Hywel Francis

Labour Party | Aberavon

Partnership Works Conference

The Orangery, Margam Park
29th April 2004

In Praise of Old and New Learning Networks: Some Welsh and European Perspectives. Or A Journey of Hope, from Banwen and Margam

A Presentation by Dr Hywel Francis
Member of Parliament for Aberavon

A Journey of Hope, from Banwen and Margam.

Banwen

I want to begin by talking to you about a journey, a learning journey, a journey of hope from Banwen and Margam.

Colin Price, the celebrated comedian, recently said:

‘I’m from Banwen.’
‘You all know Banwen, it’s on the road to oblivion.’

Only a proud citizen of Banwen would be allowed to say that.  We learn a great deal from Colin’s self-deprecating humour.

Banwen is a very special place, always has been.  I should know, I was born next-door in Onllwyn.

Banwen is a special place.  Why else would the Romans have built a strategic fort there? Why was St. Patrick born there?  Aneurin Bevan, the founder of the National Health Service, spoke on its windswept hillside; as did Krishna Menon, before he was the Foreign Minister of newly independent India; Ewan MacColl, Britain’s greatest folksinger sang there and Scotland’s greatest bard of the last century, Hugh McDiarmid, recited his poems there.

When strangers ask why was Wales most innovative community education centre, the Dove Workshop, created there in 1985, why the Community University of the Valleys was launched there in 1993 and why Banwen RFC is riding high in Division Three South West today, it is all because oblivion is actually Colin Price code for something much more positive.
For oblivion, I suspect Colin Price means ’camaraderie’, ‘learning’, and ‘success’.  Of course ‘oblivion’ is Colin Price’s ‘cloak’ and his ‘mask’, to hide Wales’ best kept secret.

You see, I believe Banwen has been, successively, the hub of an old Celtic, Pan-European and Post-imperial, global learning network, the legacy upon which we have built our present new learning network.

And by the way, although I was born in Onllwyn I went to school in Banwen, and I am very proud to say that.

And Margam

The same can be said of the other end of our new County Borough of Neath Port Talbot but for rather different reasons.  Here at Margam, the legacy of an old learning network, which like Banwen, networked outwards.  The name Margam is redolent with the history of Wales and the history of Europe – its Abbey and the coming of Christianity; its Castle with the pioneering advent of Fox-Talbot’s photography; its steelworks, in its day the greatest in Western Europe and the symbol of Wales economic rebirth after the last War; and today its magnificent Park, the best in Wales and home of last years Urdd Eisteddfod, Europe’s greatest youth festival.  All these historical developments at Margam have had their significant learning dimensions

More specifically, in education Port Talbot has played a vital role, if not the vital role, in shaping our educational rebirth after the last War.  This is personified in the life and work of the late Lord Heycock of Taibach.

I well recall Llewellyn Heycock addressing the Council of Wales Adult Residential College, Coleg Harlech, (of which he was its proud president) in this very Orangery in the late 1970s.  His text was how the old Glamorgan Education Committee, of which he was Chairman, had saved Coleg Harlech after the War by introducing discretionary grants for adult students to study at the college.

Llewellyn Heycock was an arche-typal auto-didact and organic intellectual of the old type.  Truly self-taught, the chapel and the union had provided his schooling.  Public service was his way of life.  The Marxist NCLC evening classes and his chapel’s Sunday school provided his intellectual and learning framework and his spiritual reference points upon which that remarkable old learning network, the Glamorgan Education Committee was built.

So when we reflect on the progress of our new learning network, we should reflect too on the legacy of those old learning networks, what I have called the journey from Banwen and Margam, and it is not too exotic to say that journey encompassed Ireland, Italy and even India.

In Our Times

In more recent times, my times, our times, it would be instructive to reflect on how this new learning network has emerged.  Undoubtedly it has many origins: we all have our different views, our different experiences.

In European terms, it is informed, shaped and inspired by the twin and complementary Post-War West European ideologies of Christian Democracy with its vision of social inclusion and of Social Democracy with its vision of social justice.  The synergy of the two has produced a strong sense of social solidarity in this locality, particularly in times of deep industrial crisis and community adversity as we witnessed with heavy redundancies in the steel and coal industries throughout the 1980s.

