While her background leading a variety of public, private and voluntary sector organisations was not an obvious preparation for her new role as General Secretary of the Workers' Educational Association, the WEA is, nevertheless, in Ruth Spellman's blood. Her grandfather, who left school at 12, became fully numerate and literate through WEA courses…

Adult Learners' Week is based on a simple idea--that extolling the achievements of adult learners and promoting the benefits of learning will encourage others to take the plunge. Each year, through thousands of events and award ceremonies, and in media coverage that would cost millions of pounds if purchased as advertising, Adult Learners' Week…

The eviction of the Occupy London protesters from their tents outside St. Paul's Cathedral marks the end of one of the most interesting experiments in popular education in recent times. For the past few months a string of leading writers, activists, journalists and academics have held workshops, led discussions and given lectures beneath the…

Few artists are as closely associated with a single educational institution as Maggi Hambling--still fewer with an institution that specialises in the education of adults. Her relationship with Morley College began more than 40 years ago, but soon blossomed into enduring mutual affection. She was a substitute for a substitute on a Monday afternoon…

Open Stages is Britain's biggest amateur theatre project, a hugely ambitious scheme to bring the professional and amateur theatre worlds together. It is a learning project but, as the Royal Shakespeare Company's Ian Wainwright tells this author, it is not only the amateurs who are learning. Wainwright states that the amateur and professional…

Melaneia Warwick has never found it difficult to empathise with her adult students. She knows first-hand how untidy and unpredictable an adult's learning journey can be. She also knows how difficult it can be to take the first step, and how rewarding the experience can be if the teacher manages to create an atmosphere that is both supportive and…

Les Ebdon, the new Director of the Office for Fair Access, faced a campaign of vilification from the press. Ebdon, a prize-winning chemist who was, until recently, Vice Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire and Chair of the new universities group Million+, was called, among other things, a "social engineer," a "friend of the…

Derek Legge, who celebrated his 95th birthday at the end of last month, is one of the most dedicated and influential of the largely unsung heroes of the adult education movement in Britain. As modesty is one of the many qualities with which his friends and colleagues credit him, he is certain to shrink from the description, but there is little…

These are uncertain times for English further education. With the sector facing a 25 per cent cut in public funding over four years, the challenges are immense, but there are opportunities too, as institutions prepare for the introduction of tuition fee loans for study above Level 3 for students aged 24 and over, and ministers stress their…

A new Labour government was elected in May 1997 and wasted no time in signalling its enthusiasm for the education of adults. Secretary of State for Education and Employment David Blunkett gave his first speech in office at the launch of Adult Learners' Week 1997 and announced the creation of a National Advisory Group for Continuing Education and…

In this article Pat Bacon, President of the Association of Colleges, discusses the estimated 200 million British Pounds cut to colleges' adult course budgets. With no flexibility to transfer money from one budget to another, colleges are having to face up to course closures and the threat of redundancies. Bacon contends that it's time ministers…

On January 19, 1921, Albert Mansbridge, founder of the Workers' Educational Association and a member of the Ministry of Reconstruction's Adult Education Committee, chaired a meeting at 20 Tavistock Square, London, to consider the formation of a British Institute of Adult Education. The Institute was to be a branch of the grandly--and somewhat…

A new project called Bookbite, which was launched in February 2010 by the national reading charity Booktrust, aims to encourage people over 60 to engage more with reading and writing for pleasure, and provides a range of web and paper-based resources to get them started. In this article, the author accounts his visit to the project and how he met…

When Toni Pearce ran for National Union of Students (NUS) Vice-President for Further Education she put adults at the heart of her manifesto, pledging to champion the cause of learners "studying in the workplace, as distance learners or re-skilling later in life" and to make the NUS more accessible to them. It's a promise which, now in…

Every year, access to affordable adult learning transforms lives and life chances, giving people new perspectives on themselves and what they are capable of achieving. Yet, despite the Government's significant investment in adult learning and skills, opportunities are in ever-shorter supply. Over the past two years, 1.5 million publicly funded…