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Listening to Learners: Consultation with Learners about Adult Literacy Education in Scotland

7 Progression

One of the most striking differences that emerged in this consultation was between ALN and other adult learners on the question of progression. None of the ALN learners talked about their hopes or plans for progression to other things when they had completed their course. They talked about making progress, about things they could do, about increasing confidence. They did not talk about what next.

Other learners, in contrast, on the whole saw their current course as a route to something else - a job or a better job, further learning. These learners knew where they wanted to go, and how their course was helping them. The majority of learners are UNISON members in public service jobs, but some were in New Deal and other second chance programmes. Their ambitions are clear:

• Social work - 'It's given me confidence to maybe go on to other aspects of social work that I've been interested in, but I was always frightened of forms and application forms and stuff. I would be more confident now trying to fill them in.' [Glasgow, Other Adult Learner]

  'My dream would be to become a social worker. I'd really like to come here and get more education and go on to college and do an Access course and then go into social work.' [Lothian, Other Adult Learner]

• Passing an examination -'The initial idea for us coming on this course was actually helping me to get on a set examination that I've already sat and failed, I think it's helped me to understand how to put answers down to questions.' [Glasgow, Other Adult Learner]
• Nursing - 'Mine was for the nursing. That I would need certain qualifications to enter nursing and I realised I'd have to wait. I could have gone by the Access route but I decided at the time that I would see what I would need over the next year and then just go straight in.' [Lothian, Other Adult Learner]
• Going to college - 'I want to do my level three in social care and then do my HSC so I really don't feel I've got the right basic education to go on to college with everyone else. I feel like I'd be behind because I've got a real problem with my English, my spelling and my writing. So doing this when I pass it I'll know that I can do it, and I can go on to college.' [Lothian, Other Adult Learner]
• Applying for jobs - whether they are currently employed or unemployed:

  'I've shocked myself, going to do this Open University course, computing courses, I've applied for this other job. I just felt it gave me the confidence to go and do things, write things, say things. I didn't always have the confidence, ideas would be in here but I wouldn't say it, now I just think I'm going to say it, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.' [Fife, Other Adult Learner]

  'Starting on the course gave you confidence with your writing and all that. Before that I wouldn't have bothered applying for anything, I didn't have the confidence to fill them in, how to write it down and fill in an application form, some of the application forms are like the Bible, they are unreal.' [Fife, Other Adult Learner]

Members of one single Return to Learn focus group, who had just completed their course, had the following plans:

• Open University course over nine months in Health and Social Care
• Computers in the local college
• Extended Role of Auxiliaries course
• An Access Course hoping to lead to a Diploma Course in Social Work at the Northern College.

One has the sense that these courses were 'opening doors' for people, through which they learned about options they didn't know they had, and came to believe in their ability to try new things. That sense of learning as a progression to something else one might want to do does not emerge from the ALN groups.

The New Deal groups, however, had a more sobering analysis of their potential for progression. What they want is to get a job, but there are many barriers, and the learning programme addresses only some of them. They say their reading and writing are poor, but they also say that the jobs are not there (the factories that used to provide jobs are closing), employers hire school leavers in preference to older people (to get a tax break), and that they have been out of work so long they do not have experience to offer. They would like to see work placements offered as well as working on their literacy and numeracy. They want to have choices in these -to be offered say, four and choose one. They would also like to see employers offered government subsidies to take on older workers with poor literacy and numeracy and give them a chance to show they can do the job.

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