Learning Futures Conference, Leicester
9th-10th January 2007
Professor Bob Fryer CBE
National Director for Widening Participation in Learning
Living in an era of profound &
widespread social & cultural change
 Changes in social, political & cultural
institutions (Family, Politics, Consumption etc)
 Restructuring of work, employment & industry
 Shifts in personal & group identities &
aspirations
 A growing tendency for ‘choice’
 An information & knowledge revolution
 Changing technologies
 Greater localism within globalisation
 Social fragmentation & division
 New forms & expressions of citizenship
What sorts of learning & what kinds of learners
are appropriate for the ‘emergent’ world
‘Emergent world’ has
many different labels:
Post-industrial
• Late- or post-capitalist
• Networked
• Information-based
• Knowledge-driven
• Learning
• Late- or post-modern
• Risk
All contrast sharply with the
classic description of
rationalist, de-personalised,
expert, calculative &
instrumental bureaucracy
•
“Only the well educated will be able to
act effectively in the Information
Society.”
“The key to the Learning
Society is to seek the
learning potential in
everyday situations….A
‘learning culture’ must, after
all mean finding learning in
the most unlikely places….
Michael Barber, The Learning
Game
What is Happening to the World of Work?
 Structural changes in industries &
occupations
 Demand for new skills &
competences
 Challenges of greater
competitiveness
 Technological change
 Globalisation
 New sorts of workplace - flatter
structures, project management “fuzzy” boundaries
 Non- and de-unionisation
 No more ‘jobs for life’
 Household & 3-generational
un/underemployment
 Need for workers to be flexible,
adaptive & creative
 Stress & getting the ‘work-life
balance’ right
The Drive for Skills
Skills =
 Opportunity
 Employability
 Choice
 Life chances
 Prosperity
 Good health/wellbeing
 ‘Capital’
 Competitiveness
The ‘Leitch’ Report December 2006:
some simple data
“Prosperity for all in the global economy:
world class skills”
One-and-a-half-cheers
 ‘Skills’ mentioned 1727 times!
 Global/globalization mentioned 120 times
 ‘Flexibility’ mentioned 14 times
 Innovative/innovation mentioned 3 times
 Talent mentioned 1 time
 Creative/creativity mentioned 0 times
 Imaginative/imagination mentioned 0 times
 Inventive/inventiveness mentioned 0 times
 Ingenious/ingenuity mentioned 0 times
 Intuitive/intuition mentioned 0 times
What do employers and governments
typically say they want on the ‘skills’
front?
 New entrants with ‘employability’ characteristics
 More emphasis on, & respect for, ‘vocational’
learning in schools, colleges & universities
 Increased focus on science & maths
 A continuously ‘learning’ workforce
 Staff who upgrade their skills several times
throughout working life
 More intermediate and higher level ‘technical’
skills
 Better management and leadership skills
 Markedly improved information handling &
knowledge management skills
 A greater emphasis on ‘competence’
Max Weber’s ‘Ideal Type’ Bureaucracy
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Fixed & official areas, ordered by rules
Stable authority, also delimited by rules
Offices graded in professional hierarchies
Management basedon written documentation
Regular activities distributed as fixed duties, carried out
by appointed officials
Office separated from private interests & households
Office holding is a ‘vocation’ demanding the full capacity
of the office holder, with prospects of a tenured ‘career’
Duties performed only by employees with regulated
qualifications based on prescribed & special exams
Bureaucracy depends upon stable rules, which can be
learned & which represent special technical learning
Bureaucracy’s ‘optimum’ possibilities
• Modern culture demands the
‘calculability’ of results
• Carrying through the principle of
specialist administration according
to objective considerations
• ‘Without regard for persons’ is the
watchword of the ‘market’ & of
naked economic interests
• Capitalism welcomes
bureaucracy’s special virtue of
‘dehumanisation’ – eliminating all
affective considerations of love,
hatred, irrationality & emotional
elements that escape calculation
Endorsement of the value of
learning from business leaders

“Our behavior is driven
by a fundamental core belief:
The desire and ability of an
organization to continuously
learn from any source – and
to rapidly covert this
learning into action – is its
ultimate competitive
advantage.”

Jack Welch, CEO General
Electric
The distinct advantages of bureaucracy –
especially for the capitalist market economy
Just right for schemes based on ‘competence’
“The fully developed bureaucratic mechanism
compares with other organisations exactly as does
the machine with the non-mechanical modes of
production.
Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of the
files, continuity, discretion, unity, strict
subordination, reduction of friction & of material
and personal costs – these are raised to the
optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic
organisation.”
