ACE DISCUSSION PAPER QUESTIONNAIRE

Respondent Details

Name/s of Respondents: Sue McKay Chairperson on behalf of WAALC Executive

Title/Name of Organisation (if applicable): Western Australian Adult Literacy Council Incorporated (WAALC)

Key Question # 1:

a)

How might strengthening the vocational orientation of courses offered through ACE affect its current diversity and responsiveness to community needs?

A stronger emphasis on vocational delivery will affect WA ACE delivery negatively. It would hijack the efforts of volunteers (board members, organisations and educators) from their core business. Instead of offering learning opportunities that are very different to that offered in the VET sector, ACE organisations would be attempting to develop the resources to duplicate already available offerings. This would be especially detrimental in locations where there is inadequate adult education and training available (rural and regional areas and outlying suburbs). In many of these locations duplicate offerings result in the failure of both programs to run due to low numbers.

Key Question # 2:

a)

Should the WA ACE definition be broadened to include accredited course activity? If not, why not?

It depends on the purpose: if you want to reflect reality all VET sector delivery and all university courses offered to people over the age of compulsory schooling is Adult Community Education. It benefits both “Adults” and the “Community”. ACE also includes all the work done in adult education by all sorts of organisations such as sporting associations, Red Cross, gardening clubs, the media, employers, and unions. Some of this is accredited; much informal and unaccredited. It also includes all the informal learning that individuals and groups offer to each other in social groupings such as families, neighbourhoods and circles of friends.

In WAALC’s view, the division between ACE and VET is entirely artificial. It seems to be based on a premise that the only learning that is useful is that which is directly and explicitly vocational in nature and this learning must be valued above all else. This goes too far if it aims to co-opt volunteer efforts as well as that of organisations resourced to offer recognized education.

It also suggests the opposite premise that non-vocational learning is of lesser value in itself to the economy as a whole, and to employers in particular. This is patently false: research conducted by employer groups into employability skills identify lists of valuable skills that are clearly developed in all sorts of learning environments including the most informal of ACE environments.

b)

How can the WA ACE sector most effectively contribute to meeting key national goals for education, training and employment, if it continues to offer non-accredited training only?

All effective learning contributes to meeting these goals – effective collaborative learning helps most as it develops more of the employability skills.

The key to improving the contribution WA ACE sector is to ensure that more disadvantaged people have access to the informal learning offered. At present ACE is mainly available to those who already have most resources.

Another way the ACE sector could contribute more to the productivity agenda is by ensuring literacy and numeracy development needs are incorporated into their offerings. This need not be through different programs but through ensuring that the staff in their programs have access to adequate knowledge about literacy development in adults so they can foster these skills.

Key Question # 3:

a)

How can the sector better meet the needs of groups currently under-represented in ACE?

Funding is the major issue when offering educational services to disadvantaged people. Many ACE classes are offered at reduced or low cost but this is still impossible for people who are struggling to find money for food after the rent is paid.

Public funding could be well more widely applied to non-accredited training saving considerable costs over offering the same programs as accredited courses. The First Click program is a good example of how this can work. The need for basic computer skills was seen as necessary for vocational purposes as well as within the community for social and individual purposes. Funds were offered by DET to deliver non-accredited programs in community settings to reach more of the population. This reduced the pressure to offer basic computer training from vocational Information Technology and accredited general education courses. The non-accredited First Click training freed up these more expensive options to meet the needs of both business and the community for higher level skills. What is more, for absolute beginners, the informal non-assessed options funded through First Click were welcomed by students.

We propose Initiatives be developed that foster the capacity of all sorts of organisations to offer both formal and informal learning without co-opting all these efforts to a narrow vocationally-focused agenda. For example, ACE could make an impact on the need to increase the literacy and numeracy skills profile of Australians through non-accredited family literacy programs, oral history initiatives, groups working on the production of reading materials in first languages including Aboriginal english and study circles focusing on community priorities.

b)

Should the prevailing definition of ACE be broadened beyond Adult Community Education to Adult and Community Education to enable it to be more inclusive in terms of its ability to reach disadvantaged groups? (disengaged youth, indigenous, the disabled, mature aged men)

Future Directions for ACE in WA Page 27

Yes – ACE definitely should be defined as Adult and Community Education in WA and we should define much more into the definition of ACE. The current skew towards older females is partly definitional. If you included sporting organisations, bush fire brigades, youth centres, indigenous organisations and workplaces as providers of informal education, ACE would cater for a much wider range of social groupings. Much more than this actually happens, especially in the community at large and all of this learning could be included in ACE at the stroke of a pen. WAALC would support a definition of ACE as including all informal non-accredited learning for adults wherever and whenever it happens.

