Jonathan Michie is, as usual, spot-on in arguing for universities to provide adult education. Whether by accident or design, his letter appeared in your print edition on the centenary of the formation of the first Labour government, 22 January. This matters. It was Sir Charles Trevelyan, president of the Board of Education in Ramsay MacDonald’s administration, who brought the Board of Education (Adult Education) Regulations 1924 on to the statute book. These enabled universities and voluntary organisations to be properly funded to provide liberal adult education for all – a system that enriched the nation and its democracy until Margaret Thatcher unleashed her wrecking ball.
The 1924 regulations were achieved by a short-lived minority government. Sir Keir Starmer hopes shortly to begin a rather longer term in office, with a solid majority. Let us hope that Sir Keir and his ministers, like MacDonald and Trevelyan, will see the need to create a system of lifelong adult education in what RH Tawney called “a broad and generous, humane and liberal spirit”. Siren voices will tell them we cannot afford it: the economy is in a bad way. So it was in 1924.
John Holford
Robert Peers professor of adult education emeritus, University of Nottingham
I echo Prof Jonathan Michie’s lament for the erosion of lifelong learning opportunities since, significantly, 2010. I was privileged to help pioneer and teach on an access programme at our local sixth-form college. This enabled adults with no entry qualifications, sometimes disenchanted by previous educational experience, to reach university entry level in a single year. Their motivation was an inspiration to tutors and conventional sixth-formers alike – opening what Aldous Huxley might have called “the gates of perception”.
Access courses in this and many other further education colleges were cauterised under the Tory/Lib Dem coalition. Refunding them would surely help fire and inspire a vital feature of any egalitarian society: lifelong yearning.
Ian Barge
Ludlow, Shropshire
Prof Jonathan Michie’s letter prompts me to express my gratitude to University College London for its programme of continuing education. I have been able to attend several courses in the Hebrew and Jewish studies department over the past five years in the company of brilliant young undergraduate and postgraduate students. The fee is £750 per course unit for two terms and there’s even a reduction for senior learners. Classes are small, teaching is superb, and the academic atmosphere is totally inclusive. A call out for Prof François Guesnet and others at UCL for their support of lifelong learning. Oldies like me are so fortunate.
Jennifer Basannavar
London
The University of the Third Age (U3A) offers continuing education to retired people, at minimal or even no cost. A variety of different subjects are covered and vary from branch to branch, with the teachers (quite often retired lecturers) for one group being students at another. Thus, I am learning history and languages, while teaching ukulele.
Jenny Braithwaite
Faringdon, Oxfordshire