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Episode 12: The future of lifelong learning
28 Plays1 day ago
Episode 12 of Talking Transformation brings together Professor Harriet Dunbar-Morris and Dr Helen Murphy to explore the evolving purpose of lifelong learning in higher education.
The conversation spans terminology – with Harriet proposing "lifelong scholar" as a term that respects adult learners' multiple identities. Curriculum co-design – where both advocate genuine partnership with learners, employers and community groups rather than tokenistic consultation; and the broader purpose of learning itself. They also push back against narrowly workforce-focused approaches, arguing that universities must preserve the fuller human purpose of education – learning not simply to be productive, but to be.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Talking Transformation' and Lifelong Learning
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to Talking Transformation.
Introducing Experts on Lifelong Learning
00:00:18
Speaker
I'm Fiona Lennox-Smith, Head of Leadership, Governance Management for Advance HE.
00:00:25
Speaker
um And today um we're going to be talking about questions about how we shape lifelong learning, thinking about the lifelong learning student and the relationship with employers and the whole underlying purpose of the endeavour.
00:00:41
Speaker
I'm delighted to be joined by two passionate champions of lifelong learning. Professor Harriet Dunbar Morris is a Principal Fellow with Advance HE and a National Teaching Fellow.
00:00:53
Speaker
She is a Professor of Higher Education and is currently Provost and PVC of Academic at the University of Buckingham. Harriet's currently on sabbatical undertaking a visiting fellowship at the University of Oxford, where her research focuses on lifelong learning and the role of the universities in supporting flexible career long education.
Roles and Responsibilities at SETU
00:01:15
Speaker
And there's a new role coming up soon. Harriet, do you want to tell us about that? Yes, so from the 1st of September I'm going to be joining the South East Technological University in Ireland as the Deputy President and Chief Academic Officer.
00:01:34
Speaker
Congratulations Harriet and thank you for joining us today. um And joining Harriet... is Dr Helen Murphy, who's Head of Faculty Education and Lifelong Learning at South East Technological University, or SETU, in Ireland.
00:01:50
Speaker
Helen's responsible for the Faculty of Education and Lifelong Learning, which has a presence across four campus locations in the south-east of Ireland, and supports over 5,000 lifelong learners.
00:02:03
Speaker
Helen led the development
Defining Lifelong Learners and Language
00:02:04
Speaker
and publication of a university-wide strategy on lifelong learning, which launched in 2025, and she oversees its implementation across the institution.
00:02:14
Speaker
Helen, we're delighted to have you with us. Thank you very much, Fiona. Lovely. um So as many of you all know, we recently had um a lifelong learning symposium at Advance HE and one of those key debates that came up was who are we talking about when we're talking about lifelong learning students?
00:02:36
Speaker
Are we talking about learners, students, participants? And so I'm curious about how they see themselves and what term might best describe them?
00:02:48
Speaker
And is one term sufficient? So Harriet, perhaps I can come to you first. Thanks Fiona. And I think it's really important. Language really matters here because it shapes who feels invited in. And I'm a professor of higher education now, but my background was in linguistics. So for me, language was very important.
00:03:13
Speaker
At the conference, we talked a lot about learners and we talked a lot about students. And I know in the Irish context, we use both of those terms in interchangeably. In fact, in in the um in the website at SETU, we use both of those terms. We tend to use student a little bit more. But learner is quite a broad, useful term.
00:03:39
Speaker
It includes both the informal and the formal education. it It allows us to talk about self-directed learning. But for higher education, where we're talking about enrolling, um getting credit, accessing funding, it doesn't feel quite right.
00:04:01
Speaker
Student is more the terms that we use for that more formal education um and is perhaps a bit more correct in terms of being in an institution. But what I'm concerned about is that for adult learners, that's not necessarily how they see themselves. Student has a different connotation.
00:04:24
Speaker
um And they have other identities. And that's what we talked about in the conference. That's not their primary identity. They might see themselves as carers. They might see themselves as employees. They might see themselves as parents. They're wearing different hats.
