Skills White Paper: “We Will Make Lifelong Learning a Reality…”

These are not the words of the Lifelong Education Institute, but taken from the Foreword of the government’s Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper, jointly signed by no less than three Cabinet ministers.

With the ink still drying on a 72 page document packed with detailed proposals, let’s have a look at the headline announcements through a lifelong education lens.

Raise The HE Tuition Fee Caps From Academic Year 2026/27

For the HE sector, the commitment to raise tuition fee caps in line with inflation from academic year 2026/27 onwards, and to bake this into legislation, is a big win. But as is becoming a signature theme of Labour’s policies on higher education, it comes with some highly significant strings attached – a “something for something” approach. Whatever the merits in principle of financial penalties and the re-introduction of student number controls for HE providers whose courses are deemed “poor quality” , the key question is going to be how quality will be measured. Data on student completion rates and employment outcomes needs to take into account adult, part-time, roll on/roll off students, many of whom may already be in graduate employment, and may complete their studies over a much longer period and with breaks in between. The danger is that the kind of measures currently used by the OfS are designed for traditional three year degree courses, and will inadvertently penalise lifelong education providers, and learners.

The Missing Middle

The strong focus on standalone Level 4 and 5 qualifications – the “missing middle” we’ve been debating for years – is another welcome aspect of the White Paper, as is the idea of identifying “break points” in three year degree courses where students can step off with a qualification. But once again, it makes the selection of data by which quality is measured a much more complicated issue than it is now, where anyone not completing a full degree is automatically assumed to have had an unsuccessful university experience.

The unequivocal commitment to the Lifelong Learning Entitlement is striking, but with tuition fees rising to £10,000 a year there is also a potential risk that rising cost will make adults more cautious about taking out a loan to fund their higher education. To counteract this, the benefits to the student of gaining a particular qualification will need to be made as immediate and financially tangible as possible, by carefully matching course content to the needs of employers seeking specific skills and knowledge.

Substantial Extra Investment In The FE Sector’s Infrastructure and Workforce

As for FE, the sector is being embraced and praised to an unprecedented degree, and virtually all the proposals for further education involve substantial extra investment in the sector’s infrastructure and workforce, including further expansion of the network of Technical Excellence Colleges. The encouragement of closer collaboration between FE and HE – a message directed at Vice Chancellors as well as College Principals – is also very welcome. But there’s a sting in the tail for FE too, a V shaped one. The proposal to develop a brand new suite of V-Level qualifications to replace Applied Generals risks being a major distraction, and the DfE’s long and pretty dismal track record of expensive and ineffective vocational qualification reform (anyone remember the 14-19 Advanced Diploma?) hardly inspires confidence. From a lifelong learning perspective, it appears that V-Levels will be designed for 16-19 year olds, but that leaves a big question about what vocational qualifications will be available to adult learners.

Apprenticeship Units

One answer appears to be to open up apprenticeships to adults by the introduction of “apprenticeship units” – shorter, more flexible training courses designed to complement apprenticeships which will be funded from the Growth and Skills Levy from April 2026. There’s not a great deal more that’s new on the table. While accepting that government needs to take a leading role – through the DWP – in meeting the needs of disadvantaged and vulnerable adults, the White Paper envisages devolved authorities as being responsible for most other aspects of adult skills delivery, using Skills Bootcamps, Sector Based Work Academies, and other existing mechanisms.

With apprenticeships being positioned increasingly as primarily for young people and for those seeking their first job, the document has surprisingly little to say about the future direction of the apprenticeship system. This is perhaps for the practical reason that the very recent transfer of responsibility for apprenticeships to the DWP means they need time to develop their thinking. It could also be because there are tricky funding decisions to be made. The financial incentive for employers to recoup their levy costs by putting existing staff onto apprenticeships, combined with the success of higher and degree apprenticeships, has brought the existing budget to its limit, so any funding via the Growth & Skills levy to increase the short course options employers are calling for will reduce the amount available for full apprenticeships. It’s clear that the priority in future will be apprenticeships for 16-24 year olds, so it’s likely there will be less and less funding available for adult apprenticeships

The Lifelong Education Institute has long argued that “lifelong” should not be conflated with adult education; it should be a key design principle for the whole education system. We need schools that prepare children to be lifetime learners, an 18-24 education system built around more flexible, step by step pathways to qualifications and skills, and effective adult skills provision that reaches those in the workplace.  We must guard against developing a Post-18 skills system that doesn’t properly connect to the compulsory education system, and vice versa. As Labour pulls the jigsaw pieces of its skills policy together, we must therefore hope that “making lifelong learning a reality” will become a golden thread running through all phases of education.

By Andy Forbes, Executive Director, Lifelong Education Institute