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Epic Think Tank
Lifelong e-learning?
 Key
points
- People don't value what they learn in their jobs
- Adults will overcome all sorts of difficulties to learn - if the
incentive for learning is strong enough
- Qualifications are not necessarily the answer
- Policy is grey over the question of whether institutions or the
individual should be the focus of lifelong learning
- Free branded learning content online points a possible way forward
Valuing learning
One of the toughest challenges in lifelong learning, it emerged
from our discussion, is getting people to recognise the value of
learning. People don't always perceive that there is value for them
in learning something new - especially when the process of learning
looks likely to be difficult, challenging or not in line with adult
expectations.
Motivation is crucial to effective learning, and people have to
believe that the effort they might expend and the sacrifices they
might have to make in acquiring new knowledge and skills will be
worthwhile. Where motivation is strong, the effort involved seems
less daunting - or even if it remains daunting, becomes a challenge
worth rising to. Take the example of the driving test.
Very few people in this country don't learn to drive -
and yet becoming a qualified driver is far from easy. Driving on
today's roads is a feat of physical co-ordination that requires
considerable practice to master. Passing one's driving test involves
far more, even, than control of the vehicle. There is considerable
'theory' to memorise and understand, including the meanings of a
battery of different road signs, and rules for the interpretation
of potential accident hazards. A variety of types of learning come
into play, including procedural skills, mental skills, psychomotor
skills and attitudinal learning.
And yet this difficult set of learning objectives is hit by the
majority of a population in which, as we have seen, there exists
a low level of functional literacy. And this is achieved without
the benefit of any state 'push'.
How does this happen? Because the motivation to learn to drive is
strong. Those who can't drive, in a culture where 'everybody' drives,
face social exclusion and, in some parts of the country, a degree
of physical isolation. On the positive side, driving represents
freedom, autonomy and progress for the individual (within certain
social classes, learning to drive at seventeen is tantamount to
a rite of passage). Interestingly, there is little or no public
spending in teaching people how to drive, other than the provision
of accreditation. It is almost wholly provided by the private sector.
So why don't other types of learning, which hold just as much
promise of advancing individual wishes and dreams, have the same
cachet? Is it that - as a culture - we don't make an explicit enough
link between learning and individual success? Or that the link exists,
but that people in general are cynical about what learning might
hold for them?
A symptom of this malaise can be seen in the way people fail to
recognise what they learn in the course of their normal working
lives. They don't value their own learning in jobs, and as they
near the end of their careers, it seldom occurs to them that they
might have something valuable to pass on in the way of knowledge
and experience. An important part of the business of learning, perhaps,
is the realisation of what you've learned.
The NVQ was created with this issue at least partly in mind, and
although that qualification has travelled a rather bumpy road in
terms of public and employer perceptions, might qualifications of
some description not hold the answer to this problem of valuing
knowledge?
Qualifications, diplomas, certificates, accreditations - surely
these are all powerful ways of recognising and valuing learning.
Or are they? Do qualifications really hold the key to making learning
more valued - or do they create more problems than they solve?
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What counts can't be counted and what can be counted doesn't always
count
Most qualifications involve some kind of test of competency, whether
this is formative (continuous assessment) or summative (at the end
of a course of study or practice). In order for a qualification
to have credibility, it helps if the test is fairly rigorous.
The paradox, as far as lifelong learning is concerned, is that
qualifications that are easy to get have little perceived value,
whereas qualifications that are hard to achieve (and therefore more
desirable in the eyes of both employers and the employed) tend to
be considered by many to be to be out of their reach.
This perception is compounded by the stark terror inspired in
many adults by the idea of sitting an exam.
This probably has much to do with bad memories of school. People
who have not had a happy experience in education will tend to assume
that when they passed through the school gates for the last time,
they left behind the necessity ever to take another exam.
And negative feelings about exams are not confined to those who
do badly at them. Many employers are justifiably suspicious of how
good a test of competence they are. A major problem for lifelong
learning, when it comes to 'seamless transition' between education
and work, is this lack of linking of qualifications to competences.
Put simply; academic exams, by and large, do not test competence
(scant incentive exists to endure the pain of studying for an MBA
if what it stands for, in the average employer's book, is 'Master
of Bugger All').
Those who look on exams with a jaundiced eye will believe that
there is a time and place for such things and that the time is adolescence.
These doubt the ability of exams to show anything useful about what
people can actually do and consider them to be chiefly a selection
system; a way of 'separating the sheep from the goats'.
Yet another school of thought holds that there is too much
testing in schools. Although children are tested less here than
than in the US, our level of testing is certainly high by OECD standards
- and we don't necessarily outpace in attainment countries that
test less. Plants don't grow too well if you continually dig them
up to look at their roots, it was pointed out.
The exam system has in some ways been compromised by having to
adjust to social changes. A-level, for instance, remains a strong
'brand', as qualifications go - but is utterly different now from
what it was when it was invented. There has been a move away from
'norm referencing', to the point where it is now socially unacceptable
to measure by a norm.
As Universities move away from measuring by norms and towards
competency testing, the standards of assessment in differing fields
of study diverge. You can set 'output criteria' for a subject like
Maths easily enough, but 'try doing that with English!'. The meaning
of a phrase such as 'degree level' begins to decay.
Is this a good thing; is it a bad thing: who knows? But for lifelong
learning it surely poses a problem - as the key to a 'seamless transition'
between education and work must lie in qualifications that are credible,
portable and transparent - mustn't it?
