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This paper uses the example of engagement with UK welfare-to-work programmes to illustrate the complexity of the finanancial decision-making facing those who make the transition between claiming benefits and waged work or to recombine both afresh. It highlights the ways in which British Government policies to reduce welfare spending and encourage low skilled individuals into low paid work increasingly require them to make sense of the inter-relationships between wages, social security and local authority benefit entitlements and the associated systems of payment. Adults with limited skills in financial literacy are ill-prepared to exercise such functions of citizenship in a risk society, yet little help is currently available to them. A programme of radical adult education, including access to independent and impartial welfare rights and financial information. advice and advocacy, is proposed to assist individuals in making informed decisions about the financial consequences of moving from benefits to wages. Show less

Drawing on in-depth interviews with sheet metal workers on a picket-line in Coventry, this paper explores the issue of working class men’s non-participation in return to learn courses in the UK, in a context in which government policy to upskill the workforce is focusing on individual employability and partnership working with employers. Recognising the complex nature of (non)participation, the constraints of material factors and lack of access to free, impartial and comprehensive educational, vocational and related financial advice and guidance emerge as key issues.

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This article describes the author’s experiences of tutoring on a College of Further Education BTEC [Business and Technology Education Council] course designed to enable qualified nurses to continue their professional education. In particular, it focuses upon the relevance of an individual module on ‘Caring for older people’ for enrolled nurses seeking conversion to registered nurse status. It discusses ways in which students who were keen to extend their knowledge and further their careers in nursing were poorly-served by a system which stood to profit from their fees but which paid little attention to meeting their self-defined most pressing needs.

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