In some companies it is simply about learning new skills and technologies while others take a broader view whereby learning is used to development a worker s potential and performance and hence improve effectiveness and organisational loyalty amongst the workforce. The role of competences and NVQs will also be examined. NVQs are viewed as providing a way of learning which emphasises the practical, applied knowledge and skills as compared to the more academic approach of institutional learning. Case study material such as the Ford EDAP scheme and Baxi will be drawn on to examine the methodology, values and ideology critically. Community is a problematic and contested concept.
Community education is an ideological construct that is historically and culturally specific.
This unit looks at the key stages in the development of community education in relation to adult education and the different policies and practices which are associated with this as well as the different theoretical perspectives associated with the concept. This includes looking the community school movement, the Community Development Projects and Educational Priority Areas of the 1970s, adult residential schools and developments in Scotland through the work of people like Morris, Lovett, Thompson and Freire. The meaning and practice of these concepts will be explored. Popular education implies a collective approach to learning in communities whereby education and learning has a social purpose resulting in social action. The relationship between popular education and social movements and hence the significance of cultural politics in civil society will be examined.