Wales European Agenda for Adult Learning (EAAL)
Impact Forum Minutes
12pm – 16.00pm
Monday 28th September 2015
Location: WCVA, Baltic House, Mount Stuart Square, Cardiff, CF10 5FH
Attendees:
Berni Brady
John Gates
John Graystone
Jeff Greenidge
Calvin Lees
Zvonka Pangerc Pahernik
Mark Ravenhall
Helen Scaife
Kay Smith
Alex Stevenson
Dan Taubman
Mike Wilson
AONTAS National Adult Learning Organisation (BB)
Adult Learning advocate (JGa)
Chair (JGr)
learndirect (JeG)
NIACE Cymru (CL)
Slovenia Institute for Adult Education (ZP)
NIACE (MR)
Welsh Government (HS)
NIACE Cymru (KS)
NIACE (AS)
ETUCE representative (DT)
Dwr Cymru (MW)
Apologies:
Sian Cartwright
Ann Brain
Jan Eldred
Phil Fiander
Joy Kent
Mark Isherwood
Greg Walker
Alan Felstead
Carl Jones
Gareth Rees
David Hibler
Anne Lewis
Phil Whitney
Wales TUC
Torfaen
NIACE
WCVA
Chwarae Teg
WEA
Coleagu Cymru
Cardiff University
Wheelies
Cardiff University
British Council
Agored
Welsh Government
1. Welcome/Apologies
JGr welcomed the group to the fourth session of the EAAL Impact Forum for
Wales focused on Basic Skills and PIAAC.
2. Introductions
All members introduced themselves.
3. Minutes of the meeting on 1st July 2015
Nothing of note to amend
4. UK Impact Forum updates
MR gave a brief overview and update on the progress of the other UK forums
and the forward work plans.
MR confirmed that the 15/17 NIACE proposal to continue the EAAL project in
the UK has been accepted. The Impact Forums in each of the nations have
been seen as successful although they have been very similar. They will be
taken forward in the work package.
It was noted that both Slovenia’s and Ireland’s proposals have also been
accepted.
There was a brief discussion around the Impact forums and how the group
would like to take this forward with both content and format discussed.
This discussion will continue once the Work packages are agreed and
disseminated to the forum.
MR commented that a report on the forums will be presented to the
commission this autumn.
The report will focus on 3 of the themes from the forums:
 Employment skills for young people
 Excluded groups
 Basic skills
The group needs to think how it shows that the work has been disseminated to
organizations outside of the forum and how the Impact forums can feed into a
State of the Nation report with a conference and interim report in 2016 and a
final report in 2017.
An overall focus for next year’s work should be what is adult learning and what
is it doing to benefit Wales?
DT who serves on the ETUCE working group on early school leaving raised the
2020 Thematic Learning groups and pointed out that a new one is on Adult
Learning – Skills for the unemployed.
HS confirmed that there is attendance by Welsh Government at the Vocational
Skills Learning group
Action - CL to send DT email addresses for HS and RS, to follow up on the
Thematic Learning groups.
5. Basic Skills/PIAAC Work Packages
AS presented a brief summary on the work NIACE has completed on Basic Skills
and Social Inclusion.
There was some discussion around the new GCSEs in England and how
employers supported the vocational/workplace qualifications (functional skills)
It was agreed that there was still a lot of work needed to be done around
engagement in basic skills as there is recent falling participation in both literacy
and numeracy programmes.
AS presented details on NIACE’s Citizens Curriculum including:
 Future for lifelong learning: report’s key recommendations
 Embedded basic skills
 How the Citizens Curriculum would interlink basic skills and a wide
range of activities including ICT/health/civic studies
AS presented case study work with St Mungo’s Broadway (click link to visit case
study) and recommended reading 5 other case studies on the NIACE Website
here: Citizens Curriculum case studies
AS confirmed that the pilots would continue into the 2015/17 work packages
and that they would be focusing on basic skills provision for unemployed
adults.
There would be work with practitioners for the co-creation of activities in
health and civic citizenship areas.
There would be a randomised control panel research for Citizens Curriculum
with ESA claimants and Work Programme providers.
They would be exploring a study programme approach with funding for
learners.
Could the Citizens curriculum be a model for this, and how would the
programme be commissioned?
BB asked ‘what was the role of NIACE in the citizen’s curriculum delivery’?
AS responded that providers would deliver. NIACE’s role would be to audit the
provision and work with providers on identifying any missing elements and
how to improve their provision.
BB asked how this fits with AE policy?
AS responded that ACL providers would already be delivering a citizen’s
curriculum as their current basic skills provision. NIACE can validate and collect
evidence of impact, measure best practice etc and to try and formalize this in
the funding process. Could this be used to as a way to push for the adaption of
funding to move away from accredited training?
JGr asked if the curriculum has changed over the course of delivery with
feedback from the pilot’s providers.
AS responded there the curriculum has not change significantly as there was a
great degree of flexibility in the programme to begin with; although health and
civic citizenship capabilities have had to have more work on them to develop
guidance and resources for practitioners to utilize.
Specific levels of provision is level 1 and below.
DT questioned if these developments are relevant in Wales? For example, the
movement away from qualifications and the requirement for learners to
achieve level 2 in English.