Over the Easter Bank Holiday I visited the Cefn Coed Coal and Steam Museum in the Dulais Valley to look at a commemorative exhibition of the Miners’ Strike of 1984/85.  I watched the visitors’ faces and I observed their silences.  This was their history, our history, we were learning by revisiting it. I broke the silence by pointing out to a visitor a photograph of my son and I at a demonstration in Port Talbot.  He was a steelworker, living here in Margam, and he brought his young family with him to the Museum.

‘I was an apprentice at the time’ he said, ‘We went through all this too you know, in the early 1980s.’

Without making too political a point, Cefn Coed is part of our old learning network; we should welcome it into our new learning network.  We abandon its learning legacy at our peril.

For me, the defining moment in the creation of local community networks of learning was the epic miners’ struggle of 1984/85.  In my old locality, in the western part of this County Borough, we created the Neath, Dulais and Swansea Valleys Miners’ Support Group, which provided food for at least four thousand people for a whole year, through a network of ten food distribution centres.  It also produced a weekly newsletter The Valleys’ Star, set up the South Wales Striking Miners Choir, organised educational lectures, public meetings and had an external network with the rest of Wales, Britain, Europe, indeed the world.
It’s most important legacy was the Dove Workshop which grew out of women’s own aspirations for their own lives towards the end of the strike and ultimately, thanks largely to Dove, the other legacy was the Community University of the Valleys.

The older social movements – labour, trade union and religious – were joined in this crucial struggle by newer social movements – Women, green and peace.   And in the course of a year long learning struggle we saw local people meet activists from the Welsh Language Movement, Gays and Lesbians, the Welsh Council of Churches, French Anarchists, members of the Flying Pickets and the Communards, Elvis Costello and Billy Bragg: all manner of learning took place.  Whilst Maesteg was twinned with sedate Aberystwyth and Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen was twinned with interesting Blaenau Ffestiniog, Banwen and the Dulais Valley was far more adventurous in linking with Ireland, Anglesey and via ‘Gay News’ with the Gay Community in London, all thanks to the future Councillor, Alun Thomas.

The European Context

All this may seem a far cry from today’s new learning network.  But the common threads are clear: a community based approach; partnership; social solidarity; internal and external networking.

And how does this translate at a policy level?  The emerging European policy then was of social cohesion and social inclusion, which ran counter to the hegemonic Thatcherite, neo-conservative ideology in the Britain of the 1980s.  We witnessed a battle of ideas in that decade in our local industrial communities.  The writer Raymond Williams celebrated the Welsh working class visionary attachment to the key words of ‘community’, ‘culture’ and ‘democracy’. We were not defending a past, we were building a future through a wider European enabling vision.

During this period I edited two pamphlets: Adult Education in the Valleys: The Last Fifty Years (in 1986) and Learning from Experience: The Future of Adult Education in the Valleys with Dr. Sonia Reynolds (in 1989).  They were both early attempts at drawing on a more collectivist, networking approach by linking adult education to community development and the more democratic and dynamic contemporary social movements.  The latter pamphlet was based on a conference at Onllwyn organised by the now defunct Valleys Initiative for Adult Education.  I wrote in the foreword to that pamphlet the following:

‘VIAE was set-up to create a network of providers, to share ideas and resources and eventually shape a common strategy which linked adult education to community development. The Onllwyn Conference began that process: what follows are examples of good practice – ‘lessons from experience’ which highlight new ideas, new approaches and new adult students and new movements. (I went on)

‘They represent what was called resources of hope by Raymond Williams, one of the great adult educationalists of the modern era: we would do well to be inspired by them.’

What followed was a counter culture.  In place of the prevailing individualist Thatcherite culture of competition for scarce resources, we argued the gospel of co-operation, partnership, networks, student centred learning, transport support, a crèche, accredited learning, library support, guidance and counselling, flexible learning, targeting under-represented groups, even in 1989, information technology courses.

My wife Mair Francis, the founder of Dove, wrote this in that pamphlet:

‘We are now the focal point for many in the community where skills on all levels can be learned.  To go forward we are prepared to work with all agencies and organisations that share the same commitment to community development.’

