Learning shops on the High Street | JOHN TIBBITT from Policies for Places

Recently I attended a seminar at Glasgow Caledonian University, organized in memory of the late Professor Jim Gallacher, formerly Professor of Lifelong Learning at the University. Professor Gallacher’s main interests on which he published widely were in the fields of widening access to higher education, the role of colleges of further education and the transition from further to higher education.  The seminar heard from several speakers who offered up-to-date perspectives on these issues and particularly on efforts to recognize the benefits of pathways to higher education through further education.

A striking conclusion from the seminar was that despite several decades of research and advocacy on this issue in Scotland and some policy initiatives from the Scottish Government, the number of people using this access route to higher education had increased only marginally. The issue of widening access remans as urgent as ever if Scotland (and the UK generally for that matter) is to raise its skills base in an increasingly competitive economic world.

On a very different tack, also in the last couple of weeks the UK government announced a programme of funding to re-invigorate High Streets in numerous towns in the UK including 7 in Scotland which for many reasons have suffered decline, leading to boarded up shops and poor environmental facilities.  The funds, of up to £20m for each place over several years is part of the government’s ‘levelling–up’ policy intended to raise the economic prospects and quality of places in poorer performing areas of the country.  It will be for local councils to determine the ways these funds will be allocated in order to address local issues of priority in each place.

Time for some joined-up thinking?

The juxtaposition of these two seemingly disconnected events highlights policy contexts which are not often linked, but perhaps should be. Widening access to further and higher education is usually seen as a matter for education policy and practice. Policy solutions are typically sought through improving advice and guidance, better articulation between qualifications, and curriculum and approaches to teaching and learning.  Urban regeneration on the other hand is taken forward through local environmental improvements to increase the attraction of town centres both for people in leading their daily lives and to encourage investment to stimulate local economies and opportunities for employment.

There is, of course, an obvious bridge between the education and planning policy narratives: investment in local economies and opportunities depends on an adequate skills base in the local population and a skills mix to support and attract employers.

So why have attempts to improve access to learning and skills and to encourage progression through to higher education moved the dial so little? There are a number of relevant factors, but one I am interested in here is about making participation in learning a more normal part of the life of a place alongside shopping, recreation, and cultural activities. Learning would become more socially inclusive and normative.  It would not require negotiating access to special and for some, rather intimidating institutions.

There has been plenty of discussion in recent years about the relationship between further and higher educational institutions and the communities in which they sit. Many HEIs now take this issue seriously and have taken a variety of initiatives to reach out to businesses and local authorities to assist with research for product and policy development.  Many have however been less good at fostering ways in which communities can ‘reach in’ to institutions for assistance in addressing their particular priorities. Many universities are on large out of town campuses. Even when they are city-based they are often concentrated on a city campus which is not always easy to penetrate.  The same can be true of further education colleges, which although locally-based, have tended to be housed in larger modern buildings not always in the most accessible parts of town.

Urban planners are at the same time searching for alternative roles for the high street in the face of changes in retail habits, employment patterns and technology.  Solutions are sought in various ways, for example making streets into attractive public spaces, with reduced traffic and interesting street furniture to encourage social interaction. There are moves to encourage the re-use of shopping space for cultural activities and health and sports facilities.  Steps are being explored to increase residential provision in town centres through ‘densification’ of housing on brown-field sites or though adaptation of disused shopping malls and other buildings. Re-design of town spaces can include more activity and performance spaces to foster creativity in young and old.

Joined-up policies

Policymakers are always being accused of working in policy silos, and unwilling to look outside their field for more holistic solutions. As colleges seek to make themselves more available and accessible to their potential clientele, and planners look for imaginative ways to revive urban centres, the concept of a ‘learning shop’, (just as some banks have re-branded themselves as ‘money shops’) as a way of establishing learning as a normal everyday activity. Widely available and well-placed learning shops would be more than advice centres and could provide ‘bitesize’ elements of learning based on individuals’ real world activities to help build confidence in users (customers?) and help the recognition of the relevance learning and skills to daily living, job search and career progression. Learning shops located on the High Street would be seen every day. They might even increase footfall on the street, to the benefit of other traders.

There are plenty of challenges both for learning providers in putting together suitable products and marketing to attract users, and to planners to provide high profile premises and locations for such ventures. If the model could be made to work it would contribute to educators concerns about widening access, planners concerns to re-think the role of High Streets, communities who would have a richer quality of place and local employers would be able to more readily access people with the skills they require.

Would it work?

This is not an entirely new concept. A prominent example of the learning shop concept is on the large Broadwater retail and entertainment complex in Kent. The Learning Shop there is within the Broadwater park which draws customers from a wide area. It offers support for individuals and for employers. Individuals can access assistance with job applications and CVs and retail and hospitality training in 2-hour modules. It acts as a recruitment agency for the employers on site. It can act as bridge between schools and employment, and works closely too with local colleges.

In a totally different environment another example is the Learning Shop in Stornoway in the Western Isles. It offers a comfortable environment for adults looking to learn new skills, tailored to each individual’s needs, the learner having equal input to the pace and style of the learning sought. The learning offered can help adults with literacy and computing skills and supports learning groups focused on communication and life skills and access further training.

These illustrations suggest the idea can work in as diverse locations as large out-of-town retail parks to remote island towns. My concern is that such resources as these are not a commonplace in disadvantaged and run-down town-centre main streets. The widespread presence of learning shops in otherwise vacant shopping units offers a readily available normal community resource which can drive both widening access to learning and urban renewal in order to build better places.

Source: Susbtack