00:04:42
Speaker
They're returning perhaps to education after a gap. So they don't perhaps see themselves as students and they don't perhaps see themselves as learners. So
Learner Preferences and Challenges
00:04:52
Speaker
after the conference, I went away to sort of think about, well, what other terminology might there be out there that still recognizes that more formal getting credit, engaging with learning, um really sort of being very scholarly.
00:05:12
Speaker
And there I thought, we've got something there. Perhaps what we're talking about is a lifelong scholar. It carries some sort of dignity.
00:05:23
Speaker
It's more about serious engagement with knowledge. And it doesn't necessarily take away from that person's other identities.
00:05:35
Speaker
So it can work whether you were studying studying last year, five years ago, if you're engaging intermittently.
00:05:46
Speaker
And so I'd like to propose lifelong scholar as the term that might work for this. Brilliant. Thank you. That's an interesting one. um I think, and not one that we've discussed before. So definitely worthy of some consideration.
00:06:03
Speaker
Helen, what are your thoughts on this? Yeah, support a lot of what Harriet has said there in terms of identity and the importance of identity for a lifelong learner.
00:06:16
Speaker
and Because typically, some cohorts of lifelong learners we have have not been people who've participated in university in the past or are second, it is their second opportunity to come into higher education. We debated, excuse me, we debated what what we would term our lifelong learners um as part of the strategy that we introduced in the across the university last year. And we went out we asked our lifelong learners, we said, okay, what do you want to be called? And it was really interesting. and Three main um titles came back. One was learner, just generic learners. Some people were very happy with that. Others um really wanted to um for that identity to be um informed by the adult nature. Adults returning to higher education bring a wealth of experience, knowledge, life, family and so on. So they liked the term adult learner.
00:07:10
Speaker
And then very interestingly, there were a cohort of individuals who wanted to be called students. And because they were quite proud of the title of students, that they were people who um may may not have accessed higher education ever or were coming back after a long time.
00:07:26
Speaker
And for me, that's really interesting because one of the issues that we have in the university is equity of and access to um for lifelong learners to all of the support services across the university. And what we've found is when we call lifelong learners um different labels, such as um whatever it might be, adult learner, learner, they may not be fully recognized as a full student in the university and and therefore do not have access to the same level of supports that our traditional school leaving students might have. So actually, um one of the you know one of the challenges that we have in this new university, a third of our students are lifelong learners. OK, so they they represent a very significant part of what we do. And we really need them to be to feel part of the university community. and
Co-creating Curricula for Lifelong Learners
00:08:15
Speaker
to have an identity that strongly allies with the university. So, so you know, our preferred term.
00:08:21
Speaker
And we also did a a further redefinition of how we define lifelong learners within a university. because it doesn't include informal and non-formal as as per the point that Harriet was making. So we defined a lifelong learner as somebody who is usually over 23 and they come to higher education either having had a break from their formal education and and also probably accumulated some life and work experience. So we kind of further defined it because lifelong learning is terribly, terribly broad. So my proposal on what they're caught what you know we call our students are lifelong learners is what is the term that we um use. And debt but as I said, some students actually really want to be called students.
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's really interesting, I think, isn't it? um Harriet, you had your hand up for a minute. Did you want to come back in? Yeah, and when I was writing about it, I was always writing lifelong learning students because, as as Helen was saying, there's something about the students need to feel part of that whole ecosystem. Lifelong learning has to be part of everything that's happening within within the sort of student ecosystem. And if we're going to provide that support and make sure that we don't make a another group feel separate,
00:09:41
Speaker
then that's why when I was talking at the conference I was talking about lifelong learning students but scholars could be any of these students and so it's about whether we if we're thinking of a new term then we need to think of something that would work for all of the students so lifelong learning scholars scholars more generally would would still work but in the conference, there were people from other countries who felt that there was a different background to the terminology of learner and student. And and for me, learner was a sort of younger age group, although that's where perhaps when when you did your work, Helen, it was adult learner, which is a bit of a mouthful. We get a lot of mouthfuls, don't we? Lifelong learning student, adult learner.
