About

Many people learn for pleasure or interest.  The learning might take place in an adult education class, in a support group, at an open lecture in an art gallery, at work, with a choir or in a reading group people have organised for themselves in a library.  People are almost always taking part in this type of learning for its own sake rather to get a qualification. They might move on to study their subject in more depth or try something completely new. The government describes all this as ‘informal adult learning’, and has recently published a White Paper called The Learning Revolution which describes how they would like things to change, improve and develop.

In the consultation that led to the White Paper, many people asked for better information about informal learning.  They wanted information to be pulled together online so that it’s much easier to find out about learning opportunities, events, activities and low cost spaces that can be booked for self organised activities like reading groups.  People also said that they would like fuller descriptions of activities so that they can make better choices about all kinds of learning , whether it’s in the public, voluntary, self-organised or private sector.

The white paper stated:

3.16 We want to create sustainable, online spaces where adults can go and find out about all the different kinds of informal learning opportunities in their local area. The information needs to include public, voluntary, self-organised and private sector learning as well as e-learning opportunities. Such a site needs to give learners the opportunity to post feedback on the quality of their learning experience and make connections with other learners. We also recognise from the large number of comments during our consultation that we need a directory of ‘open spaces’  – free and low-cost spaces and facilities for self-organised groups.

3.17 But Government is not best placed to design or deliver these products. We want to harness the power and imagination of leading innovators to design solutions which help people navigate information more easily. And the thousands of people and organisations who have been engaged in the consultation and who are passionate about this kind of learning need to be engaged in the design, population and maintenance of a site if it’s successful.

3.18 So building on the success of the Cabinet Office’s ‘Show us a better way’ initiative, we will run a competition to invite developers to show us just what’s possible. We’ll offer funding to help start up the best ideas and invite some leading local authorities and their partners to work with us to share data and to test application on the ground.

Teach us a Lesson is that competition.

We want you to submit your ideas, comment on other people’s, rate them and generally join in this community. We’ll be running an event to get everyone together in a room for a chat, to help bring people with connected ideas together to see if something even better can result from collaboration.

In December, we’ll be giving grants from a total pot of £25,000 to help develop some prototypes. Those prototypes will at the very least inform the development of the national learning directory, and hopefully will form major parts of its foundations.