‘Learning the lessons’ looks at the history of learning and skills policy, going back to the late 19th century. It is the third report produced as part of our Ambition Skills programme of work, supported by City & Guilds and NOCN, which considers the economic and social case for a higher ambition for learning and skills, and how we can achieve it.

This report provides a brief history of adult skills and education, looking at trends in investment and participation in adult learning, and common themes of policy over the decades. There has been no shortage of focus on these topics or concern that the UK should do better; all the way back to the 1882 Samuelson Royal Commission on technical education.

Yet learning and skills have been held back by too narrow a focus on learning for work and the publicly funded budget, along with increasing centralisation, constant chop and change, and lack of proper success measures. This has left the UK is middle of the pack internationally on essential and intermediate skills, holding back growth and opportunity.

Too often, learning and skills policy has been a merry go round, with short-lived repeats of previous approaches that don’t stand the test of time. Austerity means the proportion of adults in further or adult education is at its lowest since the Second World War. All of this needs to change.