00:10:39
Speaker
you know and then just student on its own, which people were saying in the conference was very much seen as the younger school leavers who become 18-year-old undergraduate students and people weren't necessarily seeing themselves in that same bracket, which is where we started this conversation from at at the conference.
00:11:02
Speaker
But it's good, Helen, that you went and asked the people themselves, which is what I said in the conference. Yeah. And, and, you know, I think,
00:11:13
Speaker
what we need to be mindful of, you mentioned, um you know, the age of people in terms of and the um term that they felt more comfortable with. And we gave that some consideration because we looked at um the kind of the demographic profile of who are our lifelong learners, because we hadn't really got a great sense of it, you know, we had anecdotal evidence.
00:11:31
Speaker
um And so we we mapped kind of the gender divide. And also we mapped um age And we found that the majority of our lifelong learners are in the late 30s to mid 50s. OK, that that's actually what we have at SETU. That differs in different universities. And it may be that's that different terms. I think we need to go back again to the university, the context, the socioeconomic profile of the university and look at the learners because, um, in terms of how they wish and how the university wishes to recognize and describe them. Because because we would find even Ireland is a small country quite different in in in terms of profiles.
00:12:13
Speaker
Thank you.
Engaging Employers and Partners
00:12:14
Speaker
That's I think that's fascinating. And that last point as well about thinking about the lifelong learners in a particular institution. and how they might be similar or different to a national profile or an international um profile, I think is really interesting. It's um clearly something that a lot of people are going to be wrestling with.
00:12:37
Speaker
So if we move on from that to thinking about how we're working with these adult learners or lifelong learning students or whatever we want to call them.
00:12:51
Speaker
um Starting from that assumption that we've got some really diverse needs in that community um and that they're not always as easy to reach as our kind of traditional 18 to 22 year olds are um How might we best work with them to create and design the curricula that is going to work for them and address their needs?
00:13:15
Speaker
Helen, can I come to you first on that one? Sure. So I think the the starting point is the university being open and having, um um I suppose, um a position on being open to engagement with partners. um This is something that for some universities is quite new For us, and it's something that we were kind of mandated through legislation to do for the last 30 odd years and the new university and continues in that vein. So engagement is part of one of our strategic goals.
00:13:45
Speaker
How we work to ensure, I mean, you've mentioned Fiona, um you know, getting to learners who may be difficult to reach. Okay. And that's a really, really relevant point for us because we work with partners from industry. We work with partners from community education. And we work with other education establishments. It's very diverse, the partnership. and Some of them are for economic reasons. Some of them are much more um on the social fabric, if you like, side. And how we we work with and partners in community settings, for example, um are
00:14:18
Speaker
critical to us in terms of reaching the groups that we would not be able to reach. So um when we have identified a particular need um through, we did a massive um skill survey actually last year at SETU where we looked at the region and nationally and said, what do we need? And that was both economic and social. So and when we identify a partner, sometimes partners approach us in the university um First thing we do is is really think about um do we have a common goal or a common purpose here? And and that's that's fundamental to a partnership being established. And then we're going into how do we meet the needs of their learner groups? So they will have a particular group of target learners that they wish to offer access to higher education for, if I talk about a community group. um And what we'll do is is start discussing discussing with them, what is that need? Is it a need that we have expertise in? All right. And, you know, that's that's critical. But they bring, um we have a strong research base at SCTU in terms of what we do and our programmes are very research informed. But a community partner will bring us to places that we don't necessarily know about specifically.
00:15:25
Speaker
or And they'll bring a huge practice element to um how does this actually happen if we're preparing somebody to go and work as a community volunteer or whatever it might be. They will be able to bring the practice element. So I would say as at a starting point, a common common goal, common mission. um And then we go into layers of co-creation.
00:15:42
Speaker
And that differs depending on the partner. It can be co-curriculum design, co-teaching, co-assessment. Um, et cetera. And as said, it it really varies. And maybe the final point before I hand it over to Harriet on this is that.
