In the UK, further education is a bastion of Soviet central planning that has wholly avoided the market-based reforms that have been adopted in other parts of the state sector. In terms of total spending, further education is important, but hitherto - perhaps because of its complexity - there has been little serious policy analysis of the sector.
Professor Alison Wolf is one of the country's leading education academics. In this study, An Adult Approach to Further Education she explains the disastrous results of current policy and discusses, lucidly but rigorously, how reform of the sector should take place.
In An Adult Approach to Further Education, the monograph featured in this video, Alison Wolf proposes a new model for funding that is 'student centred', and which can lead to further and adult education once again making a major contribution to the building of a skilled workforce and educated citizenry. In developing her conclusions, she draws on theory and evidence - including experience of reform in higher education.