By Harry Thompson, Head of Fair Economy, Cynnal Cymru – Sustain Wales

It’s great to be asked to write a piece to mark Adult Learners’ Week – particularly on the topic of adult learning and its impact on progression at work.

At Cynnal Cymru, our Fair Economy team has two main workstreams. We’re the Living Wage Foundation’s accreditation partner for Wales, so we’re responsible for supporting the real Living Wage movement, and the associated accreditations, across Wales. We do this in partnership with the Welsh Government, who provide funding for this purpose as part of their focus on Fair Work.

The Foundational Economy is also a key concept for us – working on the area of the economy that provides the basic goods and services on which every citizen relies, supporting its workforce to be fairly treated and rewarded, and ensuring that the services all of us rely on are as high quality as possible.

Adult learning is a key mechanism by which we can build a fairer economy, and therefore unsurprisingly links in with both of these areas.

We all know that higher skill and education levels are key drivers of economic success, both for individuals and across geographic areas. If we want Wales to have a prosperous economy where the benefits of that prosperity are distributed evenly, then education and skills are going to be a core focus.

In particular, work can and should be a route out of poverty. But our current economic models have created too many in-work poverty traps, where workers aren’t paid a living wage and aren’t given a means to progress in their careers. We encourage all employers to pay their staff a living wage, but tackling poverty is a challenge that requires a holistic approach.

That’s where adult learning and in-work progression come in. There’s a reason CIPD guidance for managers on tackling in-work poverty encourages employers to pay a living wage and to support in-work progression. They’re spot-on when they describe in-work progression as a potential light at the end of the tunnel for people living in in-work poverty. Investing in the skills of their workforce is something that employers, government, and trade unions can contribute to in a way that benefits all of us.

It’s no secret that our skills and education systems are still set up in an incredibly front-loaded way. We have free universal school-age education, before a fork in the road where learners are expected to choose between the academic or vocational route – often an irreversible decision in practice. Fees and associated loan systems can trap people into the route they choose at 18. The academic route, for example, is now associated with huge costs, with learners tied to that path by design (secondary loans for a change of direction are usually not available, or financially practical).

This is true for those who do not take the academic route, too. Under our current system, the necessities of everyday life such as working to pay the bills dramatically reduces people’s opportunities to develop skills and further their formal education.

In a world where individual welfare and wider economic prosperity are increasingly tied to our skills and education, and where ‘jobs for life’ are increasingly scarce, increasing access to adult learning therefore makes sense for people, governments, and employers. It’s also critical to a holistic approach towards tackling poverty – allowing for in-work progression out of low-paid roles.

The problems in our current system are clear. Education and upskilling are predominantly front-loaded and too often viewed, by people, employers, and government, as an early-life endeavour.

If we know the problems, I will end on a positive by giving an example of a positive example of adult learning that has been used here in Wales, and could be used more widely.

One issue our front-loaded learning systems create is the fact that many professionals will require a certain level of GCSEs or A-levels to even be given a look-in for a job. People don’t often have the time and space in their lives to try and redo these qualifications, and are therefore locked out of many employment opportunities.

Those familiar with the Foundational Economy concept will know that there is a focus on what ‘anchor’ institutions can do for their local place. As part of our work in this area we developed a case study on Hywel Dda University Health Board’s decision to ‘grow their own’ workforce and start an Apprenticeship Academy.

Hywel Dda had noticed that they were spending an increasing amount on agency staff, in response to a shortfall in nurses. Hywel Dda covers Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion, and Carmarthenshire, so this situation was in many ways unsurprising. Rural areas often suffer from NHS staffing shortages, and Hywel Dda was no different, with no nursing college in the area and those who aspire to that career path often taking up job offers where they trained.

The Academy allowed local people who may not have the prerequisite GCSEs for a nursing post to undertake an apprenticeship. This has a number of benefits – from developing a new healthcare workforce in an area where there are staffing shortages, from a cohort of people who are predominantly locally-rooted and likely to stick around for the long term, as well as providing high-quality employment opportunities for people which our front-loaded learning system too often locks people out of.

The scheme has proven hugely popular – initially there were over 600 applicants to only 40 places. This is constrained as the Academy has taken a principle of not taking on an apprentice unless there is a job available for that person at the end of the apprenticeship programme. The Academy has now pledged to deliver 1,000 apprenticeships by 2030.

Tackling NHS workforce shortages, providing routes out of poverty for those locked into low-paid work, and contributing to the local economy – what’s not to like?

This is just one example of the power of adult learning and its potential impact on in-work progression – the challenge now is to get the rest of Wales working in the same way.