00:15:54
Speaker
Partnerships, we have hundreds of partnerships in lifelong learning at SETU and we categorize them if you like, in terms of whether it's an industry partner, an education partner, et cetera. So we have a a, way of a framework, I suppose, in terms of viewing our partnerships, but we also review them regularly to say, are the students getting what they need out of this?
00:16:14
Speaker
Um, is the partnership working? um Do we still have a common goal? um And a lot of the partnerships in Ireland that are created and are driven by national funding and e EU funding. So it may be that we'll come together with a partner because we've identified a particular funding stream and we'll have identified a suitable partner or they'll have identified us. So I would say partnership and engagement in higher education in the context of lifelong learning. Lifelong learning can't happen without partnership.
00:16:39
Speaker
It wouldn't happen. Great. And so what you're talking about is really that partnering with the community groups in order to make sure that the lifelong learners themselves are getting what what is needed for the task at hand.
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And also, i mean, one of the there's a lot of sociocultural factors as to why an individual who might access um support through a community group could be a lone parent, for example, and they may be accessing to get childcare, for example. But that community enterprise and is offering them a route into higher education if, for example, we're partnered with them. So in addition to some supports that they can access, it offers them and an access route, which these are individuals who wouldn't necessarily come directly to us. They wouldn't maybe feel ready. They might have a lot of fear and they mightn't have the confidence. So that's how our partners leverage that really, really well. And we often deliver on an outreach basis. you know The delivery doesn't have to happen um on on campus. ah In the university, it happens um outreach, online, blended and so on.
00:17:42
Speaker
Fantastic. It sounds really exciting initiatives going on there. Thank you for that. um Harriet, let let me ask you the same question. And I suppose I would build on that. So I'd be talking about co-creation um to build robust curricula with lifelong learning students, scholars,
00:18:07
Speaker
um but also with those partners. So one of the ways in which we can do that, for example, is through charrettes, which are time-bound design workshops, which bring together the the lifelong learning students or scholars, the professional services colleagues, the academic course teams, but also partners, employers, professional bodies, and so on, as appropriate, to work together to think about what the curricula should look like, the assessments and so on, and to think about how we do that in flexible, robust ways, taking on board the evidence that we can have that shows us where we're making assumptions about our lifelong learning students and what things need to look like when people are engaging intermittently when we're trying to assess something that is happening over ah perhaps a longer period of time or at episodic moments, how we do authentic assessment, which is more like real life, more like work and so on. But we need to be respectful of the fact that those lifelong learning scholars have other things that they need to do. so
00:19:34
Speaker
Charette happen in a very time-bound way. So we're asking people to engage with them, but we're respectful of the fact that that needs to happen over a short period of time, or that we ask people to engage with providing some input in a structured interview or in a pulse survey or through some recorded prompt so that they're giving their authentic real-life experience for use in that design workshop so that it can be used, but we're only asking them to engage for a certain period of time they know what the what the structures are that they're working within. so that
00:20:17
Speaker
everything is bounded and that we're not constantly sort of changing the the goalposts and asking for more and more because we know that they have, you know, real lives to live. And I think that's the point. We're not going to involve everyone in everything. We'll take a particular thing that we want to change. For example, you know, will we change this first assessment point? And that's the thing that we focus on, not trying to change the entire degree course. in one session or something like that. And I think that's where we do that co-creation, that real partnership work with the real people.
00:20:58
Speaker
Fantastic. So what I'm hearing there is a real sort of focus on focus. um to make sure um to make sure that we're being respectful of people's time, but also making sure that they can be the their authentic selves and give that real sort of human-centred approach to to that redesign work.
00:21:23
Speaker
Absolutely. Great. um So moving on from that to thinking about our relationships with employers in lifelong learning situations.
00:21:35
Speaker
So here it's how can we co-create work in partnership with the employers to make sure that they're really involved in developing the qualifications, the skills and the competencies um that we can then work with when we're supporting those lifelong learning students or scholars to develop.
