Counting the Cost : NIACE Survey on Adult Participation in Learning

The major finding in the 2008 NIACE survey of adult participation in learning in the UK is that participation by groups targeted in the government's learning and skills strategy has actually fallen.

Not only has there been a statistically significant drop in overall participation, but several key groups have been affected disproportionately: skilled manual workers, a group whose participation gains of the last ten years have been entirely reversed; fulltime and part-time workers; and, 25-34-year-olds.

Further, no increase in participation at all has been secured over the last ten years for those in socio-economic groups DE, the semi-skilled and unskilled workers, unemployed and retired people.

The findings pose sharp challenges for government. Despite the real gains of the Skills for Life and Train to Gain Strategies, the very groups identified as key to the achievement of the Skills Strategy and in the Leitch Review are bearing the heaviest burden of the re-balancing of funding.

It seems that the price of investment in workplace learning for key groups of adults is being paid by reduced participation by other adults from exactly the same groups.