Issue - meetings

[To receive a report on the Adult Education Strategy from the Head of Adult Education.]

The Chair welcomed Joanne Keatley, Head of Adult Education to the meeting to present a report on the Adult Education Strategy, Offer and Outcomes. The Chair invited Cllr Dr Mike Hardacre, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills to introduce the report.

Cllr Dr Hardacre explained that the report came to the Board after what had been a very challenging year for adult education which was very much community based. Adult education worked extremely hard with it’s partners to seek to upskill the population which would be especially important as we sought to recover from the pandemic. The report made it clear that there had been difficulties and highlighted the hard work put in by the team to overcome these difficulties. The pandemic had exacerbated the digital divide and issues such as access to a device, access to the internet and digital skills had become more apparent. Many students were now being provided with the internet connectivity that they needed to complete their studies and reach their goals.

The Head of Adult Education provided a presentation to the board that highlighted the main points in the report and a short video that showed learners actually speaking about their learning, what it had enabled them to achieve and how it had impacted their lives.

The pandemic had now impacted on two educational years and the report showed that locally and nationally there were issues in participation in learning itself and in relation to a student’s ability to achieve a qualification if they had started their learning prior to lockdown and had to have a break in learning for any reason (including access to equipment). The Head of Adult Education stated that she was immensely proud of her team and their resilience and the amazing job that they had done throughout an extremely difficult time.

It was also explained that in relation to strategy, the aims were aligned with the Council Plan and the aims of the Combined Authority Plan. This included a focus on inclusive growth which lead the team to focus on those residents with little or no qualifications or low literacy, numeracy skills or digital skills and those not in work or in work but on a low wage. The report sought to provide some contextual statistics to show how the Wolverhampton statistics had improved but perhaps not as quickly as the national rates. It was stated that the key was to provide the right curriculum to help improve the levels and in ensuring that learners had the means to access that curriculum. The core offer and strengths had to be made available on many levels and there had to be multiple pathways to allow people to join at different levels and work their way through to a qualification in a way that suited them best and was inclusive.

Issues facing residents included large numbers not going online at all, a lack of basic digital skills, a lack of devices and connectivity, not being able to take advantage of offers  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6