00:21:58
Speaker
um Harriet, can I come to you on that one first, please? So it builds on that idea. So it's about ensuring that employers are involved in that partnership work, because quite often what we do is similar to what we tend to do with students. There's quite a lot of work that happens in universities generally in higher education institutions where we ask a range of people what they think at the beginning.
00:22:28
Speaker
Then we go away and do something and we come back at the end and we ask them if that was okay. So we quite often ask employers, what skills do you want? Then we go away and design something and we come back at the end and we say, does this produce the skills that you want in the people that you're going to employ? And then they say, no, it doesn't.
00:22:48
Speaker
but So if we actually want them to get educated adult learners, lifelong learners, with the skills that they say they want, then they have to be involved in that design work. And they also have to help our lifelong learners to step out of employment to engage with some of this work. So they've got two roles to play. They've got to work with us to help design the curricula that's going to develop the skills and competencies that they are going to then use in the workplace. And they've got to help people to step in and out of work to engage with the lifelong learning. So I think there are two things that they need to do and to ensure that people, as they engage with that learning, don't lose their status or their opportunities or their momentum, but that they actually gain something from that opportunity. So that would be my plea is to make sure that both work and study don't become risks in and of themselves, but they actually become opportunities.
00:24:05
Speaker
And I'm just curious about um about the willingness of employers to devote that time to this work. Is that something that we're seeing people are really enthused about or do some of the kind of conditions or even educating the employers need to take place in order for that to happen?
00:24:28
Speaker
I think that there are some employers who are very keen on that. So the employers who engage with us in advisory groups and so on, they they've built up a relationship with higher education institutions. They are very keen to do this. They see the benefits. I think there is more work to do to to widen that group of employers who engage with higher education institutions. The ones who take placement students, the ones who take students on work experience, they know what they're getting. It's the ones who don't yet know what the benefits are. There's quite a lot of communication work to do. There always is, isn't there?
Societal Purpose and Philosophies of Lifelong Learning
00:25:11
Speaker
It's like us deciding what terminology to use about about students. We need to be sure that we are explaining properly what it is that we are doing so that they understand what it is that they are getting. But at the moment, they just feel sometimes, some of them, that we say that we are doing the right thing for them and that they will get these students, these lifelong learners with these skills, and then they feel that they're not getting them. So if we're explaining that they can be involved in ensuring that...
00:25:44
Speaker
we are all doing the same thing, we're all on the same page, then we should get there um together. It's a partnership. Yes, a partnership and and more of a systemic approach, it sounds like as well. Yeah, yeah. on Thank you. And Helen, um what are your views around sort of how we should be working with employers?
00:26:07
Speaker
Sure. So um we we work heavily with employers and of lots of different, I suppose, structures at both the regional and the national level to do that. So what's helpful in Ireland is that there are one or two major funding streams for lifelong learning. which are very much focused on the skills agenda, all right? And they um they mandate um an engagement with employers so that universities don't go off and develop courses that may not be relevant to maybe what employers are need. so So it's helpful at a national level to have a clear national policy and strategy around that. And I think in Ireland that that that is very clear. And our own experiences um are that that relationship does need to be very clear. Sometimes employers will um have, I suppose, a desire for a very specific program with a quick turnaround. And we want all of that ready in the next three months, um you know, et cetera. So it is about educating employers in terms of how universities work, because we are very flexible and we will um we're very open to engagement. it' It's a core part of what we do. But there is an understanding in terms of how your university works. and
00:27:18
Speaker
But the other side of the coin and something that we see quite a lot is while employers may be very um open to engagement, um they're not so so they're not so open to releasing their staff um for um to to attend, you know be it upskilling type programs.
00:27:35
Speaker
um And that's a challenge. and We have a very large proportion of and small and micro enterprise in Ireland, but um in the Southeast, 76%. So while it's it's um' not going to say easy, but we work with a lot of the multinationals in the pharma and agri kind of tech areas. And they're they're large organizations who have fairly sophisticated HR departments who have and substantial training needs analysis, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm going to say that it can be quite really straightforward to work with them. they're very clear on what they want. But the 75 percent of businesses in the southeast of Ireland that we serve at a regional level um are small.