I believe that in those fractured and painful times of the 1980s, we succeeded in pulling together a sometimes tense, uneven network which I occasionally provocatively called ‘dangerous liaisons or honest partnerships.’

Partnership is always problematic: which partner has the power, the money, the resources?  It can also be suffocating. It’s like the word ‘community.’  It is not easy to define, Raymond Williams called it a slippery concept.

As this difficult era of the 1980s was drawing to a close we relied increasingly on resources of all kind from Europe.  Hope came in many forms.  New lifelong learning opportunities focusing on social inclusion became more available.  I gave a paper, subsequently published in Adults Learning (April 1990) at Bryncoch for West Glamorgan Local Education Authority advisors, at the Hill in Abergavenny, for Gwent County Council, and then in Bremen University in Germany.  It was fancifully called ‘Tearing Down our Little Berlin Walls.’

I began like this with the heading ‘Seizing the Time:’

‘On the day the Berlin Wall was (torn down) I was talking to a friend in adult education.  We were discussing plans for the future. I happened to say that ‘they’ would not accept a certain proposal.  ‘Who are they?’ she said.  ‘The Berlin Wall comes down and yet we all have our little ‘Berlin Walls’ in our daily lives. Challenge them!’ (she said).’

‘We are living through inspiring and challenging times: one European Market in 1992, one European Home by 2000?  The end of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War; demilitarisation of Europe very soon?  Freedom for Namibia; Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu released; the end of Apartheid?  Cancellation of the British privatisation programme for nuclear power.  Does this herald the beginning of the end for civil and military nuclear power universally?  Anything is possible.  What is possible for adults learning in Europe of today?’

And I ended by speculating in this way:

‘As we move rapidly away from a more institutional and ethnocentric approach, towards a more needs-based strategy of our own making and a more European perspective, we would do well to reflect again on what other walls we, as adult educators and adult learners, can challenge on the road to that more just, democratic and educated society which must surely be at the centre of our strategies.’

The Coming of Democratic Devolution and the Learning Country

The 1990s and the new century were more benign times: we had democratic devolution, Objective One funding and the more holistic vision of the Learning Country, first projected by the adult learners body NIACE Dysgu Cymru (then called NIACE Cymru) in its General Election Manifesto of 1997.

The Welsh Assembly Government’s policy document ‘The Learning Country’ and all related social policies implicitly and explicitly repositioned lifelong learning, skills training, student centred learning, e-learning, community based learning, partnership, networking, targeting of under-representative groups.  And this repositioning made lifelong learning more centre stage.  This was of course both essential and inevitable.

Appropriately, the Education and Lifelong Learning Minister Jane Davidson in giving the tenth Annual Lecture of the Community University of the Valleys, at Onllwyn, last November, concluded by emphasising this holistic approach:

‘My personal belief is that the future of adult education in Wales is assured.  It has an active role in up-skilling individuals so that they can compete more effectively in the labour market as well as its role for personal fulfilment.  It also promotes and sustains the community which it serves and enriches that community for the people who live in it.’

A New Century and New Challenges

As a politician, a one time adult educator and one time historian, I recognise and embrace these words.  I even feel comfortable that the rest of Wales has finally caught up with Banwen, to paraphrase Colin Price.

However there are new challenges and more exacting demands.  We live in a global community and within a global economy.  And there is a place called China which is beginning to impact massively upon us.  A learning network, if it is to learn and if it is to be really new, must re-new itself.

A major study on the future of valley communities in 2002-3 by the independent think-tank the Bevan Foundation came to some sensible and well-considered conclusions.  The study, Ambitions for the Future, called for ‘learning communities’ and made the following recommendations:-

• Regeneration policies must work with valleys culture.
• Contemporary valleys culture should be championed and supported through arts programmes.
• Celebrate success!
• Widening access should continue to be a high priority for education.
• Proper funding should be available to promote community based learning.
• And it concluded that proper long term finding should be available for community based learning that reflects the above average costs to be borne.  There should be greater support from ELWA for local community educational initiatives.

