The very term makes many people cringe, conjuring up visions of classes in basket weaving, yoga and home baking. It’s not that people don’t do things outside of work—New Zealanders are incredibly engaged in hobbies and sport in which a great deal of informal learning is taking place, but as a society that enthusiasm does not translate into wholesale support for classroom learning once we move beyond our early 20s.
It’s quite different in many of the countries that we tend to compare ourselves to. While working in Denmark for example, I was impressed by how continuous learning was credited with creating a highly skilled workforce as well as a strong Danish identity—ensuring its citizens could compete successfully with their brains in a continent where they are surrounded by people who are very good at what they do.
In Canada. I had the privilege of spending 15 years working in continuing education in Calgary, a city where one in three adults were undertaking some kind of formal learning outside of work. Rather than emptying out each weekend, there were hundreds of people in their ‘30s to ‘50s on the University of Calgary campus, pursuing their first degrees through the Weekend University. Of course it wasn’t just the learners, lecturers and tutors were there on the weekends too and happily so—the joys of teaching motivated, engaged adults are well known in the profession.
The private sector was the biggest driver of the high uptake of adult education in Calgary—business leaders encouraged their staff to remain competitive by continually upskilling themselves. But even though employers were supportive—some even giving cash grants to staff each year to subsidise whatever learning they decided to do—it wasn’t a case of people feeling forced into something. Nor were they doing it for credits or pieces of paper. Lifelong learning is intrinsically valued and many people choose to spend disposable income on it, ahead of restaurants or theatre tickets.
I recognise that it’s harder in New Zealand, a nation of small business owners, to champion continuous education. But both government and the university sector can and should take a lead. The people who tend to benefit most from continuous learning—those in their ‘30s to ‘70s—are citizens, taxpayers, voters and parents. In other words, an audience the Government needs and should be talking and listening to.
Universities are increasingly focused on engaging with a wider audience than school leavers. As they think creatively about what they offer, adult learners are an attractive option. It’s a growing demographic and one that has money, time and incentive, given our rapidly changing work environment where new skills and perspectives are constantly required if we are to stop New Zealand’s well-publicised fall down the OECD rankings.
This year, Victoria University celebrates 100 years of delivering high quality and diverse adult education programmes. Many of New Zealand’s most influential leaders and thinkers have participated in our programmes over the decades, as tutors and students. At the same time, Victoria is focused on revitalising the civic university tradition and highlighting its commitment to civil society and global citizenship. That bodes well for continuing education as we begin our next 100 years.
One of my personal ambitions is to transform our Pipitea Campus into a buzzing, thriving learning hub on the weekends and evenings, a place where people from all of our disciplines engage with adult Wellingtonians and foster a love of lifelong learning.
Adults of all ages are fundamentally curious and there has never been a better time to learn with the instantaneous access we now have to information and knowledge sources. Our challenge, and it’s one that Victoria is taking on, is to change attitudes towards investing and participating in continuous lifelong learning. New Zealand has much to gain if we can create the infrastructure to support this and match a growing lifelong learning habit.