Skilling me softly: a NIACE briefing on learning at work: taken from the NIACE Survey on Adult Participation in Learning 2006

This NIACE report shows that the government's strategy to stimulate learning in the workplace, based solidly on improving the qualifications of the UK workforce, has so far failed to change workers' learning preferences. When seeking to improve their job performance, all groups, but particularly working-class and low-skilled adults, and those who have had little opportunity to participate in structured learning, still favour informal learning. The learning divide only narrows for learning as participation - learning by doing the job, or by observation and engagement with peers and supervisors at work. A complementary point was made in NIACE's 2006 analysis of learning participation by ethnic minority adults: the groups with the lowest levels of participation - Pakistani and Bangladeshi adults - strongly preferred informal and self-taught learning. 'Skilling me softly' also reports that the youngest and oldest adult learners are less enthusiastic about training courses than people in their thirties and forties, though it does seem that women are more open to almost all the forms of learning analysed than men. All in all it strongly suggests that informal learning has more to offer the country than our current policies adequately recognise.

Published summary reprinted by permission of the copyright owner.

Related NIACE surveys on adult participation in learning are indexed from TD/TNC 86.387 to TD/TNC 86.389. Show less