Neither Neath Port Talbot nor Wales can or should have a fortress mentality.  The Network must of course serve local communities and local needs:   Our history teaches us that we must look outwards, network outwards.  Dove from the outset had European partners and even links with community groups in the Appalachian coalfields of the US.  Ideas on guidance and a whole host of strategies came from elsewhere, particularly Sardinia. 

The Network must set itself qualitative and measurable targets so that within a decade we can say it has made a difference to the quality of life to all our people from Banwen to Baglan to Blaengwynfi.

For my part I believe Neath Port Talbot has been exceptionally innovative in establishing the New Learning Network as a high policy priority and also creating a triangular partnership embracing local government, further education and the voluntary and community sector.  But that is just the process: what of the outcomes?

The Carers (Equal Opportunities) Bill and the New Learning Network

I have spoken very personally today because in many ways this subject has been my life, my family and my community and so it will not surprise you if I end on a personal note in relation to outcomes, or to choose two better words than outcomes: what about success and achievement.

I would like to suggest that in building for the future, the Network should invite new major partners into the circle, including the Local Health Board, employers and trade unions and in doing so it will become less about process more about progress.  This has, of course been the major thrust of the Networks Phase Two and this is to be commended.

As the Network moves towards its third phase this question of  making a difference will loom ever larger.  The Welsh Assembly Governments Communities First programme and Education Extra, the Sutton Trust and City Life (with the Coalfield Regeneration Trust) have faced this head on and we can learn from all of them.

I have also been struck by the way our new Local Health Board is doing likewise.  In its recent document Development of the Health, Social Care and Well-Being Strategy the fundamental and critical question of the relationship between health, well-being and lifelong learning is implicit throughout.

The document draws on our local authority’s Educational and Lifelong Learning Services assessment of its progress towards equality and access.  If we are to consider these issues as important, then they must be the cornerstone of the next phase. The  assessment made the following critical observations:

• Insufficient capacity within the communities to develop and sustain community-based enterprises and initiatives
• Lack of affordable and accessible child care places
• Insufficient resources to meet and sustain youth work requirements
• Lack of accessible and safe play areas and youth shelters
• It is difficult to deliver some programmes, such as sexual health and relationship advice for young people, in some areas due to cultural issues
• Transport difficulties for people living in the upper valley communities

The Network should also consider as one of its biggest new challenges addressing the lifelong learning needs of carers, the most socially excluded of all groups today.  Not only do we have the greatest proportion of carers of any county in the UK in Neath Port Talbot, we also have the greatest proportion of heavy-end carers.  Fortuitously we also have some of the most dedicated and innovative carers’ organisations in the country such as SNAC and a highly motivated , a very  professional Social Services Department within the Authority and a dynamic Council for Voluntary Service within the county .

It is no accident therefore that my Carers (Equal Opportunities) Bill which focuses on the health of carers, their education, training and their leisure needs comes out of the experiences of local people, groups and communities in Neath Port Talbot.

Now that the Welsh Assembly Government and Westminster Government have officially supported the Bill, let the New Learning Network be the first to implement it by developing learning opportunities for carers by working in partnership, not only with our Local Health Board, but also with the Open University, Carers Wales, Carers UK and a whole host of new and unusual partners including employers and trade unions and the National Extension College (NEC).

Indeed the NEC has recently completed a study for the Learning and Skills Council in England by May Edmunds entitled, ‘Distance learning for People with Learning Disabilities and caring responsibilities’.  This study would lend itself well to a local carers’ learning project: already SNAC has come forward with an excellent proposal, following British Gas sponsorship of ICT equipment.

In our new era of democratic devolution, the Richard Commission and reviewing powers, why not devolve some powers from the Assembly to local government so that policy development is nearer to the people and long-term revenue funding is guaranteed to local communities. 

This would avoid unnecessary and wasteful competition, and achieve greater sustainability.

That I think is what this New Learning Network should be moving towards, and that is what democratic devolution should be about.

Over a decade ago, in a much less hopeful time, I speculated that partnerships were risky even dangerous liaisons. 

We now live in better, more hopeful more confident times: what I am suggesting is a new and worthy cause which can be delivered in partnership for carers.

I hope the Network will consider it.

Dr Hywel Francis
April 2004