden College: The scheme places learning, and particularly higher education, at the heart of business and economic development. A combination of need and opportunity in the Medway towns led to the decision to establish a college as part of the University of Kent (which previously had a limited presence in the west of the county).
- Digital Learning Community: The fourth 'access' project (though it is much more besides) is the Digital Learning Community, an extraordinarily ambitious proposal that seeks to 'harness the digital revolution for South West London'. The scheme aims to promote better understanding of ICT, and to make the technologies accessible to, all sections of the community.
While it is too early to evaluate some of the projects reviewed in this study, there are already in all the cases, some impressive achievements in terms of outputs or 'interim objectives'. It is therefore possible to draw some key lessons from the design of these 'widening participation' projects.
Key Lessons
- Within disadvantaged communities, motivation to participate in learning is low. This is partly because the lack of job prospects diminishes the perceived return. However, it is possible to build in direct incentives to participate, provided the learning is clearly linked to tangible outcomes (for example, parents' reading abilities and their children's literacy).
- The learning 'system' is fragmented and confusing, particularly for those whose confidence in their own abilities is low. Pro-active techniques, including intensive outreach work, are needed to engage those most removed from learning.
- The importance of locally available provision, particularly for basic skills, cannot be exaggerated.
- Perhaps the single most important lesson of all these projects concerns the capacity of educational institutions to extend their use throughout the community.
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