Introduction


Learning is a lifelong activity. Formal schooling and adult education and training can be considered necessary in order to get ahead in life. The benefits of successful participation in learning programs accrue not only to our economy, but to other aspects of our national life as well since the skills needed to succeed in the workforce are the same skills needed to succeed as parents and citizens. Workers, parents and citizens must continue learning throughout their lives in order to compete in today's society where skills and educational qualifications are powerful factors in determining access to the wealth created by the knowledge economy. A strong foundation of basic skills and knowledge supports lifelong learning (Comings, 2007).
The purpose of this paper is to research the economic and social impact of adult learning and how it impacts growth and development. This information will be useful for educational institutions especially community-based learning centers and community colleges in providing arguments in their quest to secure funding to offer programs. The paper will present adult learning in terms of its definition, the impact that it has socially and economically, along with recommendations to support adult learning for continued growth and development.

What is Adult Learning?


Adult learning is as the terms suggests, learning by adults. This sounds relatively simple but, in fact can be very complex. For the purposes of this research paper there is a need to first define who an “adult” is in order to further explore how adult learning impacts a person's growth and development in social and economic terms. The focus of adult learning for this study was partly based on the definition of adult education and training by UNESCO in the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED-76). Adult education and training is defined as organized, structured programs of education adapted to the needs of persons 15 and older who are not in the regular school or university systems. This definition excludes students who are still involved in their first or initial cycle of education (Statistics Canada, 2001).
Ability to learn is a defining characteristic of humankind that begins at birth and continues throughout life. Learning occurs throughout life in a variety of contexts, both formal and informal. Much of what is learned is informal in that it is based upon our experiences in daily life. Various authors have pointed out that learning is actually a response to one's situation in life and that the particular stage in one's life becomes the context for learning
(Kleiber, 1999; Knowles, 1984; Lamdin, 1997; Tennant & Pogson, 1995). Freire’s educational theory presents learning as a process where knowledge is presented to us, then shaped through understanding, discussion and reflection (Freire as cited by Lyons, 2001).
Fisher's (1986, 1988) study of 786 adults over 55 years of age revealed that continued involvement in education had a positive impact by lessening anomie in the older adult's life: "Participation in education assumes control over one's life, participation may also represent an older adult's confidence in the self and its environment to a considerable degree" (p. 144). This study revealed that continued involvement in education had a positive relationship between formal education, self directed learning, and life satisfaction. Roberson (2005) reports the process of learning originates with an incentive to learn that can be internal or external. An internal incentive is usually something the person wants to learn on his or her own; an external incentive is something that others ask the person to do. Of special significance is that this incentive is often related to the life changes of adjusting to time and/or retirement, changes in one's family, and loss-both social and physical.

THIS STUDY ALSO CONSIDERS NON-FORMAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES.
Non-formal opportunities are often identified as any organized, intentional and explicit effort to promote learning to enhance the quality of life through non-school settings (Heimlich, 1993). Others described non-formal education as more present-time focused, responsive to localized needs, learner centered, less structured, and an assumed non-hierarchical relationship between the learner and facilitator (Bock & Bock, 1989; Coombs & Ahmed, 1974; Courtney, 1991; Ewert, 1989; Jarvis, 1987; Marsick & Watkins, 1990; Merriam & Caffarella, 1999; Reed & Loughran, 1984). Freire was a strong proponent of non-formal education.(Smith, 2007). While these non-formal settings are learner friendly they pose a variety of teaching challenges often not found to such degree in formal educational settings. Learners can come and go at their choosing; participation is often voluntary; there is often a wide variety of abilities and age among learners; there are regularly ongoing distractions, particularly in outdoor and public settings; and educational personnel are often hired to teach for their content expertise and may have little systematic teacher training (Taylor, 2006).

