Skilling them softly: an analysis of the experience of unemployed adult learners who are enhancing their employability skills through a programme of study.

The Moser report to the New Labour Government in 1999 confirmed that up to twenty per cent of adults in England have problems with literacy and/or numeracy skills. Following this report the Skills for Life (SfL) strategy was initiated by the New Labour Government in England in March 2001. Its primary purpose was to create learning opportunities to allow adults to advance their language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) skills, identified as a decisive factor in enabling them to engage fully with society, both socially and economically. The strategy was targeted at a variety of groups which included public sector employees, low skilled people in employment, the unemployed and benefit claimants, those supervised in the community, prisoners and other groups at risk of exclusion. A number of training programmes under the umbrella title Skills for Life were made available for these groups however; they suffered from high attrition rates. This research was conducted using a qualitative study approach and focuses on some learners in one of these groups: namely, long term unemployed adults attending an employability skills training programme (ESP). The research found that the ESP significantly reduced the attrition rates, normally associated with these learners, through its approach to teaching and learning. The thesis gives support to the case that flexible training programmes which are contextually linked to personal interests, whether social or vocational, can provide a better framework to support unemployed non-traditional learners. It concludes with suggestions for both management and pedagogic practice in the development of targeted training provision for this group of learners