In the current climate, the launch of the new National Careers Service in England is a cheering ray of light in a gloomy world. Despite fierce constraints on public spending, the government has secured the resources, and political will, and the Skills Funding Agency is now funding a service, which provides online and phone guidance to adults and…

The author would like to think that, in twenty-first century Britain, the case for adult learning was firmly established and no-one was in any doubt of its value. Having spent nearly 20 years before he became an MP working as a part-time lecturer and tutor with the Open University, and seeing the transformation that it could bring to his students,…

Not so long ago, alongside the splendid edifice of full-time university education, there was a thriving array of university degree-level programmes, offered part-time in local settings, which was world-leading in its availability and in its ambitions. One could access it as part of a career-change need, a professional accreditation or for the…

The Open University, or the OU as it is more familiarly known, has reached middle age. The OU has a lot to celebrate. It has become UK's largest university, pioneered supported open learning, and provided access to a high-quality provision from which more than two million learners have benefitted. Internationally, it has many sister institutions…

The term "open university" was coined by that visionary "seedsman" of reformist ideas Michael Young in an article for a 1962 number of "Where?" magazine. He proposed an "open university" to prepare people for external degrees at London University, with three key functions: (1) to organise new and better…

An oddity of the past decade is that millions of adults have actually lost rather than gained the opportunity to engage in lifelong learning. The destruction of what Jack Straw in 1991 called "one of the finest adult education services in the world" has not been a conscious aim of New Labour. However, it has occurred as a direct result…

In April 2008, one sees the start of the consultation on the second phase of the government's e-strategy for education, published in 2005 as "Harnessing technology: transforming learning and children's services." This follows hard on the heels of the progress report and implementation plan for the technology strategy for further…

Lifelong learning, upskilling, going back to university to retrain and meet the needs of the economy are all things that people need to be doing to succeed in the competitive global world. However, new Government funding plans may mean that anyone considering going back to university for a second degree will face costs up to four times as much as…

The author worked at the sharp end of the steel industry for 25 years having left school with a few O-levels at 16, feeling he had not done well. As an adult learner he re-discovered his academic ability and returned to learning with the Open University in 1977, emerging in 1982 with a 2:1 in Social Sciences. Leaving the steel industry, he took a…