It was agreed that the principle of raising skills in Wales remains central and
that the Citizen’s Curriculum could be the engagement tool for learners as a
starting point for their progression onto level 2 qualifications.
The Rochdale Case Study was discussed.
It was agreed that this could be used as hard evidence with Welsh Government
to demonstrate how adult learning can bring savings across various
government spending departments.
CF commented that a different type of curriculum across various areas is not
the way to go and that NIACE Cymru is piloting the development of a Adult
Community Learning Framework to standardise the process.
The Framework for Adult Learning aims to resolve difficulties and provide standardized
provision that maintains flexibility for cultural and local variation. The Framework is
applicable to many different delivery models, providers, funding models, learning
communities and levels of learning for adults- across the diverse communities of Wales.
The framework sets out the core purpose of adult learning in Wales, and its contribution to
the broader education sector. It will enable a consistent offer to adults within partnerships
and other providers across Wales.
Pulling together service departments to share ideas will not be something that
government will or should fund; but they should be involved in ensuring
delivery takes place.
Both ACL partnership and WEA YMCA CC are delivering pilots for the
framework.
6. PIAAC in Slovenia
Zvonka Pangerc Pahernik of the Slovenian Institute for Adult Education (Click to
Visit site) gave an overview of the Slovenian entry to PIAAC.
The PIAAC research is cross governmental with 7 departments contributing.
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Education
Labour
Culture
Health
Agriculture
 Internal Affairs
 Environment (Traffic)
Contributions to these sectors are identified and added to the Adult Education
Master Plan document. The National Adult Education Master Plan is a strategic
and developmental document. By confirming it, the National Assembly
determines the national interest in adult education, defines activities required
for the implementation of adult education, and provides stable funding from
public sources.
RS asked how they managed to deliver this with such a small budget.
ZP responded that it was delivered as a result of ESF funding and the hard
work, commitment and dedication of the team
There was a further question around the delivery using online and paper
questionnaires.
ZP responded that that only a small amount of paper questionnaires were used
but even so this did not save a considerable amount of funding.
HS asked if the AE Master Plan document was 16+ as Wales focused on 16-19
ZP confirmed it was actually 18+, and that in Slovenia the definition was Initial
Education for up to 18 years old and Continuing Education for over 18
DT commented that this process could be used as a stick to highlight the
negative outcomes but if Wales was to be involved we need to focus on the
positives.
Action: CL to distribute ZP presentation
CF stated why we want PIAAC in Wales and that there has been no research
study since 2010 on Basic Skills.
JGr commented that we need to ask ourselves ‘why do we want it?’ and when
we get the evidence ‘what do we do with it?’
There was a general discussion around PIAAC which included:
Do we want the results from PIAAC as this would highlight issues and we would
need to find funding to fix.
The feasibility of using ESF funding in Wales to support the costs of entry into
PIAAC and a suggestion that a small percentage of funding used from each
large scale ESF project would fund PIAAC and provide data on adult skills.
Some estimated figures were calculated for the cost of Wales’ involvement
with PIAAC: - : £2.7m with ESF funding and £5m without.
General consensus of the forum was that no-one around the table was against
involvement with PIAAC but this would need to be linked with and financially
supported by other departments within Welsh Government.
7. Essential Skills in Ireland
BB gave a presentation on Essential skills in Ireland which included:
o Brief overview of Aontas- The national adult learning organisation,
Ireland
o Irish PIAAC results
o Qualification Levels of the Labour Force
o Irish Government Agenda
o Literacy and Numeracy Strategy
o National Literacy and Numeracy Promotional and Awareness
Campaign
o Case Studies
Her presentation stimulated a useful discussion.
Some points. BB pointed out that involvement in PIAAC did not provoke much
interest within government. In addition, there is legislation underpinning adult
education in Ireland. 46,000 adults attend literacy classes with 4,000 volunteer
tutors.
8. Welsh Government Essential Skills
HS commented that there is no specific essential skills policy area within Welsh
Government; but both basic skills and ESOL were a focus in 2015/16.
Other subject area courses in ACL could only be delivered as cost recovery, self
funded or through other funded projects.
There would be a focus on competency not qualifications.
The new 2015 policy will focus on adult learning in general and not on adult
community learning (ACL). It will cover:
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Communication
Numeracy skills (application of number)
Digital literacy (online services , not Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc)
Broader employability skills
This should be published in November/December 2015. – Update November
2015:- this has now been pushed back and will more likely be published in the
2nd quarter 2016
The forum commented that there could be a danger of seriously
disadvantaging those learners with ‘average’ basic skills who cannot afford to
fund their own learning, thus halting their progression.
9. UK Summative Conference – Dr John Graystone
JGr gave a brief overview of the EU Summative Conference that took place on
10th and 11th September 2015.
In discussion, it was suggested that it would have been beneficial for the
nations to have shared ideas and perhaps the ability to hear the other nation’s
workshops.
MR commented, going forward that the Impact forums should focus on
specific areas such as Health, Skills, and Housing etc.
JGe defined ‘Impact’ as the difference made, but also asked the question ‘do
we have any data to benchmark against?’
10. Any other business
DT asked if everyone agreed with sharing emails to keep the networks open
the forum agreed.
CL to send out email addresses of attendees with minutes.