The Learning Age

I joined the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education in the early 2000s, at a moment when the optimism around New Labour, which had come to power in 1997 with an expansive, almost idealistic vision for adult education and lifelong learning, had begun to fade. The 1998 green paper, The Learning Age (from which this blog takes its name), far from ushering in a...

A lot of ink has been spilt trying to show that William Shakespeare – the author of the 36 plays compiled in the First Folio – was someone other than the glovemaker’s son of that name born in Stratford-upon-Avon on or around 23 April 1564.

Amateur literacy sleuths have found it difficult to imagine how someone from relatively humble circumstances – certainl...

Hamlet is a play about futures and pasts. It is about a father who has only a past, who takes his son’s future away. It is about a son who wants a different future but can’t escape the violence of the past. In the end, the past wins. It destroys the future.

I saw an adaptation of the play – well, more of a comedic revision – in Stratford in the summer in wh...

What is the point of adult education?

For several decades, the dominant narrative in adult education has concerned adaptation and resilience.

In times of uncertainty and rapid change, whether technological, economic or climate-related, we are repeatedly told, adults must adapt, upskill or reskill to ensure they remain work-ready and able to contribute to t...