Bureaucracy’s well-known drawbacks
• Tendency to organisational
conservatism & sclerosis
• Hide-bound by rules & protocols
• Over-emphasis on formality,
‘stuffiness’
• Rigidity of hierarchy & divisions
of roles or responsibilities
• Resistance to change
• Performance only to minimum
required standards
• ‘Jobsworth’ mentalities
• Lack of nimbleness, unlikely to
innovate
Governments & employers also want ‘creativity’
Creativity =
 Novelty
 Imagination
 Critical minds
 Originality
 Innovation
 Flexibility
 Change/Progress
 Revolution
 Beauty
 Transformation
 Transcendence
Beyond rules, definitions & specificity?
The ‘emergent world’ of
work demands:
 The ‘navigation’ of risk
 Confident ‘boundary
crossers’
 Working ‘beyond the
rules’
 Creative
entrepreneurs (“The
French don’t have a
word for it.”)
Towards ‘Risk Society’ (Beck)
Ubiquitous
Change
Unreliability
Unpredictability
Uncertainty
Risk Society
Un-sustainability
‘Fuzzy’
Boundaries
Multiple &
Contested Information
& Knowledge
Choice
Beyond
Conventions,
Rules & Structures
‘Turbo Capitalism’:
an Age of Uncertainty & Insecurity?
“No jobs are guaranteed, no positions are foolproof, no
skills are of lasting utility, experience and know-how
turn into liability as soon as they become assets,
seductive careers all too often prove to be suicide
tracks. In their present rendering, human rights do not
entail the acquisition of a right to a job, however well
performed , or - more generally - the right to care and
consideration for the sake of past merits. Livelihood,
social position, acknowledgement of usefulness and
the entitlement to self-dignity may all vanish together,
overnight and without notice.”
Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodernity & its Discontents, page 22
An emergent model of learning
Domain
Traditional
Emergent
Study
Education
Learning
Locale
Everywhere – work,
home etc
Lifelong & life-wide
Style
School/other
institution
Childhood/early
adulthood
Teacher centred
Delivery
Face-to-face
Distance & ‘e’
Target Group
Specific & mass
Focus
Universal to max
school age -elite
Theory/abstract
Discipline
Single
Multi-disciplinary
Mode
Learning by rote
Reflective
Form
Instructional
Constructivist
Purpose
Qualification
Action/
application
Time
Source: Jarvis 2001
Learner-driven
Practice
The Urgency of ‘tertiary’ learning
“The world in which post-modern men and women
need to live their lives and shape their life strategies
puts a premium on ‘tertiary learning’ - a kind of
learning which our inherited institutions, born and
matured in the modern ordering bustle are ill
prepared to handle; and one which educational
theory, developed as a reflection of modern
ambitions and their institutional embodiments, can
only view with a mixture of bewilderment and horror,
a pathological growth or a portent of advancing
schizophrenia.”
Source: Bauman, op. cit.
What do we mean by ‘learning
cultures’?
 Learning is ‘woven’ into life or work
 Learning takes many forms – formal & informal,
explicit & tacit, certificated or not
 Everyone is involved in learning
 Learning & learning opportunities are ubiquitous
 Learning & learners are supported effectively
 Learning increases self-esteem & well-being
 Learning brings rewards & progression
 Learning is ‘endorsed’ by all organisational signs,
symbols, myths, emblems, representations &
material character
 Learning is ‘normal’ around here
Why do organisations want to
develop ‘learning cultures’?
Very elusive & slippery concept, often sloppily
deployed. But to:
 Secure or maintain ‘competitive advantage’
 Recruit, retain & motivate staff
 Promote key organisational knowledge, skills,
attitudes & behaviour
 Underpin organisational values & priorities
 Inspire creativity, innovation & enterprise
 Drive & respond to change
 Link learning to effective action & implementation
The Core Purposes of Learning
According to the celebrated Jacques Delors
Commission on Lifelong Learning, The
Treasure Within
1)
Learning to Know (learning to learn, general
knowledge & understanding)
2) Learning to Do (skills, competence, practical
ability in a variety of settings)
3) Learning to Live Together (tolerance,
mutual understanding, interdependence)
4) Learning to Be (personal autonomy &
responsibility, memory, aesthetics, ethics,
communication & physical capacity)
Personalised learning & learners’
needs
Personal, pastoral,
motivational &
developmental
Place/space
Time/pace
Administrative,
financial &
organisational
support
Learners’ needs,
sociabilities &
interactions
Resources,
facilities &
technologies
Learning
outcomes
& credit
Academic,
pedagogic,
content &
technical support
Lifestyles,
cultures &
work-life
balances
Pre-requisites for Learner Attainment
Vision,
Policy &
Strategy
Needs &
Effective
Demand
Access
(Equity &
Resources)
Information,
Advice &
Guidance
Courseware
&‘Content’
Technology,
‘Reach’ &
Connectivity
Learner
Support
Pedagogy
& ‘Learning
Design’
Society &
Organisation
‘Readiness’