00:28:13
Speaker
um They really find it difficult to release people. So um time is probably the biggest challenge there. And how we're trying to respond to that is very small, flexible, bite-sized short courses. Initially, something like they can be micro-credentials or there can be other types of um minor awards. But it's OK, how can we figure this out? Because The employer can't release five people to go and learn about Gen AI in their particular business context. So how do we? And that's the really tricky bit, you know. And also we have ah a question to ask, should we be doing this or is this a role for a different type of education institution? So I think in the university, we need to be quite clear about how flexible can we be?
00:28:56
Speaker
We're all asked to be more and more flexible all of the time. and But there comes a point where maybe maybe we're not the right vehicle for a particular type of upskilling. um initiative initiative.
00:29:11
Speaker
And I think Fiona, if I may, I think it's wider, isn't it? Lifelong learning is wider than just upskilling people. You know, education is more than giving people skills and responding to the labour market. I mean, for 50 years since since four and 30 years since Delors, we've been talking about learning to be Learning to, education is more than just getting the skills to do a job.
00:29:43
Speaker
And we sometimes lose sight of that when we're responding to some of these policy drivers and this economic, you know, everybody's going to higher education to get a job. yeah where We are higher education institutions. We're supposed to be educating are lifelong learning scholars, which brings us back to that idea of what is the term that we're supposed to be using. And I think that's why scholar is a better term because it is wider. It is about that education brief that that we're supposed to have. um And I think that's very important. What Helen was just saying, sometimes we're not the right vehicle for this because
00:30:26
Speaker
actually, if employers just need to upskill some of their staff, perhaps they should be doing that themselves rather than looking to some of us to to do that. Exactly. And there is, I mean, you'd both be very familiar with the very big debate um that is happening in terms of lifelong learning, being driven by a very neoliberal agenda, which is completely focused on the workforce, which in Ireland, we've lot multinationals, as I mentioned. So Should we be um simply adding to their profits, which are not redistributed? I'm just back from European Conference where there was a very, very big discussion, lively debate about this. um Or is the purpose ah of university lifelong learning much, much broader, which I firmly believe it is,
00:31:12
Speaker
um Because we're a society and the economy is part of the society, but it's not the entirety of the society. Society has a deep fabric in our communities, in how we live and how people access learning. So that social aspect of opening up opportunities that are not necessarily work related. and I'll finish on this because we have a wonderful project where we work with family carers. So individuals who who typically have not accessed higher education and are completely isolated. And they now can access um short um award programs through ourselves, through a partnership that we have at national level with the National Agency for Family Carers. And, you know, attending their graduation last October, the stories that they have in terms of how transformational and that experience of accessing and meeting a group of peers who they do not typically have access to and the level of support that they were able to get through that. And and for them, it it wasn't about getting a job. Some of them may well go on to do other things, but um they really, um I really found it wonderful um and and very um satisfying to see that those more social aspects of transformational change that can be delivered through lifelong learning are exercised in different ways.
00:32:31
Speaker
I would say that's super important. And, you know, something that came out of the symposium was the real importance of not forgetting the joy and the purpose of learning that goes beyond that labour market those labour market and demands um that we're talking about and the need to really make sure that our offers reflecting that wider piece of society um as well Harriet did you want to come and say any more on on that
00:33:04
Speaker
um
00:33:07
Speaker
yes I mean Thor talked about which is more than 50 years ago was that we were supposed to be learning to be and then Jacques Delors talked about four pillars learning to know learning to do learning to live together, and again, learning to be, which fits very nicely with the sort of work that I've been doing about being, belonging, becoming, which is what I've been supporting students in in the whole higher education institution to do, which is about giving people that purpose ah around what they do when they're in higher education and trajectory, it's a very difficult word to say, trajectory, um
00:33:54
Speaker
into what they do in their later lives. And I think that's really important because what seems to have happened is that education has become about learning in order to become employable.
