Adult Safeguarded Learning
Adult Safeguarded Learning includes a range of community based and outreach learning opportunities, primarily taking place through local authorities.
Working with Adult Safeguarded Learning
If you are a college or training provider working with Adult Safeguarded Learning, visit ‘all the latest’, where you can find the relevant guidance notes and the latest issue of Update, our weekly round up of business critical information and news for the sector.
Guidance, information and announcements
Adult Safeguarded Learning 2011/12
There are no substantial changes to the guidance for Adult Safeguarded Learning programmes in 2011/12 from the previous year. The Adult Safeguarded Learning (ASL) budget for 2011/12 has been maintained at the same level as 2010/11. The four previously separate funding allocations (Personal and Community Development Learning, Family Literacy, Language and Numeracy, Wider Family Learning and Neighbourhood Learning in Deprived Communities) have been combined into a single allocation. Providers are free to decide how they meet their commitments and how they respond to their local communities but must deliver a balance of provision across all four areas of ASL.
The Skills Funding Agency expects each provider to ensure that they reach at least as many learners in 2011/12 as in 2010/11, and where possible exceed this number. Learners should be recorded in the normal way on the ASL ILR which should be returned in line with the Information Authority's ILR returns timetable.
Adult Community Learning provision is available through the National Careers Service.
Customers using the National Careers Service website can search the Course Directory for Agency funded informal adult and community learning opportunities.
We request that learning providers continue to include this information in their regular updates to the directory. For assistance, please contact the Data Service.
Please be reminded that it is a condition of funding to update the Course Directory at least on a quarterly basis.
Adult Safeguarded Learning Guidance
Other Useful Information
The Learning Revolution
The boom in book clubs, on-line research and blogging, together with the continuing popularity of museums, public lectures and adult education classes, all demonstrate that people in this country have a passion for learning. They may not call it education, but this informal adult learning makes a huge contribution to the well-being of the nation. It is a revolution this government is proud to foster and encourage.
Informal adult learning is taken up for its own intrinsic value. It encompasses a huge variety of activities: it could be a dance class at a church hall, a book group at a local library, cookery skills learnt in a community centre, a guided visit to a nature reserve or stately home, researching the National Gallery collection on-line, writing a Wikipedia entry or taking part in a volunteer project to record the living history of particular community.
Although informal learning can support the development of work-related skills, this movement is made up of a kaleidoscope of part-time, non-vocational learning where the primary purpose isn’t to gain a qualification. People participate for enjoyment and are driven by their desire for personal fulfilment or intellectual, creative and physical stimulation.
Such activity also contributes to the health and well-being of communities by building the confidence and resilience of the individuals involved. The social relationships that develop as a result of this informal learning can provide networks of support and solidarity. For the low-skilled and under-confident, informal learning can be an important stepping stone to further learning and a more skilled future.
