The New Skills Agenda: Increased Lifelong Learning or New Sites of Inequality?

Autor/inn/en	Appleby, Yvon; Bathmaker, Ann Marie
Titel	The New Skills Agenda: Increased Lifelong Learning or New Sites of Inequality?
Quelle	In: British Educational Research Journal, 32 (2006) 5, S.703-717 (15 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0141-1926
Schlagwörter	Lifelong Learning; Adult Education; Basic Skills; English (Second Language); Adults; Adult Literacy; Foreign Countries; Educational Policy; Equal Education; Educational Change; Global Approach; Females; United Kingdom (England) + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Life-long learning; Lebenslanges Lernen; Adult; Adults; Education; Adult basic education; Adult training; Erwachsenenbildung; Basic skill; Grundfertigkeit; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Ausland; Politics of education; Bildungspolitik; Bildungsreform; Globales Denken; Weibliches Geschlecht
Abstract	The last five years have seen a radical transformation in adult education in England with a concentrated emphasis on national basic skills provision. This was prompted initially by a government response to low levels of literacy in the British adult population, identified by an influential international survey, showing unfavourable comparisons with other European countries. The response to the disclosure that seven million adults in England were not functionally literate saw the creation in 2001 of a national basic skills strategy in England entitled "Skills for Life". It is a far-reaching strategy creating a new infrastructure to support adult basic skills learning opportunities over a seven-year period. It also created the entitlement to free basic skills learning opportunities, as a cornerstone to creating national economic competitiveness and social cohesion. Such an entitlement could be interpreted as a commitment to providing wider access to foundation skills for adults who had previously missed out, as part of a lifelong learning agenda. However, a critical reading of the policy texts, and recent funding priorities, show the strategy rooted more in a response to what is perceived as the skills demands of a knowledge economy for global competitiveness than to issues of social inclusion and increased opportunities for lifelong learning. The result of this may well be the creation of new sites of inequality that affect older women and adult ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) learners disproportionately, the very people that are identified as being needed to fill skill gaps in the economy. (Contains 1 table and 3 notes.) (Author).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10