The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) is the UK national coordinator for the European Agenda for Adult Learning, with the challenge of creating a coherent message across the four countries to inform European cooperation on adult learning. To start the debate, the journal staff asked Sue Waddington, Alan Tuckett, and Fiona…

Good ideas have many parents, bad ones are often orphans. And since it is now 20 years since the first Adult Learners' Week in England, and the idea has been adopted and adapted to local circumstances in 55 countries, there must be something going for it. As the twenty-first Adult Learners' Week gets underway, the author reflects on the origins of…

Opportunities for adult learning are under pressure in far too many places in the world. This situation was made all too clear at the eighth World Assembly of the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE) in Malmo, Sweden this June. More than 700 adult educators from almost a hundred countries, all members of non-government associations,…

The key message of NIACE's 2011 survey of adult participation in learning is that recession is bad for lifelong learning for anyone over the age of 25. The survey highlights the central importance of workplaces as sites of adult learning--and the challenges posed to a learning society when opportunities to learn reduce. It shows that the gap…

Adult learning is not a tidy business: adults fit learning into the spaces left by the other demands on complex lives, and into the spaces left in administrative structures overwhelmingly designed for other people. No simple metric can capture adults' diverse purposes and achievements, and no single programme can capture the full range of things…

Was CONFINTEA VI, the sixth UNESCO international conference on adult education, which took place in Belem, Brazil, in December, a success or failure? Do such inter-governmental events make any difference to learning opportunities for adults, North or South? The answer to the first question depends on what one compares the event with. From the…

NIACE's 2010 representative sample survey of adult participation in learning in the UK shows something of a sea change in adults' engagement in learning. After years in which the numbers reporting participation in learning fell overall, and the gulf between the learning rich and the learning poor widened dramatically, there has been a major…

There is widespread agreement that participation in learning makes a difference to the economic and social wellbeing of individuals, families, communities and nations. Participation in learning through the life span matters. Yet, despite its clear benefits, active participation in learning remains a minority activity among adults in the United…

This article reports the 2008 National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) survey of adult participation in learning in the UK. Its major finding, that participation has fallen among key target groups for the Government's learning and skills strategy, calls into question the balance of current policy instruments. Inevitably, since…

This article presents 2007 report on the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) survey on adult participation in learning. With overall participation among the poorest groups stuck at less than half that experienced by the upper and middle classes, the survey suggests the need to ask if the balance of public investment in adult…

Looking back fifty years is a salutary experience. There is a sense that everything changes, and everything stays the same. Whilst people now have a global non-government organisation to support national bodies in the field of adult learning, most of the national members have a fragile financial base, and the International Council for Adult…

A 2003 survey shows that adult participation in learning, which steadily increased in Britain since 1996, declined to 39% from a peak of 46% in 2001, although future intentions to participate remain high. Results indicate that 87% of adults over 65 and 75% in the lowest socioeconomic levels have not participated in the last 3 years. (SK)

Reports on two British surveys: (1) one of 5,054 adults found that more than 1 in 5 currently participate in education, and 87% of those who do not are unlikely to; and (2) one of 3,967 adults found that nearly 6 in 10 speak no second languages, but 49% of those whose first language is not English speak at least two other languages. (SK)

Includes "Something to Cheer About" (Tuckett); "From British Institute to National Institute, 1921-71" (Hutchinson); "Pre-history of the Arts Council" (Williams); "Adult Education in the Forces" (Adam); "Crisis in Adult Education" (Stock); "The REPLAN Experience" (Uden); and "Personal Reflections on Adult Education' and the Challenges of Today and…

A survey of 5,184 adults in the United Kingdom delineated differences in participation in learning and intent to continue education by region, age, and social class. Choice of subjects and information sources were also identified. Results suggest two nations: one convinced of the value of learning and others choosing not to join the learning…