Members' Policy Forum
The Policy Forum took place on 17th November and we envisage
that it will become a regular meeting where
Members can discuss and inform relevant and topical issues arising
from national policy development.
The Forum is a key part of our strategy to develop the
#BestEd Campaign to promote and debate adult
education.
The latest Forum covered our forthcoming meeting with
Angela Constance MSP, the Minister for Children
and Young People (who also has responsibility for community based
adult learning). To inform the discussion we considered the current
policy context, including the Government's reform
of post-16 education.
Taking into account the discussion and feedback from Members at
the Policy Forum, we have set out an agenda for the ministerial
meeting around these broad themes:
- A Shared Vision for Adult Education
- Our Sector's Contribution - Strategic Overview and
Evidence
- Key Opportunities and Challenges
- The Way Ahead
The Forum agreed the delegates for the meeting with the
Minister. These are: WEA Scotland, Glasgow YWCA, Skillnet and
Lead Scotland, who will join Learning Link Scotland.
Next Steps: developing evidence
At the Policy Forum it was agreed we
would set up an open resource base for the sector.
The evidence and support for the meeting will provide the initial
input for this pool of resources, which
can be found here.
We want to attend the meeting with a broad base of evidence from
Members across Scotland and would ask for your assistance in this.
Some of the areas we are looking for evidence are:
- Case studies - showing impacts
- Models of practice / collaborations
- Evidence of equalities, inclusion, fairness etc
- Evidence of need for focus on adults - unemployment figures
etc
- How we can fill potential gaps from college
regionalisation
- Research evidence of the impacts of adult education
- Stories of success / disadvantage resulting from collaborative
and integrated approaches
Obviously, we don't want to burden organisations with additional
work. We are looking to collect and collate existing documents and
resources into an asset that can be used freely in future
consultations or interactions with government. We have also begun
populating the page with existing briefings and case studies from
our own recent work.
If you can contribute evidence please email dbass@learninglinkscotland.org.uk
as soon as possible. If you want to chat to David about the
evidence please feel free to give us a call or send a question by
email.
Some of the examples we discussed among the organisations
present were:
- Skillnet case study on collaborative work with Jewel and Esk
College
- Glasgow YWCA ESOL provision case study and political
integration programme
- WEA Scotland examples of West Lothian post-25 learners
Key points and questions for
further discussion:
Many organisations weren't able to make it to the Policy Forum
but were keen to register their interest. We're hoping to engage a
wider audience in our next Policy Forum. This will
take place early in the new year and one potential topic could be
the forthcoming CLD review.. We have set out some of the general
talking points from the day and ongoing "big picture" questions the
sector faces. Some of these feed back into the evidence we want to
present to ministers and the government. Our
LinkedIn group is able to facilitate discussion on the
following topics:
- Our diversity and fragmentation is a challenge when we
communicate with the civil sector, but it is also one of our
strengths - we are flexible.
- The people we help aren't "banging on the door", we go out and
find them and are able to connect with the hardest to reach
demographics.
- How can Learning Link Scotland make it easier to connect the
government with the sector?
- Post-16 Education reform, regionalisation and potential gaps
(geographic, age)
- Do we want a national adult educational service for all -
across Scotland?
- How does adult education connect to early year's prevention?
What does a more holistic preventative agenda look like?
- Partnership and "joined-up" working is one of the voluntary
sectors strength - what examples do we have of this?
- To what extent is learning in our sector accredited? What are
some examples of this?
Delegates who attended the 17th November
Policy Forum:
|
Worker's Educational Association (WEA)
|
Joyce Connon
Shirley Howitt
|
|
Lead Scotland
|
Lesley Carcary
|
|
ACOSVO
|
Linda Boyes
|
|
Glasgow YWCA
|
Carol Cunningham
|
|
Skillnet Edinburgh
|
Eddy McGregor
|
|
Pilton Equalities Project
Rosemount Lifelong Learning
|
Theodora Hidalgo
Sam Ross
|