This event is presented by the WEA Yorkshire & Humber Region in association with the  William Alderson Memorial Trust.

Venue: St George’s Centre, Great George Street, Leeds

Date: Saturday 14 November 2009, 1:45 – 3pm

Price: Free

Professor Frank Coffield is an Emeritus Professor of Education at the Institute of Eduation, University of London. He is very well known in the education sector, and an inspiring speaker.

His recent publications include ‘Just suppose Teaching and Learning became the First Priority’ and ‘Running ever faster down the Wrong Road’.

Download the event’s flyer (doc, 231kb)

IMPORTANT: This event has been postponed until February 2010, please check back on the CALL website for further details.

Venue: Swarthmore Education Centre, 2 – 7 Woodhouse Square, Leeds LS3 1AD

Date: Saturday 17th October 2009, 10am-4pm

Price: £20 per person including buffet lunch

Swarthmore college in Leeds is hosting a one day conference on the future of adult learning with speakers and guests from across the education sector.

Speakers confirmed: Dan Taubman, University and Colleges Union; Hilary Benn MP; and Ann Walker, Workers’ Education Association.

You can download a flyer here: Adult Learning: The Future (doc, 231kb).

To register download the application form (doc, 248kb), from Kirsten McCaskill in the General Office at Swarthmore or by emailing Kirsten.mccaskill@swarthmore.org.uk.

For more information: www.swarthmore.co.uk.

Update: Note, an incorrect email address was published that has now been corrected.

The following short film on cuts to adult learning in Liverpool was shown at yesterday’s successful fringe meeting at TUC Congress.

Date: 16th September, 12.45pm to 2pm

Venue: Room 4a In the Convention Centre where the TUC is being held.

Price: free, refreshments provided.

The fringe will be chaired by Maire Daley UCU NEC and Chair of UCU Education and active member of the Save Adult Further Education campaign (SAFE) in Liverpool. It will feature speakers from WEA, NUS, UCU, NIACE and Unison and a short film made by students of Liverpool College on how cuts are affecting their education.

CALL Bulletin 11 is now available to download. This edition focuses reports of cuts to adult education across England as a result of funding and policy changes.

Download the bulletin here: CALL Bulletin 11 (doc, 301kb). Alternatively we have also made a version without graphics for a smaller file that is easier to distribute via email: CALL Bulletin 11 no graphics (doc, 54kb).

Please distribute the Bulletin as widely as possible.

Patricia Richardson, Joint Chair of Grove Park User Group Committee has sent us an indepth account of her community groups struggle to defend adult education in Lewisham through the Mayor’s Commission on Libraries and Learning. 

It is a tale of buck-passing and broken promises as local government, the Mayor’s office and national education policy failed to address the needs of an organised and vocal community.

UPDATE: CALL has now received a letter from Community Education Lewisham describing the changes in more detail, you can read it here (doc, 39kb) 

Click the link below to read Patricia’s account in full.

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CALL founder organisation has launched a petition to the Prime Minister to defend the funding to FE in the face of cuts to both adult and 14-19 provision across the UK.

The petition says:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to protect and maintain funding for the vital services that Further Education provides.

You can sign the petition on the Number 10 website here: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/FE-Funding/

In response to the announced cuts to adult education in Tower Hamlets, London CALL has issued a statement to the press urging all parties to defend the important services that serve some of London’s poorest and most disadvantages citizens.

Click below to read the full press release.

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On Sunday the London Politics Show on BBC One featured an extended report on cuts to english language courses across the capital and in Tower Hamlets and Hackney in particular.

You can watch it for the next seven days on the BBC iPlayer, the report starts at 49 minutes.

Click here to view the programme on iPlayer.

Writing in today’s Education Guardian David Blunkett, ex-Secretary of State for Education reflected on the creation of the new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills:

“But the bigger challenge facing the new department is to trust people to make their own decisions about what they need to learn. That is the key message of Call, which has brought together over 200 organisations to make the case for the restoration of college- and community-based adult education provision by professionally trained teachers.”

Read the full article on the guardian’s website.