IPPR says participation push excludes the old

The government's widening participation initiative discriminates against old people, according to a report published this week by the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Tom Schuller, dean of the continuing education faculty at Birkbeck, University of London, said the government was retreating from the commitment to lifelong learning made in a 1998 green paper. In Delivering Age Equality in Education , he called for everyone over 55 without a degree to be offered a one-off grant.