Commercial adult learning: the mobile gin school

Gin Lane by William Hogarth (1750-51)

Adult learning in Britain has recently been the focus of much public policy, but publicly-funded adult learning has seen better days. This paradox continues to frustrate and annoy me, but at the same time I am fascinated by some of the quirky learning activities that are springing up on a commercial basis.

This morning’s Yorkshire Post reported on a plan to launch a mobile gin school. It turns out that gin schools are fairly numerous and have been going for some time. Who knew? The Nairns’ won’t be the UK’s first mobile gin school – that honour belongs to ‘Still on the Move’ in Devon – but it will be the first in Yorkshire.

Rather than learners driving to a distillery to develop their gin-making skills, Jamie and Charlotte Nairn plan to drive their still around East Yorkshire and teach people how to produce their own gin, whether in their on homes or as part of an organised group event such as a wedding.

The Nairns’ courses will include hands-on activities, and culminate in the learners producing their own 70 cl bottle. According to the Post, the classes will last two and a half hours, with 45 minutes for the actual distilling process. If you’re happy with your product, the Nairns will use your recipe to produce more.

I’m guessing that this won’t be cheap. The Devon Gin School advertises gift vouchers at £75 (£85 for weekends), entitling two people to attend a class at one of its shops; the price includes one bottle of the participant’s gin. The Edinburgh-based gin school Sip Antics charges £105 for two, including cocktails while your gin distills.

I don’t know whether a mobile still will be more or less costly than these shop- or bar-based courses. The Post report certainly makes it all sound very simple. The Nairns think the practical challenges are manageable, and apparently the Revenue is satisfied that it can put arrangements in place to collect duty.

I don’t think I’ll be calling on the Nairns myself as I don’t really enjoy spirits. But this venture has echoes of 1970s experiments in taking provision to remote learners by means of travelling vans, and it is a good example of a type of adult learning that can’t be delivered digitally (cue jokes about blended learning).

Finally, I find the idea of a mobile gin school an interesting example of how fashion and consumerism can combine with adult learning. Other types of commercial adult learning to strike me recently include cupcakes, graffiti, and mountain skills. It looks as though this sector is quite good at spotting niche markets.

Commercial adult learning: mountain skills

I spotted this poster in the men’s room at my favourite outdoor shop. Tiso’s in Glasgow has a cafe, making it a good place for a break on the drive over to visit family in Dunoon. It has offered outdoor skills training since 2000.

Tiso’s developed the courses as a by-product of its main retail trade. They are held across climbing and skiing sites across Scotland. A one-day course will set you back £85-£95. The main instructor is an experienced mountaineer who holds a Mountaineering Instruction Certificate, an award of Mountain Training UK.

If you want to know more, check out the details on https://www.tiso.com/courses

France’s personal training accounts were a great idea – what is going wrong?

When the French government introduced its personal training account (CPF, compte personnel de formation) scheme in early 2015, it was in the hope of promoting an upsurge in reskilling. Yet according to a recent survey, less than a third of workers have opened up their online account, almost a quarter say they haven’t heard of the scheme, and only 7.2% have benefited from training under the scheme. What has gone wrong?

First, I should make clear that the survey shows signs of progress. While only 31% said they’d activated their account in the 2018 survey, that is up on a mere 20% in the previous year. Those who benefited have risen from 3.6% last year.

Still, compared with the government’s ambitions, these figures are sobering. They also contrast with the popularity of similar systems elsewhere; whatever you think of the British Individual Learning Accounts, they were certainly widely used. And to me, the idea of time off work to train with costs paid should be pretty appealing.

I don’t know why the CPF has failed so far to take off. It was well-publicised, and it is a reasonably generous scheme. Jobs are changing in France as elsewhere, and ever more will be affected as a result of digitiation, AI, and other tech changes, so upskilling makes sense for enterprises and individuals.

Perhaps it’s just that the accounts are simply unattractive to French workers? Or maybe the scheme is over-bureaucratic? If you know more, please let us all know!

 

 

What is new about Germany’s national strategy for continuing education?

Well, the first thing that is new is the fact that it exists at all. Under the German federal constitution, responsibility for education lies with the individual states (Länder) and the federal government (Bund) is cast in a largely supporting role. The new strategy is the first of its kind, jointly produced by the Bund, the Länder, employers, and labour unions.

“Sharing knowledge, shaping the future, growing together: National Strategy for Continuing Education”

The rationale offered for this spirit of cooperation is digitisation. One much-cited study claims that a quarter of German employees work in occupations at high risk of replacement through the new technologies, and that report is duly mentioned in the new strategy.  The focus here is on workplace skills as a means of tackling the challenges of digitisation for individuals and enterprises alike, with a particular focus on small and medium sized firms and on the least skilled workers.

