An Adult Approach To Further Education: How To Reverse The Destruction Of Adult And Vocational Education

An Adult Approach to Further Education  n Adult Approach to A Further Education ALISON WOLF The Institute of Economic Affairs contents First published in Great Britain in 2009 by The Institute of Economic Affairs 2 Lord North Street Westminster London sw1p 3lb in association with Profile Books Ltd The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve public understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society, by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. Copyright © The Institute of Economic Affairs 2009 The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. isbn 978 0 255 36586 4 Many IEA publications are translated into languages other than English or are reprinted. Permission to translate or to reprint should be sought from the Director General at the address above. Typeset in Stone by MacGuru Ltd [email protected] Printed and bound in Great Britain by Hobbs the Printers The author Foreword Acknowledgements Summary List of figures, tables and boxes 9 10 14 16 19 1 Introduction Tinkering is not enough 23 2 It really is that bad Institutional musical chairs Central direction of expenditures Central direction of content and delivery 28 25 29 38 44 3 Should we subsidise post-compulsory education and training for individuals? 55 The economic case Human capital, growth and market failure: the economic arguments for government funding of post58 compulsory education and training Summary 73 4 Should we subsidise workplace training? Training ‘on the job’ Poaching and pay scales Summary 78 79 81 88 5 Employers as educators: the sp