The closure of the cod fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador in 1992 resulted in the development of many adult learning centres with tremendous opportunities for displaced fishermen and plant workers to return to school. This non-formal education opportunity gave the learners an opportunity to return to learning. Many of the individuals affected were high school drop outs and others had very little formal education having left the school house for the fishing boat to earn a living. History was made with the creation of the centres where people with very low literacy skills were supported to embrace the opportunity to learn and retrain for employment and a way of life outside the fishery. The social challenges were great as individuals who lost a way of life struggled to bring focus and a purpose to everyday living. However, the gains were immeasurable as increased self esteem and self awareness combined with academic learning and computer skills gave a whole new meaning to adult education for this sector of the economy. The economic gains as well were far reaching as individuals who relied heavily on government income support for part of the year in Employment Insurance were now being trained for other sectors and were working and contributing to the local economy all year round.
Returning to school, whether to complete a high-school diploma or obtain a post-secondary credential involves a tremendous commitment of time, money and effort. Despite substantial rhetoric around the importance of lifelong learning, there are few programs and policies to support less educated adults who wish to upgrade their skills. Few workplaces offer skills upgrading opportunities to less-educated adults. No province (except Alberta under certain circumstances) provides income support to adults who are already working, even if they are working in the low-wage labour market. As a result, most adult learners must rely on family and friends and/or juggle work and school and/or incur significant financial debt. These adults must rely on costly private loans. While most adults who return to school will enjoy significant economic benefits and improved labour market prospects, these benefits are not guaranteed up
front. In most cases, returning to school requires great sacrifice and commitment (Myers & de Broucker, 2006).
It can be concluded from the research presented that adult learning can be any learning that takes place in a formal or non-formal setting that is driven by internal or external forces for individuals who are of mature age and have gone through their initial stages of education. The extent to which adults engage in a culture of adult learning is expected to impact the social and economic success of this country in decades to come. There is a need to ensure that opportunities are presented for learning to happen in order to realize the social and economic potential.

