Lifelong Learning (Hansard, 25 February 1998)

§ The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone)

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State is today laying before Parliament a Green Paper on lifelong learning,The Learning Age (Cm 3790). He is also placing in the Library copies of the Government's response to the report of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education under the chairmanship of Sir Ron Dearing and the response of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment to the report of the Further Education Funding Council's Widening Participation Committee under the chairmanship of Helena Kennedy QC, now Baroness Kennedy, all of which are being published today.

Lifelong learning is at the heart of the Government's education and training policies. Higher education and further education play key roles in lifelong learning. The Learning Age sets out the Government's vision for a learning society in which learning is easily available, valued and enjoyed—an everyday feature of life for 102WA all people of all ages—and we have the skilled and qualified workforce that will be essential in the 21st century.

The Learning Age aims to engage employers, trades unions, individual men and women and those who deliver and plan education and training to work with us to develop a "learning society". I hope our proposals and the questions we pose will stimulate a large response.