A Permanent National Necessity: The Centenary Commission on Adult Education Five Years on
Yesterday (6 November) the WEA hosted a special webinar for Lifelong Learning Week.
Lifelong Learning Week runs from 4-8 November and you can find out more about all the events on the Festival of Learning website
This year’s theme is Making the Case for Lifelong Learning.
One of the most comprehensive recent attempts to make a case for better support for adult learning was the report of the Centenary Commission. This report marked 100 years since the Ministry of Reconstruction’s report called “A Permanent National Necessity” which effectively set the blueprint for adult learning as we know it today.
The Centenary Commission set out a wide ranging set of recommendations, published in December 2019, coinciding with the arrival of the newly elected Boris Johnson government.
Now, 5 years later and with a new Labour government in place, we wanted to explore whether the recommendations still stood up and how much progress had been made against them.
We were joined by the joint-secretary of the Commission, Professor Jonathan Michie, and two of the 2019 Commissioners, Dr Susan Pember and Associate Professor Dr Sharon Clancy. Completing the panel was Learning & Work Institute Deputy Director, Alex Stevenson.
The Commission’s report is still vital reading and most of the recommendations are still valid for today’s policy landscape. Hear the full panel discussion on the WEA Youtube channel by following the link