The strategy sets out ten ‘action goals’, and commits the partners (federal ministries for education and labour, Länder, employers, unions) to putting them into practice. These goals are:

1. Supporting the transparency of continuing education possibilities and provision.
2. Closing gaps in support , putting new incentives in place, adjusting existing support systems.
3. Strengthening comprehensive lifelong educational advice and skills guidance, especially in SMEs.
4. Strengthening the responsibility of the social partners.
5. Testing and strengthening the quality and quality evaluation of continuing education provision.
6. Making visible and recognising workers’ prior skills in vocational education.
7. Developing continuing education provision and certification.
8. Strategic development of educational institutions as skill centres for vocational continuing education.
9. Strengthening continuing education staff and preparing them for digital change.
10. Strengthening strategic foresight and optimising continuing education statistics.

if anyone wants more detail of these broad goals and their implementation, let me know.

Imp-lementation starts after the summer break. Responsibility for overseeing progress against these goals is being handed to a national committee of the partners, which is charged with producing a joint progress report in 2021. At the same time, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has been asked to produce a national report on continuing education in Germany.

Those who look for a broad and civic approach to lifelong learning will not find it in this strategy. Its focus is aimed entirely at change in continuing vocational education, with a view to reducing the rigidities of Germany’s skills system, and promoting greater labour flexibility flexibility in the face of tech change, and digitisation in particular. As a strategy for upskilling, though, it’s an enormously interesting development, and given Germany’s wider influence in Europe and beyond, it’s worth watching closely.

Commercial adult learning – gin masterclasses

I was drinking espresso in the Fossgate Tap while on a visit to our younger daughter in York, when I spotted this poster. Apologies for the poor picture quality, but the lighting was subdued.

 

To be honest, I have no idea what a ‘gin masterclass’ is, though to be fair I was probably pretty vague about beer seminars until I attended one. I guess the word ‘masterclass’ is just a come-on. The price, quality, and content remain a mystery, and despite what it says on the poster, I was no wiser after visiting the website, which told me nothing that isn’t on the poster. As this is a new venture, with the pub under new ownership since the end of May,  maybe the website will be more informative in future.

According to the brewery, the Fossgate Tap represents ‘a new pub concept’, which apparently is an urban country pub. I don’t know about that, but I view pubs in general as a Good Thing, and a bit of modernisation is probably the price of survival, even in thirsty old Yorkshire. In the case of the Fossgate Tap, I can confirm that there’s a great range of quality real ales and craft beers, as well as very decent coffee.

Promoting civic engagement through learning accounts

I’ve been taking a keen interest in the French system of personal learning accounts. Like other similar systems elsewhere, it seems to me a model of how to incentivise learning – at least as an experience which could hold lessons for the rest of us. And it is also being used to promote active citizenship.

The labour law of 8 August 2016 introduced a new system for incentivising civic engagement, the compte d’engagement citoyen (CEC), which enables the recognition of specified types of civic activity throughout the life course, accompanied by support for relevant education, with the applicant accessing funding through their compte personnel de formation (CPF).

The CEC covers eight types of volunteering:

• National civic service (the alternative to military service, now suspended)
• Military reserve service
• Police reserve service
• Health reserve service
• Master apprentice service
• Service of at least 200 hours a year to a registered association
• Voluntary fire brigade service
• Service in the national or regional civic reserve

The first I heard of the CEC was when I read this summer that the French legislature had criticised delays in the IT system supporting it. The MPs also called on the government to remedy inequalities of access, sort out anomalies such as the exclusion of first aid training, and extend the education provision to retired people who volunteer.

The introduction of the CEC runs parallel to another new scheme for young people, of national universal service. Reflecting one of President Macron’s campaign pledges, the scheme is currently being piloted, and if all goes well it will require all French youth to complete a month of civic action followed up with a further period of systematic voluntary civil or military activity. I’ll post a more detailed description of this scheme soon.

So this is an interesting approach to promoting active citizenship through adult learning, and I look forward to seeing some serious analysis of its effects. At this stage the system seems to me to be admirable in principle, if rather bureaucratic to access and restrictive in scope, but that is an early perspective from an outsider.

Meanwhile, if you want to know more about the French approach to learning accounts, you can find my earlier posts on the CPF here:

• The launch of the new system: https://thelearningprofessor.wordpress.com/2015/01/26/personal-training-accounts-supporting-adult-skills-in-france/
• The move from a time-based account to cash support: https://thelearningprofessor.wordpress.com/2018/03/07/funding-adult-skills-in-france-here-comes-the-big-bang/
• A report on worker take-up of the CPF: https://thelearningprofessor.wordpress.com/2019/06/21/frances-personal-training-accounts-were-a-great-idea-what-is-going-wrong/

Financing adult learning in Germany: the changing balance between public and private

The Bertelsmann Foundation has published a report on the financing of continuing education in Germany between 1995 and 2015. The broad headline finding is that although the system has enjoyed rising overall levels of income, the balance between private and public funding has shifted steadily over that time.

