The LLN initiative is developing with commendable momentum and enthusiasm. Planners recognise the virtue of LLNs for both local/practical and conceptual reasons. Wide interest is expressed in all the sectors involved (including commercial).
Against this, there is a context of anxiety about, for example, the ‘top up fees’ future, about the mortality rate of ‘latest initiatives’, or the front-loading of time, energy and resource. Other anxieties exist, but it is NIACE’s view that these are outweighed by the positive attitude to the LLN project as a whole, and they can for the most part be readily addressed.
Some issues, however, such as the
variability of fees for similar programmes within
one LLN, are perceived as both potentially damaging and only controllable by
outside
intervention.
The emphasis on credit/progression accords is accepted as critical and immediate. Where examples already exist these are being built on, but the density of established progression models is not high. Most are local compacts for specific single pathways. Networks adopt a cautious approach to the timescale for establishing CAT schemes.
Curriculum is on a longer timescale, owing to the rate of development of closely related strategies and bodies such as the SSDA and SSCs, most of whom are only at the beginning of their ability to interact with the LLNs.
In neither the cases of credit/progression or curriculum are there current working examples which could be simply rolled as models for all LLNs; indeed this would be counter to the philosophy of LLNs as growing dynamically from their own local conditions and localities.
Lifelong learning is on the one hand at the heart of the LLN concept, while on the other a longer term vision which at this evolutionary stage is honoured more in the rhetoric than the immediate plans.
The completion date of the project is very early in the emergence of LLNs. Much remains to be done as the Networks develop, and crucially become populated with learners. NIACE strongly supports the LLN initiative, and finds in its larger ‘lifelong’ vision a concept close to the NIACE philosophy.