Read Write Now for example is missing from the discussion paper as an ACE provider but is the main way that non-accredited literacy education happens for WA adults. This may have been an oversight but provides an example of how very large providers of informal learning can be invisible (Read Right Now has about 1000 tutors working at any time in almost every locality in the state so is quite large).

c)

How could the collection of data about providers and learners in the ACE sector be improved?

Data collection costs. You can collect data about what you pay for. When you rely on volunteer efforts for a widely varying service the little financial support that is available will have other priorities than achieving high levels of nationally consistent data collection. Everyone collects some data but the cost raises significantly the more different details you want and the more you need it to be equivalent across very different activities. Data collection principles can also restrict what can be offered (see our response to question 10a about how data requirements such as enrolment works in TAFE to reduce flexibility.)

Data for this type of activity is better collected through ABS whole of population surveys and the occasional research project. Our aim should be that 100% of the population have access to informal learning opportunities routinely as a part of their life and formal learning when this is required. Even formal learning can be hard to count, but counting informal learning every time it happens simply requires very narrow definitions of what is included.

Key Question # 4:

a)

Is there scope for re-thinking DET’s involvement in the ACE sector in terms of how it provides direction and support for the ACE sector?

DET could offer grants for community capacity building (eg improvement of facilities). Help in areas such as insurance will continue to be important. Most of all DET can recognize the efforts of learners and those who collaborate with them in these efforts. Ideas such as learning communities life long learning and families as the first learning site could all usefully be applied to encourage us all to see adult learning as a core inseparable part of life that we can leverage to make our communities more resilient in the face of change.

Key Question # 5:

a)

Is there a capacity for greater cross-departmental collaboration in providing linkages with ACE pathways, and what benefits could result?

We could officially recognize that every Department has an education role. DET could foster and recognize good practice in community education provided by Government departments as part of their remit; in areas as diverse as finances , health, the environment.

b)

Considering the involvement of other government agencies in ACE programs, should the focus of DET in ACE be more closely defined as providing opportunities for further general education that build learning and employability skills?

No. Further narrowing DET’s role in ACE is counter-productive to achieving national productivity goals. DET’s role could be defined as ensuring the informal learning reaches as many in the population as formal learning does.

Key Question # 6:

a)

To what extent did the 2004-08 strategy meet its goals as set out above?

Not sure. The DET section responsible ran some great conferences and funded some good programs for disadvantaged Western Australians.

b)

In what ways did your organisation attempt to meet these goals?

WAALC members have presented at national adult learning conferences. Perhaps WAALC as a professional body that provides learning opportunities for teachers on a largely informal non-accredited basis should be defined a part of ACE?

c)

Which of these goals remain relevant in 2009-2013?

All of them especially last two. Amend fourth one to include all adult learning options as ACE.

d)

Are there any new goals or directions that should be considered for inclusion in the new strategy?

Promote and celebrate lifelong learning as an important goal for society, families and individuals. Link to health wealth and happiness.

Develop a “Life! Be In It!” style campaign which incites all adults to increase their learning activities – Learn more, and learn more often. There could be a benefit in working with the government to use this same campaign to encourage exercise as well as learning as part of a way to foster the appreciation that everyone needs access to activities that develop their mental and physical fitness.

Promote the mental health and social benefits of learning to counter-balance the perception that productivity is only about participation in formal paid work. Strong healthy individuals, families and communities also contribute to our overall productivity and wellbeing as a nation.

Key Question # 7:

a)

Is the WA ACE Advisory Committee the most appropriate instrument for governance of the sector?

No idea. Whatever body has governance of the sector should be broadly based and not simply representing a few organisations involved in some particular types of learning.

b)

Could the WA ACE Advisory Committee adopt a more active role in shaping the ACE sector in WA, as a co-ordinator, advisory or actual policy-making body?

It doesn’t seem likely.

Key Question # 8:

a)

Should the priorities of the State Training Profile influence ACE provision?

No. The State Training Profile is the funding mechanism for accredited VET provision including that of accredited general education and access programs that have mixed outcomes (employment, individual and societal objectives). Current WA ACE providers do not have the capacity to offer much of this provision and there seems little benefit to anyone in the major investment that would be required to change this situation.

b)

Does it strengthen the need for ACE to incorporate accredited, industry-focused courses?

No except by means of changing the definition to include services that already cater to the needs of industry as part of the whole picture of ACE provision. Pushing organisations such as Learning Centre Link, Telecentres and

the University of the Third Age to comply with all of the onerous and expensive requirements of accredited delivery will reduce a much valued and important set of provision of informal and non-accredited learning.

Key Question # 9:

a)

To what extent does the new ministerial declaration imply change for the WA ACE sector in terms of increasing its vocational focus, shifting its conceptual definition and strengthening data collection systems?