“The state withdraws from adult learning”: changes in public funding by sector, 1995-2015

The report begins with a brief history of adult learning since 1945, in order to illustrate the new significance of adult learning in the contemporary knowledge society. They then propose that participation in adult learning is a prerogative of those who are profiting from modernisation and the knowledge society. At the same time, the costs of learning increasingly fall on the individual or their employer; and participation is seen as a virtue which then legitimates the rewards enjoyed by the successful.

The authors’ evidence for this broad social trend is not all new, but the report does provide a new analysis of funding data. This is no easy task; estimating public spending alone involves adding together figures from different sources (federal government, Länder, Gemeinde/communes) concerning learning support of different types, from local funding for adult education centres to loans and grants for training master craftsmen (apologies for the gendered language, but it’s in the original).

The report confirms that the lion’s share of public education funding is allocated to schools, followed at some distance by higher education. Interestingly for a Brit, the initial vocational training system receives slightly less funding than adult learning (€21.8bn in 2015 as against €26.9bn). Note, though, that the adult learning figures include continuing vocational training.

When it comes to the balance between public and private funding, the sectors are very clearly differentiated. Adult learning in 2015 was 77% funded from private sources, compared with 43% for vocational training and 18% for higher education. Moreover, only in adult learning has public funding fallen since 1995, by 43%, though it has been more than replaced by funding from individuals and their employers.

The share of public and private funding, 2012: outer circle = public funding, inner circle = private sources

The authors remark on the contrast between public policy announcements on the increasing necessity of learning through life with the reduced public funding for adult learning. A broader and more inclusive approach to lifelong learning, which does not simply meet the immediate short term needs of the enterprise or individual career, requires both an increase and a rebalancing of public funding.

Germany has a relatively generous approach to adult learning, which remains stronger and better funding than in most European countries. Yet it too seems to be experiencing trends that are socially damaging and economically at odds with its policies around the fourth industrial revolution. The Bertelsmann report is a helpful intervention which will inform policy debate and has already attracted press attention but the significance of its analysis goes well beyond the case of Germany.

Finally, a brief note on language. The authors say in a footnote that they use the words Erwachsenenbildung (adult education) and Weiterbildung (continuing or further education) interchangeably. Some German colleagues would probably challenge the idea that these are synonyms, but that’s another issue.

The report is available at: https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/fileadmin/files/BSt/Publikationen/GrauePublikationen/LL_Hintergrundstudie_Weiterbildungsfinanzierung1995-2015.pdf

Commercial adult education: graffiti

As I’ve said before, you can learn quite a bit about commercial adult education just by wandering around. GraffitiArtist, who run a shop in Birmingham’s Custard Factory, claim on their website to offer “the ultimate positive Urban Art experience, and provide graffiti workshops for the general public as well as classes tailored to particular groups. They even offer a basic introduction to graffiti as a party for hens and stags. And its a lot cheaper than learning to make cupcakes in Edinburgh…

You can probably figure out for yourself who the participants are likely to be, and what the benefits are – or aren’t – to the budding graffiti artists and the wider community. Who knows – maybe in thirty years time, a new Banksy will look back fondly on her days at the Custard Factory.

Transforming Adult Learning: the case of South Korea

South Korea is a fascinating country for a lot of different reasons. To snatch a few random reasons why I love the place, public transport is fantastic, the food is superb, and you’re never without a view of the mountains. It has high education standards, though these are infamously linked to high stress levels among students. And the fine walled city of Suwon is busy becoming a model learning city.

Now the country is transforming its support for adult learning. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Education announced its fourth Lifelong Learning Plan. Covering the period 2018-22, the Plan envisages

• a guarantee of lifelong learning rights (including paid training leave and targeted learning vouchers) for every citizen;
• a focus on lifelong learning in preparation for job change, exploiting the potential of MOOcs and personalised learning;
• promoting lifelong learning in other areas of life, with stronger local and regional instgitutions and support for civic completence;
• improving quality, for example through monitoring performance and making better use of participation statistics.

Th use of vouchers was already proposed in the country’s second lifelong learning plan, which set out proposals for a pilot scheme involving 50,000 basic livelihood support recipients aged over 20. What became of the pilot scheme I do not yet know, but I will return to it here if and when I find out.

Broadly, the Plan seems to me strategically focussed, while broad enough to embrace people’s different life areas. Hopefully we’ll be able to see how it develops over time, as there are bound to be interesting lessons for other nations.