Well perhaps not. There is another view that sees qualifications
as something of a side issue.
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Lifelong learning: top-down or bottom-up?
As we saw earlier, there is considerable apathy - and even antipathy
- in our our culture to the whole concept of adult education. Clearly
a revolution in attitudes is needed if lifelong learning is to become
a reality. But should that revolution come from above or from below?
Given the fact that education is one of the key issues on which
elections are won and loss nowadays, this question is inherently
political.
James Tooley, the author mentioned in our introduction, recommended
a contraction of education, rather than an enlargement. His grounds
for this were that while significant links have been established
between the level of skills in an economy and productivity, no similar
correlation can be seen between productivity and the number of people
who receive training. Our driving test example - clear goal, motivated
learners, no government push - would seem to support Tooley's view.
Where the need exists, people do it for themselves. Why should government
intervene?
Tooley is perceived as coming from the right of the spectrum in
UK politics, however, and clearly, the present government is coming
from a different place. Even where it is accepted that Government
has a role to play, though, uncertainty exists over the question
of whether the focus of lifelong learning should be institutions
or the individual - top-down or bottom up?
It would be comforting for civil servants tasked with delivering
on government targets if this question had been resolved in policy,
but it hasn't. The qualifications mill is still grinding them out,
with more, rather than less, hitting the streets. It's a skills
deficit we have, not a qualifications deficit.
One view would like to see basic skills training free at the point
of delivery, as with the NHS. This view sees the logical focus for
lifelong learning as being on the individual, with an emphasis on
removing the barriers - psychological as well as financial - to
learning at all levels of society.
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Give it away, give it away, give it away now…
Two interesting examples of giveaway educational content from
high-profile institutions are highly interesting in this regard.
The MIT OpenCourseWare
initiative caused shockwaves through the educational establishment
when it was first announced in 2001. MIT is giving away free, online,
all its course content including lecture notes (videos where available),
reading lists, essay assignments and so on; 'creating a worldwide
web of knowledge,' in the words of its President, Charles M. Vest,
'that will benefit mankind'. It has had over 3 million hits from
the UK alone. Note that this was funded to the tune of $11 million
from a charitable trust, but MIT still threw in a million.
BBC Learning provides
a wealth of free online learning content for children, parents and
lifelong learners - a resource that has been widely adopted by large
numbers of UK school children, who actively use it for help with
their homework. Greg Dyke has announced that this will be a major
aim for the BBC in the coming years.
The objection is often made to such free resources that people
do not value what they don't pay for. The Police have been giving
away free learning on crime prevention for years - with very low
uptake. This has not stopped security consultants running a nice
little business in the corporate sector dispensing what is effectively
the same content for large amounts of money.
What makes the difference is that in both the examples above we
are dealing with extremely well-established and prestigious educational
brands. It costs the average student 40k to go to MIT. A strong
educational brand, such as Oxford or Cambridge, can take many lifetimes
to build. Learners have clear evidence here, beyond a hefty price
tag, that indicates the value of what is being offered.
One view, a view held by Donald Clark, Epic, is that the future
of lifelong learning lies with such initiatives; in free, branded
online content.
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Both ends against the middle
In a mixed economy, however, free provision of branded content
can cause problems (witness the
debacle over the BBC and the Digital Curriculum, with major
educational publishers including the Pearson Group complaining of
the government skewing competition). No government nowadays wants
to look anti-market. So government has to take a mixed approach
- which can sometimes send out confusing signals.
Different initiatives are seen to have different fuel mixtures
of top-down and bottom-up - with the over all effect being to target
from both ends at once. Other initiatives, meanwhile, might find
that their focus switches over time. It has been pointed out that
the University for Industry has in actual practice become more of
a University for Individuals, due more to limited take-up from employers
perhaps than to changes in policy.
Along with the top-line expression of policy through manifesto
commitments such as having 50% of 19 year olds in HE (to some minds
a meaningless aspiration) there is also considerable energy and
resources being expended on raising the level of knowledge and skills
through targeting individuals: revolution from the bottom up. And
it would be a mistake to see this as a purely ideological debate.
A 'bottom-up' approach has pragmatic advantages in helping bypass
the 'silos' in government which often make it difficult to 'do the
right thing'.
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Conclusion
The case for lifelong learning is a strong one - but the reality,
largely for cultural reasons, lags behind the ideal. As Gandhi replied
when asked what he thought of Western civilization; 'It would be
a good idea'.
Having said that, a great deal is being done to remedy the situation;
through institutions, in business and at the level of the individual.
The current push for lifelong learning is a government initiative,
and like any other government initiatives could be stopped dead
by a change of government. This is too big an idea not to become
embroiled in the mill of politics. But if current initiatives were
to be abandoned tomorrow, the fundamental issue they were designed
to address - that of a workforce low in basic skills - would still
be an issue on the day after.
As things stand, there is no doubting the commitment of this particular
government to lifelong learning, or the fact that e-learning and
the internet play a key role in that vision. None of the participants
in this Think Tank seriously called into question whether or not
we should do this. It was simply a debate over ways and means.
In the longer term, however, it may well be forces outside the control
of government - supra-national changes in society, such as those
brought about by widening access to the internet - that ultimately
play the decisive role in shaping future attitudes to lifelong learning.
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