WA ACE provision is radically different to the situation in other states. If ACE providers in WA do not attract disadvantaged groups particularly well the goal that the COAG productivity agenda is seeking to achieve through increased use of ACE for vocational training will not be achieved here. A greater focus on VET provision may access a few more older women but many of these are already well qualified and fully engaged in employment activities. Changes that might allow WA to achieve Goal 2 and 3 might be:

· improving the way organisations that deliver language and literacy services integrate workplace and vocational objectives into their programs (these services are not defined as ACE in WA currently and are entirely delivered as accredited training)

· supporting Indigenous training organisations to offer a range of accredited and non accredited programs (like Karrayili Adult Education Centre in Karrayili). A model that allows well funded non accredited training would be necessary.

Goal 4 should not be simply seen as data collection – evidence of benefit is difficult to demonstrate simply by enrolment data but can be assessed though other types of research.

Key Question # 10:

a)

How can TAFE best contribute to the growth and increasing the vocational orientation of the ACE sector?

TAFE is a key part of the ACE sector in WA. If some funding was available for non-accredited delivery to disadvantaged groups or for priority skills areas TAFE could contribute better. For example, TAFE in the Central West has serviced a remote indigenous com unity for many years. A WAALC member reports:

“TAFE vocational courses often fail to meet the needs of disadvantaged groups because they require set numbers of students, they require the same students to turn up (for at least most of the session times) and there is a student payment requirement.

This is the case at Mungullah Community, where Central West is struggling to find its place. I found, that when I delivered courses there a couple of years ago, there was community interest in the course. However, this was dashed if the lecturer had to request interested community members to organise their enrolment before participation; we were not able to cater for occasional and sporadic interest and work with this in a supportive and 'culturally appropriate' way.

It would be great if ACE could overcome these barriers and develop courses which would support 'ad-hoc' community participation, without the current quite rigid attendance requirements. (WAALC Member, Carnavon)

These problems would be remedied by allowing some funding for non-accredited informal learning programs to whichever organisations are best placed to offer the service: in the case of many remote locations there is only one option, usually in WA, a TAFE College. These should be directly targeted to increasing the participation of the most disadvantaged people in learning of any type but also provide for their achievement of accredited vocational qualifications once learning needs have been established and relationships built.

b)

How can TAFE better manage the articulation of pathways between vocational and non-vocational courses?

TAFE can work with small community organisations wanting to be involved in formal training partnering with them to offer training.

\

Key Question # 11:

a)

What is the value to the sector of having a central organisation with a leadership role and ability to facilitate partnerships and auspicing arrangements with Registered Training Organisations? Is such a role best placed within government or in the community?

Not needed. The money would be better spent allowing for more informal non accredited training to allow for more pathways.

Key Question # 12:

a)

What can the formalised ACE sector learn from grassroots, community-based organisations such as the Men’s Sheds?

Men’s Shed is ACE, and any definition that tries to divide this initiative from the ACE sector is just unnecessarily restrictive. What all formal education (including that labeled ACE) can learn from the success of initiatives like this is that if you want to reach a wider range of people you have to provide a wider range of locations, allow for some options where people can learn from people who use language in a familiar way and who share common life experiences, culture, values etc). Barriers for learning are reduced by reducing the social distance between educator and educated and in an adult context you often don’t need to make a distinction between who is the educator - that role can move around a group depending on the skill needed at a particular point in time.

b)

Do they provide a model of access that might improve the participation of various under-represented groups including disengaged youth, people with disability or Indigenous Australians?

Men’s Sheds are simply one of the many possible learning sites that should be included in any definition of ACE. Allow for some funding to support such initiatives without insisting they must deliver accredited training because most of them will shrivel and die once they are pushed into the accredited vocational framework.

Key Question # 13:

a)

How could funding and evaluation systems be improved to ensure greater accountability and better targeting of public funds?

Set data collection up front for grants. Do not require as much data collection for non-accredited informal leaning as for formal accredited learning as the more data you collect the less the programs are flexible to cater for the needs of highly disadvantaged people (or anyone else for that matter).

b)

How would the redefinition of ACE (proposed at questions 2, 3, 8 and 9) impact upon the distribution of funds?

In the WA context we would need to continue to identify particular areas where programs similar to the First Click initiative could have a benefit that is broadly relevant to both workplaces and other objectives. ICT will have a continued need for some time to come, financial education might also be useful. Some non-accredited literacy and language programs that focus on issues important to communities such as family literacy or capturing oral histories could also be valuable.

c)

Which industries/business types might have a vested interest in the community capacity building activities of the ACE sector? Is there a possibility for forming funding partnerships with such organisations?

Banks and those industries wanting to employ more Indigenous workers.

Please return your completed questionnaire by:

Email: jaden@milesmorgan.com.au

Fax: 9380 6070

Mail: Miles Morgan Australia, 388 Rokeby Road, Subiaco WA 6008.