Social Impact of Adult Learning


Social returns on investment in human capital are difficult to measure. In part, this reflects difficulties associated with valuing outcomes such as the private intergenerational benefits of parental education or the non-monetary benefits associated with reduced crime. Measuring social returns to investment in human capital is problematic because collective benefits can be difficult to conceptualize and quantify in any meaningful sense. Education is positively correlated with health status, lower crime levels, and a cleaner environment. Positive outcomes have also been noted in terms of income distribution and equity, and in intergenerational transfers of social and economic values (McMahon,1997; OECD, 1998).
Adult learning can also be an important element in strategies to support social inclusion and equity. The potentially significant overall social return to adult learning is not captured in standard economic measures. For government policy makers, then, who are examining their role in enabling and supporting adult skills development, measurement of the social returns to training is important. Such measurement would include giving value to such issues as equity, income redistribution, social inclusion and intergenerational returns. Associated empirical issues are extremely problematic, since they include not only the direct measurement of returns attributed to adult learning, but also the specification of an appropriately comprehensive evaluation framework (McMahon, 1997).
There is also the possibility that some individuals may not recognize the value or return to training because of a negative attitude towards learning. Through socialization within the family, in the school and, later on, in working life, a positive disposition toward adult education becomes a part of some groups’ habitus but not of others (Rubenson & Xu, 1997). Where there is an absense of family motivation for learning and other unfavourable conditions that affect learning ability, children, especially of poor families, may not have the goal or drive to become successful learners (Heckman & Klenow, 1997 as cited in Baran, Berube, Roy & Salmon). When such children eventually mature, they bring their indifferent dispositions to learning to the workforce.
As Nesbit (2006) suggests “adult education is generally intended to ameliorate the personal and social disadvantages created by one’s circumstances and background. However, although its history bears testament to some remarkable educational achievements, too often adult education merely serves to clarify or, worse, exacerbate existing disadvantages. So it is not surprising that social divisions and the tensions they bring about are seen as critical issues in adult education” (p.171). Adult education is an essentially social and political endeavour. The struggles for power—who has it, how they use it, and in whose interests—lie at the heart of the adult education enterprise (Cervero, Wilson, & Associates, 2001). Concerned with identity and personal and social change, adult education seeks to provide the knowledge, skills, and attitudes for people to engage more fully in and shape their individual and social worlds (Nesbit, 2006).
Nesbit (2006) goes on to say that education, as a major arena of social activity, operates within a set of social, cultural, and economic relations and is shaped by cultural and economic influences (Althusser, 1971; Gramsci, 1971). It is through education that we first come to understand the structures of society and the ways that power relations permeate them. It is also through education that we learn the strategies and approaches that help us either accommodate or resist power relations in our personal and public lives. As Habermas (1972) indicated, “education is a moral and political endeavour as much as it is a technical practice, and it is thus affected by its role in maintaining or challenging the social order” (p. 172). Knowledge gives an individual power, power to influence how we live and how we build and maintain relationships with others.
Rudd (2002) reports that there is strong evidence that socioeconomic status and health are linked. Adult educators who work with low-income learners will not be surprised to learn that those who are poor or have lower educational achievement have more health problems than do those with higher income or higher educational achievement. The Secretary of Health and Human Services prepares an annual report to the President and Congress on national trends in health statistics, highlighting a different area each year. The 1998 report focused specifically on socioeconomic status and health (Pamuk, 1998). This report offered evidence from accumulated studies that health, morbidity — the rate of incidence of a disease — and mortality are related to socioeconomic factors. She goes on to talk about how life expectancy is related to family income. Death rates from cancer and heart disease, incidences of diabetes and hypertension, chronic disease, communicable diseases, and injuries are inversely related to education: those with lower education achievement are more likely to die of a chronic disease than are those with higher education achievement. In addition, those with less than a high school education have higher rates of suicide, homicide, cigarette smoking, and heavy alcohol use than do those with higher education. She suggests that the lower your income or educational achievement, the poorer your health. Thus, links between critical health outcomes and income/education are well established; however, until recently, health researchers had not examined any particular components of education such as literacy skills. This is because education itself was not the major consideration; education was only considered a marker of social status. Another barrier to examining any specific role that education might play was that specific skills such as literacy were not consistently defined or measured. A number of events have led some researchers to explore the possibility that limited literacy skills might influence a person’s health behaviours and health outcomes (Rudd, 2002). A Health and Well-Being Needs Assessment (Harrop, 2006) conducted on Bell Island, NL., was structured around the twelve determinants of health, of which education and literacy is number three. The study author identified this as one of five challenges and pointed to “the need for improved literacy levels, formal education, and training” (p. 124).
Rudd goes on to highlight that written documents in the health field were very demanding and were often assessed at reading levels beyond high school. In addition, a number of health analysts writing in the 1980s had noted connections between illiteracy and health (Grueninger, 1997; Kappel, 1988). A literature review published in the Annual Review of Public Health highlighted growing evidence in international studies that a mother’s literacy was linked to her child’s health (Grosse & Auffrey, 1989).

The social impacts of adult learning are far reaching. From every aspect of life from the moment we are conceived to our final resting place, education and learning affects us. The increased levels of confidence and skill to make informed decisions for ourselves, our families, our communities can only be gained through lifelong learning and education. The continued growth and development of a person is affected by education.

Economic Impact of Adult Learning


Traditionally, Canada and other OECD countries have relied primarily on people leaving schools and universities to meet the economy’s need for an increased supply of generic skills, such as everyday literacy and numeracy, and for occupation specific workplace skills. Canada has devoted substantial financial resources to increasing the supply of workers who are educated beyond the high-school level, to the point where it is currently one of the countries devoting the most to formal education measured as a percentage of the gross domestic product (OECD 1998). As a result Canada has the highest level of postsecondary completion in the OECD, and a comparatively high level of literacy skills in the adult population (OECD 1998).

