Turning apathy into appetite

Tony Tysome reports on how educators are being encouraged to motivate adults to start learning again.

Ask anyone in the street if they think learning is a good idea, and they will almost certainly say yes. Ask them if they think learning is for them, and national surveys have found up to a third will then say no.

Tackling low levels of motivation to learn among the general population has been put at the top of the agenda by the new Learning and Skills Council, which takes over responsibility for post-16 education and training from April.

But according to Niace, the national organisation for adult learning, it is adults who present the biggest challenges for widening participation and turning disillusionment with or apathy for education into a thirst for learning.

At least half the battle is raising awareness among adults of what universities and colleges have to offer, by way of relevant, accessible and imaginative learning programmes that can lead to higher-level courses. Another trick is to publicly "celebrate" the achievements of learners and to broadcast the success stories of inventive learning initiatives.

It is with these aims in mind that Niace presents its annual New Learning Opportunities Awards as part of Adult Learners Week, which this year runs from May 12 to 18. Any institution or department that has developed an innovative project to encourage adults to learn can apply for an award, presented in ten categories and including a £500 voucher for learning resources. Niace director Alan Tuckett said the awards are about getting people to know what you are doing and how it can help them.

"For adults, the impression of what education and training is like is as important as the substance. Motivation should be part of the curriculum. You have to capture people's sense that learning is a good thing to do," he adds.

One of last year's winners, Anglia Polytechnic University's centre for accreditation and negotiated awards, showed how giving adults a sense of ownership over learning helped to inject that motivation. Students had the chance to help create the content of their learning programmes. When conventional courses did not meet their requirements, they were allowed to negotiate the content themselves.

The year before, Leeds University's school of continuing education won an award for its work with the local Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities, creating courses in religion and languages that were accessible and that created pathways into higher education.

Lindsey Fraser, coordinator of the Leeds project, says that giving adult education initiatives a high profile is "crucial" for their survival, because for most institutions "outreach into the community is still very marginal, particularly within the current climate where the focus of widening participation is towards standard entry age working-class kids".

Alan Tuckett agrees there is still much work to be done to encourage institutions to be more inventive. This is one of the reasons for continuing the New Learning Opportunities Awards. But he is optimistic:

"The culture of the 1990s made almost all educational institutions obsessed with audit and economic survival. We want them to recover a vision of enthusiasm and imaginative learning that allows us to celebrate people's achievements."

The New Learning Opportunities Awards entry form is available for downloading at the Niace website: http:///www.niace.org.uk/alw

The closing date for receipt of entry forms is February 16.