Funding adult learning
Changes in our economy, society and population make it more important than ever to build a lifelong learning society. Achieving this will require a wider and deeper culture of learning, better communication of its lifetime benefits, and empowering people. Once a lack of skills locked people out of career progression, increasingly it will lock people out of the jobs market altogether.
Learning and Work calls for everyone to have access to a Personal Learning Account, giving them a funded entitlement to spend on any approved learning, a record of their achievement, and access to advice and guidance to help them make informed choices.
Personal Learning Accounts
Learning and Work Institute recommends that the Government commit to increasing participation in learning and cutting disparities in participation between groups. This should be reported on annually and placed on an equal footing with other goals, such as increasing employment. To help deliver this step change in learning, everyone should be entitled to a Personal Learning Account.
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Personal learning account trial underway
In Wales a pilot programme, first committed to in the Employability Plan in 2018, has been launched.
We have considered the all round impact of adult learning across the UK and the wider benefits it brings to people and the communities they live in.
Learning, work and health
The NHS was always intended as part of a coordinated package of measures linked to inequalities in housing, welfare, work, and learning. However, policies for health, learning, and the workplace have been largely uncoordinated. Learning and Work Institute thinks that increased access to learning and employment opportunities can help to reduce demand for health services as well as improve outcomes for individuals, the economy and society.
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