ëCulture changeí needed to make learning a natural part of life

After a football match in London just before Christmas, Sunderland FC plc Chairman and LSC Chairman Bryan Sanderson was sitting on the tube listening to some fans talking about the latest result. Would Sunderland be moving up the table? What direction were the other teams moving in the league following their results that day? Where would Sunderland be in the league in the New Year if their resultsí forecasts of were correct?

Explains Bryan : " Sunderland was doing quite well at the time and I sat and listened as a group of fans worked out every possible permutation of results and what that meant for league positions. "It seemed to me like the sort of discussion that would take place in a maths or statistics lesson at a school or college. Thereís no doubt, though, that if you had told the fans that they would have stopped talking immediately."

Embarrassment at having knowledge and learning? Donít want to discuss ëserious subjectsí with friends on a Saturday afternoon? Whatever the reason, we all know what Bryan means when he relates the story.

And thatís the real challenge for the LSC, Ufi/learndirect, further education colleges and lots of other organisations in the adult learning sector: how can that cultural barrier to learning be broken down?

As Bryan says: "Itís not easy. As a country we seem to have lost that drive for education that we used to have. We need to get that back and make learning interesting and fun again."

Learning through IT is the future

Already, though, there are programmes in place creating a demand for learning and bringing people back into learning, sometimes after quite a long time away.

"Information technology can be an enormous help here," says Bryan . "Learning centres and access points are going into environments where it was never possible to put learning before and that has to be the way forward.

"Kids are often better at IT than their parents and this can allow different relationships in families. Mothers and sons can work together at a computer as can other members of the family and we need to capitalise on those opportunities."Of course IT is just one way of creating new demand for learning. The LSC has also been closely involved in offering up to 175,000 modern apprenticeship programmes and creating the very successful and innovative ëBite Sizeí campaign last year.

The first year of operation

Other successes in the LSCís first year include setting up a national office in Coventry , establishing 4,700 staff in 53 offices across England , and mounting the first ever national survey of learner satisfaction.

"Our transition has gone according to plan," says Bryan . "We set targets for what we wanted to achieve in the first year and we are just about there. In the last few months the pace of growth has really started to accelerate.

"People are getting much more confident and the atmosphere has changed. Thereís a real feeling about the place that now is the time to get really stuck in to the job in hand.

"We have received the strategic plans from the local LSCs and we have worked hard to consult with our partners about them. They are really impressive and have been approved by the national council. "So now we are getting into the nitty gritty. We have the context to deliver and the task is to work towards our long-term vision - that, by 2010, young people and adults in England will have knowledge and skills matching the best in the world."

Key tasks to 2004

To get to that goal requires lots of hard work from the LSC and all its partners in the next few years. The LSC has released its Strategic Framework to 2004 and that outlines some key targets to reach in the next two years. These include:

• Having 80% of 16-18 year olds in structured learning (2000: 75%)
• Developing a measure of employer engagement in workforce development
• Raising the literacy and numeracy skills of 750,000 adults

Explains Bryan : "We need to move from the local strategic plans to our operational plans. The absolute key to reaching our targets is finding the right solutions for areas.

"Different parts of the country vary enormously and we need different solutions to tackle different problems. In the next two years I expect the local LSCs to work closely with their local communities to ensure we develop programmes that they can agree to so we can work together to achieve our aims."At the national level we also need to work closely with organisations like Ufi/learndirect. We share the same agenda and learndirect will be one of our main delivery mechanisms. It is essential to work together to meet our goals."

A learning culture for the future

Agencies working together to meet a common goal to radically alter the perceptions of people in England to learning - that is Bryan ís ultimate goal. He says: "There is an incredible amount of snobbery around learning. In England there always seems to be a great divide between the academic and vocational sectors. "Itís absolutely ludicrous. I hope we are driving towards a situation where vocational courses have the same weight as academic ones.

"We also need to create a massive culture change so that learning becomes as much a part of someoneís life as their finances or their health. "We all of us ought to have driven a long way down the road to making these changes happen or we will not have succeeded!" A train full of Sunderland fans proud to be talking about the latest training course they are taking: wishful thinking? Not if Bryan Sanderson has anything to do with it.