Unlocking the potential of Skills for Life (SfL) tutors and learners: a critical evaluation of the implementation of SfL policy in England

Abstract

This paper uses data from interviews with eleven Skills for Life (SfL) practitioners in the North East of England to highlight how instruments for the implementation and evaluation of SfL policy are shaping practice at the local level. The paper concludes that the means being used to implement and evaluate the success of SfL policy are constraining practice in a number of ways which are not in line with the intentions of political or policy professionals. Such unintended consequences range from responses to SfL policy which simply frame practice in terms of outward imperatives of the market; through to technical-instrumental responses construed in terms of the simple acquisition of a set of pre-specified ‘skills’; to other, more inwardly directed responses, premised upon concerns for the more holistic educational needs of learners.

How to Cite

Gregson, M. & Nixon, L., (2011) “Unlocking the potential of Skills for Life (SfL) tutors and learners: a critical evaluation of the implementation of SfL policy in England”, Teaching in Lifelong Learning 3(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.5920/till.2011.3152

Download

Download PDF

518

Views

358

Downloads

Share

Authors

Maggie Gregson
Lawrence Nixon

Download

Issue

Dates

Licence

Identifiers

Peer Review

This article has been peer reviewed.

File Checksums (MD5)

  • PDF: fc390f2adf0b4ff29335fd4b1e3a464f