The report, which considers how the UK workforce must adapt in order to meet the challenges of the current recession, recommends that the government make re-skilling a priority rather than up-skilling, as redundancies force people into other sectors.
“We agree wholeheartedly with the Select Committee that the government must make radical changes to its skill policy, to make the system more responsive to individual needs. A greater commitment to lifelong learning is required if the workforce is to be flexible enough to weather the storm of this recession,” says NUS President Wes Streeting.
CALL to action
“This is why NUS has joined with partners across the education sector and civil society to form the Campaigning Alliance for Lifelong Learning (CALL) to expose the damage that adult education cuts have wrought across the country. This was starkly illustrated by the effects of cuts to the equivalent or lower qualifications (ELQs) leaving many people unable to retrain because they can no longer afford to do so,” he added.
“Last year an under spend of more than £200 million on Train to Gain was redirected to plug gaps in the higher education budget. This year, the government should instead reinvest any under spend to empower individuals to take control of their own education and training, gaining the skills they need now more than ever.”
CALL will be putting pressure on the government to defend and promote lifelong learning in the forthcoming Children, Schools and Learners Bill at a lobby of Parliament on 25 February 2009. More than 1.4 million places have been lost in the last two years in English adult education due to cuts and fee rises.
Read the Select Committee's report in full here