About NIACE Dysgu Cymru

NIACE (The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education - England and Wales is a non-governmental organisation working for more and different adult learners.

NIACE DC Staff 

What is NIACE Dysgu Cymru

What does NIACE Dysgu Cymru do?

What is distinctive about us?

The NIACE Dysgu Cymru Management Group

NIACE - its Origins and Development

What is NIACE Dysgu Cymru?

NIACE Cymru was established in 1985 to advise national and local government on issues affecting adult learners in Wales. Following devolution and the election of the first Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) in May 1999 NIACE Cymru adopted a revised remit as NIACE Dysgu Cymru underpinned by the same NIACE core values.

• Since devolution the range and complexity of NIACE DC’s work, and its staffing base, has expanded significantly, to meet the challenges of policies seeking to make lifelong learning a reality for everyone. Expansion has brought an enlarged framework for dialogue with learners, practitioners, policy makers and government.
• NIACE Dysgu Cymru contributes to a range of Government consultations across different Ministerial portfolios including the Department for Education, Lifelong Learning & Skills, Department for Enterprise, Innovation & Networks, Department for Health & Social Care and the Department for Culture, Sport & the Welsh Language.
• Since 1998 NIACE Cymru, and more recently NIACE Dysgu Cymru engaged in a range of programmes of work on participation, seeking to widen opportunities and improve learning experiences for groups under-represented in education and training. Many of the core proposals deriving from NIACE’s work are the declared aspiration, if not yet the daily practice, of public policy in Wales.

What does NIACE Dysgu Cymru do?

NIACE DC:

• Advocates in particular on behalf of those adults who are least skilled, most disadvantaged and whose motivation, economic and social circumstances present barriers to engaging in learning.
• Promotes adult learning through organising Adult Learners' Week and the Sign Up Now campaigns, to motivate adults to want to learn and in support of local education and training providers.
• Facilitates the Wales Learners Network which enables Learners to contribute to and influence policy development and the provision of learning opportunities in Wales.
• Organises the annual Inspire Adult Learners and Adult Tutors of the Year Awards as well as the Group and Innovation Awards.
• Monitors the policy making processes of the National Assembly, produces reports, responds to consultations and produces briefing papers to inform and influence policy development as it affects adult learners.
• Services the All Party Assembly Group on Adult Learning which meets termly at the National Assembly and engages learners, practitioners and policy-makers in debate on current issues in adult learning.
• Acts as an agent of change through piloting innovative approaches to engaging adults in learning and conducting research and development work.
• Supports practitioners through organising conferences and events to encourage the sharing of ideas and good practice in lifelong learning.
• Encourages and supports collaboration between sectors for the benefit of adult learners.
• Publishes the Learning Wales newsletter which is circulated three times a year to all members.
• Maintains the NIACE Dysgu Cymru web-site www.niacedc.org.uk as a key source of up to date information on developments in adult learning.
• Gives access through its links with NIACE to a vast range of definitive publications and expertise in the field of adult learning.

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What is distinctive about us?

• NIACE Dysgu Cymru comprises some 110 organisations including Local Authorities, colleges, universities, community and voluntary organisations and individual members throughout Wales.
• NIACE Dysgu Cymru is an independent body run by an elected Management Group, representing all sectors bonded by a common purpose of focusing specifically on the needs of adult learners.
• NIACE Dysgu Cymru is funded partly by the National Assembly, through research and development projects and through the subscription fees of its members.
• NIACE is a registered Charity based in Leicester and NIACE Dysgu Cymru Management Group develops policy and manages operations in Wales through its office in Cardiff

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The NIACE Dysgu Cymru Management Group

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NIACE – Its Origins and Development

The Institute’s roots lie in the British Institute of Adult Education (BIAE) established in 1921, which generated initiatives that led to the establishment of the British Film Institute, the Arts Council, and the Army Bureau of Current Affairs (ABCA). BIAE had individual membership, and strengths in university and voluntary sector provision. In 1946, local education authorities (LEAs) formed a National Foundation for Adult Education (NFAE), with institutional membership. In 1949, BIAE and NFAE merged to form the National Institute of Adult Education (NIAE), with a formal remit substantially unchanged until today.

The object of the Institute, as formally defined in its constitution, is ‘the study and the general advancement of adult continuing education’.

In pursuit of this object, a number of functions are identified:

• convening conferences, seminars and meetings;
• collecting and disseminating information;
• conducting enquiries and research;
• publishing and distributing publications;
• undertaking special projects, and administering special agencies set up by the Institute’s general meeting;
• developing co-operative relations with organisations, institutions and individuals promoting adult continuing education in other countries, and with appropriate international organisations;
• representing the interests of adult learners and the bodies that serve them;
• renting, leasing, buying or selling property to facilitate its work or that of agencies for which it is responsible.

Fifties and Sixties

The work of NIAE and its membership in the 1950s and 1960s reflected the broad areas of provision for ‘non-vocational’ adult education – with a major focus on LEA adult education services, university extra-mural provision, the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) and other voluntary bodies. Much of its work was geared to securing an adequate professional basis for adult education services, and the Institute published major reports on Accommodation and Staffing (1963) and Adequacy of Provision (1970).

Seventies and Eighties

NIACE (the C – for continuing – was added in 1983 to secure additional funding) increasingly focused on the needs of adult learners with unequal access to educational opportunities, and to the full range of post-school institutions. Its work contributed to, and was shaped by the Russell Report (A Plan for Development, DES 1973); the Open University’s Venables report, and the Advisory Council for Adult and Continuing Education’s ‘Continuing Education: From Policies to Practice’, 1982. Much of its creative activity was channelled through Government funded units within NIACE – the Adult Literacy Resource Agency (ALRA) (1975-8), and its successors the Adult Literacy Unit (ALU) (1978-80), and Adult Literacy and Basic Skills Unit (ALBSU) (1981-1991) for literacy and numeracy work; REPLAN (1984-1991) which supported provision for unemployed adults; the Unit for the Development of Adult Continuing Education (UDACE) (1984-1992) – which undertook research and development studies across a wide range of fields. In Wales, NIACE Cymru was established in 1985 to advise national and local government on issues affecting adult learners in Wales. NIACE’s work had a strong international dimension during these years.

Nineties

The decade began with the closure of REPLAN; the transfer of UDACE’s funding to the Further Education Unit (FEU); the granting of independence to ALBSU (later to become the Basic Skills Agency) and the publication of proposals which would have ended public subsidy for most uncertificated adult learning. NIACE’s advocacy work in partnership with members, providers, local authorities and, notably, the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) was successful in amending policy, but the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act created an artificial split between certificated and uncertificated provision that shaped much of the adult offer during the decade. NIACE strengthened its advocacy capacity – in part through the All Party Parliamentary Group on Adult Education, which it serviced – established Adult Learners’ Week as a successful annual festival; greatly strengthened its research and development base, its publishing and conference capacity, and focused more systematically on the reasons for the learning divide, which leaves large groups within the UK under-represented in post-school learning.

A Europe-wide concern to strengthen lifelong learning policies was reflected in increasing attention being given to post-compulsory education in England and Wales through the mid-1990s. This was reflected in the work of the Further Education Funding Council’s Kennedy report on widening participation (Learning Works, 1997) and the Tomlinson report (Inclusive Learning, 1996) on effective strategies to secure appropriate provision for adults with learning difficulties and disabilities. NIACE contributed actively to both reports.

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