Learning to cope with an ageing society
Adult education has much to contribute to policy debate on the ageing of society. But making the most of adult learning’s potential contribution requires both joined-up government and real engagement at a local level, writes STEPHEN McNAIR
T
he ageing of society is one of the biggest policy challenges of our time. Growing life expectancy and low birth rates mean that, for the fist time in
human history, most people, and certainly the more prosperous social groups, will be spending a third of their lives in ‘retirement’. This has profound social, cultural and economic implications, which the Govern- ment has been trying to grapple with for a decade.
The latest development is the publication of two papers, a Green Paper on care policy and a White Paper on ageing more broadly. Not surprisingly, the bulk of media attention focused on the former, Shaping the Future of Care Together, which proposes the creation of a new National Care Service, described by Phil Hope, the minister responsible, as ‘the greatest social reform since the creation of the NHS’. The growth of the very old population matters for adult education. As a recent NIACE publication, Enhancing informal adult learning for older people in care settings, argues, the quality of life for many old people in residential care is seriously impoverished. Sometimes very high-quality physical care is combined with an unstimulating environment, which leaves some people to die of boredom. Pilot projects have demonstrated that the quality of life can be raised dramatically, and the costs of medication and physical care reduced, by small investments in education, but we lack a strategy to roll out such approaches nationally, and though we may win the intellectual argument about the cost-benefit equation, it is much more difficult to extract the savings from health and care budgets to plough back into education. There are also benefits from education for those not in residential care. A cookery class for a husband who has lost the wife who cooked all their married life is a tiny investment to keep him independent in his own home. Getting this role for education recognised as care policy evolves is one challenge facing us. For adult educators, the White Paper,
Building a Society for All Ages, is perhaps even more important. It proposes major improvements in information and advice for older people, with improved access to sports facilities, and links to the informal learning work launched by the Learning Revolution White Paper. It makes proposals for improved support for older people in families, and brings forward the planned review of the default retirement age legislation, which still allows employers to force people to retire at 65. It proposes new initiatives on health policy, prioritising preventative work to help people avoid serious medical conditions and dependency. It also creates the new UK Advisory Forum on Age (on which NIACE is represented), jointly chaired by two ministers, as a voice for older people and those who work with them, and stresses repeatedly the need to join up government services for the benefit of older people.
Unique role NIACE’s response welcomed the continuing attention to age across government, but was critical on a number of fronts. We argued that the paper is thin on the role of education, which it treats as a marginal issue, for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, through its informal learning strategy. It fails to recognise the unique role among public services of adult education in providing a means for people to rediscover meaning and purpose in life, and to build new social networks after the loss of work, partners and friends.
The paper is also weak on leadership and monitoring: understandably anxious to avoid giving local authorities more burdens, it hopes that a ‘national agreement’ between the various parties will deliver improved services. However, we doubt that this will influence the one authority in three identified last year by the Audit Commission as failing to carry out its strategic responsibilities for older people. We believe that, while many agencies have a part to play,
the responsibility for ensuring that a coherent strategy exists, and is implemented, at local level must be located clearly with a single, publicly accountable agency. We also argued that the White Paper pays too little attention to the contribution of people in what the Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning called the ‘third quarter’ of life, from 50 to 75, when most people are relatively fit and potentially active, but often denied the opportunity to make full use of their skills for the general benefit. We reiterated our view that we need to develop a ‘curriculum framework’ for older people, defining what a proper education service to meet the needs of people in this phase of life might look like, and how it might be developed and delivered (given that key elements like health and financial education are outside the scope of public education services). Finally, we argued for a proper assessment of the cost benefit of investment in adult education in later life. We know that education can improve quality of life, and physical and mental health. We know that it can enable people to remain independent longer, and that it can delay (though not prevent) the onset of dementia, with its large associated costs. If the Government wants to genuinely ‘join up’ policy, these factors would be taken into account, and the trifling sums needed to reverse some of the last few years’ losses in education provision for older people would be found.
NIACE will continue to lobby nationally
for a broad and accessible range of education for older learners, to include, but go beyond, the important initiatives which the Learning Revolution has pump-primed. But the arguments also need to be pursued at local level. We need to win the arguments with local authorities that good adult education has an important part to play in strategies for ageing, wellbeing and social cohesion, as well as simply contributing to the quality of life for their citizens.
Stephen McNair is Associate Director, NIACE NOVEMBER 2009 ADULTS LEARNING 19
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