Final Report: Results

The historical period covered in this project starts in the early 1970s with the end of the “post-war settlement” in education and social policy, a time of widespread progressive social change and civil rights movements, but also the period when the UK finally joined the European Community. It includes the IMF crisis of 1976, just as the adult literacy campaign was gathering momentum and educational policy was taking a decisive turn towards a modernistic vocationalism under the Labour government of Callaghan; it follows the acceleration of vocationalism in the Conservative era together with the rise of marketisation of the education system and the cultural restorationists who attacked progressive educational theories of the 1960s and 70s and desire to restore traditional English cultural values in order to maintain a coherent and narrow view of national identity. As Jones (2003) and others have noted, these tendencies did not always result in coherent policies, but produced conflicting pressures on the educational system, for example those of responding to the need to offer diversity and choice whilst working with strong centralised control.

We follow the development of ALLN throughout the subsequent period of Conservative government into the era of New Labour and the development of the Skills for Life Strategy – the nearest that ALLN has come to a policy initiative specifically targeted for the field. We show how New Labour retained Conservative commitments to vocationalism and free-market driven systems within education, whilst sharply intensifying the managerialist culture. A new emphasis on social inclusion brought literacy and numeracy – including adult literacy as part of lifelong learning – to the centre of social policy. Changed views of citizenship as a combination of rights and responsibilities have shaped the social relations between “learners” and “providers” so that the official discourses have not returned to the notions of equality and entitlement that underpinned the original Right to Read campaign.

The effects on ALLN of policy neglect, coupled with initiatives in adjacent areas, were confusing and sometimes devastating for particular kinds of programmes. For example, cuts in Local Authority funding and the introduction of internal markets to public services disrupted the vulnerable area of literacy provision . Sometimes changes presented welcome opportunities for additional funding and work in areas of urgent need, as in the expansion of courses for unemployed adults, women and migrant groups. Practitioners were resourceful and energetic in corralling diverse kinds of funding to support their core work. They used funds from adjacent areas where there was active policy and money – such as vocational training, the management of unemployment and European funds. They often refer to this survival strategy as “working in the cracks” and although it was experienced as stressful because highly uncertain, it did offer people in marginalized and insecure employment positions some power to shape their work.