00:34:11
Speaker
And it it has narrowed down so much through a variety of different policies and and instruments including at the moment in England, the lifelong learning entitlement, which is a policy instrument to give people the opportunity to learn over the life course, but still extremely focused towards an employability agenda and particular subject areas effectively, the industrial strategy decides where that funding will go. And I think we are at a point where we need to consider whether that is moving away from what higher education is about, which is supporting the development of the whole person.
00:35:01
Speaker
to Absolutely. And just to, and Harriet is quoting um Jack Delore and Four, who did talk about learning to be, and I know I have to look do a deep dive into critics of this area. And um and Gert Biesta, I always remember his comment, which is, life it's not learning to be productive.
00:35:21
Speaker
The statement was learning to be. It wasn't learning to be productive. So, um
Institutional Support for Lifelong Learning
00:35:27
Speaker
because that's way too narrow. Brilliant. Thank you. I love that.
00:35:33
Speaker
And so just as one last question, um and fairly briefly, i think from both of you, the kind of so what question. So taking all those things into account, what's most important for institutions to be doing to support the staff to be able to make this kind of lifelong learning that we're talking about here happen?
00:35:59
Speaker
Um, Helen, can i come to you first on that question? Okay. So what's most important, um, in order for a university to prepare, to engage with lifelong learning from, I think it's at multi, multiple levels, Fiona. So if we start with staff, it's an awareness of, um, the pedagogical approaches that are appropriate for lifelong learning. They are not the same as going into a lecture hall with 217, 18 year olds, um,
00:36:25
Speaker
So one thing, one observation that I always make is, guess what? um Lifelong learners ask questions and they disagree with you. um So um ah in all honesty, um you know, we do a lot of work around andragogical approaches, around how do we bring a group of adult learners together and how do we scaffold what they already know to reach higher levels of learning using the learning that's in the room? So For some individual academics, it really is a huge shift in philosophical mindset in terms of their role. They are not Socratic. They are not the person who is imparting knowledge. They are a facilitator, a very excellent and ah facilitator of adult learning is able to make the learning deeper and richer with the people in the room because they need to listen and recognize the expertise that people bring to that based on any subject, any module or anything that people are doing. So we are spending quite a lot of time in engaging with um academics in terms of approaches to teaching, learning and engagement with adult learners.
00:37:29
Speaker
And then there's a whole policy framework that sits all around that, which might, and the only one I'll mention um really that's important to us is recognition of prior learning. So how do how do we make the university inviting to an adult learner? And so and it is it's it's multiple layers, but maybe that's just a a quick summary of of one or two. Fabulous. Thank you. And Harriet, what are your thoughts?
00:37:55
Speaker
Well, similarly, I would say... um Designing and redesigning lifelong learning can't be done on on goodwill alone. We need to provide time, workload allocation, professional development. We need to provide data. We need to provide facilitation. We need to provide governance support.
00:38:17
Speaker
And co-creation, as we've discussed, takes time. Charette's, as I've described them, take planning, partnership with employers takes coordination and designing assessment and pathways takes academic labor.
00:38:37
Speaker
um So that is core educational work. It's not an add on. It's not something you can do alongside the day job. So we need to be able to create the opportunities for people to do that and the support for people to do that. I think we need the ability to support people to have time together to do a charrette with the data that they need and the support to deliver it and take it through all the appropriate processes to implement it. And I think that's something that needs to be recognized through an institutional structure um and supported. One of the things that I've been working on through my visiting fellowship is a toolkit to support senior leaders to work with academic teams to do that. And that's something that I'll be launching shortly um for the year.
00:39:42
Speaker
higher education community and I hope that that will help but it will take institutions the need to support that and and implement it fabulous um Harriet and Helen this has been a really fantastic conversation I've really enjoyed it and I've loved the richness of where we've gone so thank you both so very much um for that and if you've enjoyed the podcast today please subscribe um there will be more coming soon