Canada is generally recognized as having, on average, a high level of educational attainment. However, the adult learning participation rate of the least educated Canadian adults is quite low by international standards and has scarcely improved in five years. Myers and de Broucker (2006) report that a large proportion of Canada’s adult population is not equipped to participate in a knowledge-based society; 5.8 million Canadians aged 25 years and over do not have a high-school diploma or higher credentials; there is still too high a flow of young people dropping out of high-school: about 200,000 young adults have not completed high-school – this
is more frequent among young men than young women and varies significantly by province; 9 million Canadians aged 16 to 65 years have literacy skills below the level considered as necessary to live and work in today’s society (p.iii). This would suggest that less-educated individuals are likely to experience relatively poor labour market outcomes over the entire course of their career, in the form of lower wages, a higher likelihood of unemployment, and lower status jobs. Differences in labour market outcomes based on education take effect early in a workers’ career and persist throughout their lives. The difference in labour market outcomes between the least-educated and their more educated counterparts has become larger in the past 20 years. The least educated will likely fall farther behind their more-educated counterparts over the course of their careers, as ‘learning begets learning’– those with high initial levels of education are more likely to take advantage of future educational and training opportunities, and reap the rewards in the form of better, higher-paying jobs.

From this one can conclude that lifelong learning is the key to success in the high skills knowledge economy. Government policy papers argue that, by investing in themselves through education and training, Canadians can earn higher salaries throughout their lifetimes and this will enhance Canada's economic growth.

Recommendations


There are a number of ways in which adult learning can be encouraged and supported with improved communications being a priority. For example, public health and health care professionals can work to improve their own communication skills in their procedures followed for communicating with and interacting with people, and the forms and materials they write. One strategy that could be considered in order to improve the communications with health workers is suggested by Rudd (2002). She talks about encouraging health workers interactions with adult educators who could help them better understand the communication needs and learning styles of people with limited literacy skills. In addition, those in the health field are increasingly aware that a population with good literacy skills may make better use of health information and health services than those with limited skills.

Cruikshank (2007) points out that we have a stressed out workforce filled with unhappy, often underemployed, workers who are told to "do more with less" in the name of global competitiveness. Lifelong learning, in this environment, has become a survival strategy and a chore that is tacked onto an already overwhelming workload. She suggests that in order to develop policies that are supportive of workers, we must not only look at developing skills, but we must also look at the issue of jobs and job quality. We must re-think both our lifelong learning policies and our job creation policies to ensure that they benefit not only business, but also -and more importantly - workers and the communities in which they live.

There is a need to acknowledge the challenges adults face when returning to school and develop flexibility in programming and scheduling. Offering programs during evenings, weekends and through various methods such as home study, distance education, blended learning, and E-learning will make it more accessible to learners. Teaching whole group and small group activities with plenty of teacher/learner and learner/learner interaction and feedback is essential to success. New program designs are needed to facilitate and support the learning of adults engaged in self-study and to link self-study activities with program services. There is a need to acknowledge experience and to give credit for prior learning. Too often learners are required to revisit previously learned material without proper recognition for it or for the life experiences brought to the learning environment.

Lack of financing is a significant barrier for many adults. The two main sources of support for adult education are employers and self-financing. According to A Report on Adult Education and Training in Canada Learning a Living (2001) “more than 60% of those in the survey group received financial support from their employers and 29% said that they or their family had contributed. Self-financing was the most common way to finance longer studies in the form of a program (63%). Women benefit less often than men from employer support for their education and training; they have to rely instead on alternative sources of funding—mainly, but not exclusively, self-financing” (p.27). There is need for additional financial resources to be invested in adult education programs. This would eliminate some the barriers that exist for those who want to return to school but can't because of financial limitations. Provide incentives for employers to support training of their less-skilled employees. Governments investment in training geared towards meeting citizen's need for basic skills should be increased.

Myers and de Broucker in their report entitled Too Many Left Behind: Canada's Adult Education and Training System (2007) suggests that a co-ordinated approach is needed to respond to adult learners’ needs. Provincial governments need to ensure that there is an appropriate entity to co-ordinate the further development and implementation of an adult education policy framework. This entity would be responsible for ensuring the effectiveness of government-funded adult education programs and services and providing information to support management planning and decision making. Governments should ensure that potential learners have the information they need to make informed decisions about their learning options: easy-to-digest information about the range of available learning options; step-by-step guides on how to access the learning opportunity that is best for them; and enough information about the costs and benefits of skills upgrading to make an informed decision in their best interest.


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