Tapping into adult passion

Iain Jones believes concepts of community and citizenship offer important insights both to Dearing and a Tony Blair government.

The dignity of Frances Lawrence, the clamour to find folk devils to fuel the latest moral panic and the final recommendations to the Dearing committee may seem odd bedfellows. So what is the link? Citizenship and community.

Only when we unravel the tangled web the popular press has spun can we begin to establish their relationship, one that can also provide a clue to how a Tony Blair-led Labour government may be able to realise his passion for education: a passion that needs to embrace adults as well as the nursery, primary and secondary school sectors. Higher, further and what is left of adult education have a rich tradition that needs to be re-examined for clues on how to turn these warm words into action.

Progress has been made since 1963 in reaching the disadvantaged groups that Dearing wants us to include in a mass higher education.

In each decade since the Robbins committee reported there has been a wealth of work backed by action research that has been committed to widening access, promoting participation and developing citizenship. Whether you examine the work of Tom Lovett in Liverpool and Belfast or local education authorities including Coventry and Leicestershire in the 1960s, the development of access courses since the 1970s, Replan projects working with unemployed adults in the mid 1980s or recent innovations that have tried to maintain the momentum of widening access into higher education, they are all testimony to how further and higher education have worked in partnerships to reach those who have been excluded from educational opportunities after leaving school.

The lesson is that the best practice in reaching adults who have been excluded or alienated share certain principles. Adults work best in collaborative groups, the success of adult learning can often be measured by their sense of control and adults learn best when a cycle of action and reflection encourages this sense of achievement.

These examples may have diverse aims but the best of them promote a sense of ownership. Adult learning can empower and not just incorporate. Where provision is not based on what is thought may be best for the "disadvantaged" but where practitioners have listened to and worked alongside individuals and community groups and ensured that their voices have been heard.

Developing access and promoting citizenship is about ensuring that individuals value their own experiences and learn actively together. Partnerships spanning the voluntary sector and higher education highlighted possibilities when primary and secondary schools worked together with third age groups and higher education.

The work of Community Service Volunteers has provided good examples of what can be achieved when different age groups work together and learn from one another. Other innovative work by the Citizenship Foundation has shown what can be done within a classroom using imaginative role play supported by resource material. All are far removed from a moral agenda that has tried to recapture and narrow the possibilities of an education for citizenship. Recent correspondence from colleagues at Leeds and Sheffield Hallam University has shown that others share my concerns and certainly have a longer history of putting principles into practice. The work I have been involved in over the past ten years has shown the possibilities that do exist, the potential that can be realised when the various strands of post-16 educational provision work together to empower and support community-based education and promote a widening of access into education.

The education development unit at Salford is committed to developing access and equal opportunities and the work of the Further/Higher Education Consortium has shown the potential of developing collaborative arrangements with local and regional further education colleges.

Other work with the local education authority, through an adult learning forum, has recognised that developing a lifelong learning strategy starts from sound early years and school provision. Support needs to be provided for parents so that they can, in turn, support their children and provision for adults needs to be affordable, flexible and varied, using appropriate methods and locations.

However, it is not only the work of strategic units and planning that provides evidence of what is being done to promote greater understanding and participation between the university and local communities.

An excellent example of curriculum development is the work of Community Exchange; a partnership between the universities of Salford, Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan and UMIST that since 1983 has linked higher education with the community through project work.

Community Exchange has now incorporated the work of the Environmental Projects Forum and together they offer the opportunity for students to develop projects and placements that provide local organisations with access to specialist skills and resources but also enable students to gain work related skills which complement their academic learning.

Higher education needs to realise the value of these traditions and examples of community-based education and the partnerships they develop between universities and the communities they serve. We should re-examine in greater detail what has already been achieved, and consider how the latest debate on citizenship can include higher education and realise the enormous potential we have to help local communities to regenerate themselves.

Iain Jones works at the education development unit, University of Salford.