Shifting institutions

A few weeks ago I had an absorbing discussion with a friend who works at a college, about the systematic reduction of funding, and other obstacles introduced by government, to minimise the contribution of further education institutions to community education. My friend's college, with a distinguished tradition of socially-committed work at local level with people on low-incomes, is being forced to abandon it.

It's hardly contentious to record that the present government has presided over a shameful starvation of learning opportunities for people who lack chances, in spite of the originally earnest tone of social inclusion educational policies ten years ago.

Since that conversation, it happens I've started doing some work under the current lottery-funded programme for community libraries, and been surprised at how many of the bids I've seen include the provision of spaces and activities for various forms of stuctured and semi-structured learning. One legitimate response to many of these might be, how come the education sector is not already doing this?

And then I spotted a note in Monday's Guardian in which it is claimed that:

Schools are having to give moral guidance to pupils which should be given by their parents at home... For some children, schools have had to take the place of the institutions that used to set the boundaries of acceptable behaviour.

This is from a report of a speech by the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, who says that:

For many children, school and its values, its clear boundaries and moral framework, are the only solid bedrock in their lives.'

Well, something's going on here - schools claiming they have to carry out a parental role, libraries expected to do the work of schools and colleges, colleges obstructed from providing community education... The roles of institutions are shifting, and I suspect that most of those within the institutions think they occupy terra firma.

Comments

[Bob Deed]

These have been strange years for Further Education Colleges. There has been real funding growth (so far!) in contrast to the 1990s when Colleges had to make year-on-year "efficiencies" - and many were particularly harshly affected by "convergence" to a standardised level of funding. What we have seen in recent years has been the prioritisation of both 16-18 education (to boost HE participation rates) and "employability". Learning for learning's sake or for citizenship has taken a back seat.

[Kevin Harris]

Thanks for your comment Bob. "Learning for learning's sake or for citizenship has taken a back seat" - that's a relief, there was me thinking it had been dumped on the driveway.

It seems to me that getting libraries to provide some aspects of the accumulating learning needs of our society is not in itself a bad thing, nor necessarily new of course, but maybe it's symptomatic of various things eg distrust of the professional, responsibilisation through something called 'community', reduced significance accorded to formal processes and institutions, possibly even an implied redundancy of libraries in the provision of leisure?... Trends we may want to keep an eye on.

[Bob Deed]

OK - maybe "dumped on the driveway" may be more accurate! It is a pity as there was an initial recognition by the government of the value that any learning had in fostering a taste for new skills and experince.