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• Good morning and thank you Greg for your warm introduction, and to Julia for organising all of this today;
• Thank you also to Ruth Bell for your Welcome to Country. I acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, and pay my respects to their elders, past and present;
• Good morning also to Noeline Brown, Australia’s first ever Ambassador for Ageing, and;
• A special thank you to the Strange Weather Gospel Choir. Being part of a choir is a fantastic way of sharing music, language and culture – which are so important to inclusion in society. Thank you for communicating such enthusiasm and joy in your performance.

I am delighted to be here this morning to launch Adult Learners’ Week 2008.

It also gives me the opportunity to reflect on the importance of adult education in our social inclusion agenda, an agenda focused on removing the barriers that prevent some Australians from participating and engaging in our communities.

Without access to quality and appropriate education and training we cannot achieve our full potential and maximize our contribution. Adult education must continue to play a crucial role in our education sector and in building the Rudd Government’s vision of a fairer Australia for everyone.

Those of you who know me, know that I am particularly passionate about adult learning. It is a passion that goes right back to my ‘other life’ before I entered Parliament in 2002.

I began my teaching career as an infants’ teacher, before moving from primary teaching to special education – and then to adult and community education.

I have had the privilege of working with great learners and sharing with them their achievements:

• Students like the young man with cerebral palsy who decided - after being educated in a special school - that he was not going to spend his life in a sheltered workshop. He studied day and night to complete his HSC at TAFE. He is now running a small business and has a sense of place in the community that might never have been realised.
• There was the Iranian mother who fled religious persecution with her children, arriving in Australia with nothing. They spoke no English, but she was determined that her children would not be disadvantaged by this. She sought out an English tutor the very week she arrived in a small country town, and, just years after first setting foot in Australia, she completed a Bachelor of Science Degree.
• And my good friend Ray, a retired engine driver, who discovered U3A at the ripe old age of 73, and has immersed himself in the literary classics for the past seven years. Much to the amazement of the members of his bowls team.

It is stories such as these that prove to us the huge potential that learning has to empower individuals and society. Learning doesn’t stop when we reach 18, 21 or 25; lifelong learning helps all of us to adapt, grow and respond to the world around us and improve our capacity to contribute to it.

Adult Learners’ Week is a great opportunity to promote and celebrate adult learning and encourage Australians to take a lifelong view of learning and to reap the benefits, as both students and teachers. The benefits can be economic as we increase our skills for the workplace, but the benefits can be much wider than that as they assist us to engage more fully in our communities and gain confidence.

The Link between Education, Social Inclusion and Productivity

Australia, like so many other countries, has seen a rapid pace of technological and industrial change that has placed new demands on today’s employees. Functioning in the knowledge economy requires the flexibility to adapt to new changes in the way that workplaces operate, as these changes occur.

Adult education provides people with the skills and knowledge they need to ensure they can meet and adapt to these new demands.

So by providing access to education to those who need it, we create more inclusive societies. We facilitate community cohesion, family connection, and individual success.

Pursuing social inclusion also means pursuing greater productivity. The Government’s social inclusion initiatives are not about welfare – they are an investment strategy designed to integrate social policy with economic policy, benefiting both.

The fact is that people who are marginalised from mainstream education have less opportunity to access services, have their voice heard and participate in Australian society. And without an educated society, we will not be able to maximise prosperity, nor will we be able to maximise opportunities for the individual.

We need look no further than the following worrying statistics to see clear evidence of this.

The 2006 Adult Literacy and Life Skills survey found that about 40 per cent of employed Australians, and 60 per cent of unemployed Australians, do not have adequate literacy skills to function effectively in the workplace.

It also highlighted the connection between education and workplace outcomes. The survey found that people with low language, literacy and numeracy skills tend to be clustered in the lower socio-economic groups; thus, people with low skills are more likely to suffer social exclusion.

Professor Tony Vinson’s work ‘Dropping Off the Edge’ investigated locational disadvantage in Australia.

His profoundly important work found that just 1.7 per cent of postcodes across Australia account for more than seven times their share of inter-generational poverty, including low income, limited computer and internet access, early school leaving, physical and mental disabilities and long-term unemployment.

We are committed to turning this around. Because as far as we are concerned, leaving individuals and communities marginalised and held prisoner by disadvantage is not only morally unacceptable, it is also poor economics.

Our nation is hungry for skills, and if we are to make our future growth more sustainable, we must maximise our human capital in order to meet our workforce needs.

In creating the Social Inclusion portfolio and pursuing this highly ambitious policy agenda, the Rudd Government has signalled its very serious intent to bring social and economic policy together to reduce disadvantage.

Adult learning is deeply embedded in our Social Inclusion priorities. The first is about early learning; we know that we must engage young parents to help them foster their young children’s learning and language growth.

We’re very focused on intergenerational jobless households. Across New South Wales, there are almost 700,000 of these – an extraordinary phenomenon. We must break that cycle.

Because when you think about fourth generation jobless households, you have to think about the level of social and educational impoverishment that this can mean.

The Social Inclusion agenda is essential, because even in the present period of long-term prosperity, there are too many Australians who, through no fault of their own, have been excluded from full participation in all the great aspects of Australian life.

I know that many, if not all, of you are aware of the Government’s discussion paper on the future of the Language, Literacy and Numeracy program released by the Deputy Prime Minister last month.

The LLNP is so important in helping people who lack the adequate skills to take up work or training opportunities. With that in mind, the Government wants to hear from as many individuals and organisations as possible on the make-up of the services in the next contract period of service delivery.

Adult and Community Education providers are well positioned to make a significant contribution to this discussion paper, particularly about how we can better lift the level of engagement of those individuals confronted with barriers like poor literacy and numeracy skills.

Submissions must be received by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations by 11 July.

We made clear our priorities in the 2008/09 Budget, with significant investments in areas such as education and employment; early childhood education; school retention; homelessness; literacy and numeracy; and Indigenous health.

The Government also realises that many people have a history of poor quality learning experiences within Australia’s education and training systems. What these people need is encouragement, backed by growth in self-esteem and confidence, before they can consider structured training.

I note Darryl Dymock’s work on ways of engaging adult learners. He showed that the development of identity as a learner seems to be one of the key factors in helping adults re-engage in learning.

This demonstrates that adult learning providers have an important role to play in encouraging adults who are disengaged from formal learning to give it another try.

Adult learning takes place in a variety of settings: at work; through community engagement or volunteer activity; and in formal and semi-formal settings.

I come back to the work of Adult Learning Australia with ‘Learning Circles’, which I have always known to be one of the most influential ways of re-engaging learners. I think we can all re-visit the ‘Learning Circle’ model as a very beneficial way of doing that.

Adult learning providers offer a diverse range of courses for different needs, and a mix of teaching methods and learning environments. There are community colleges teaching computer classes, volunteer tutors offering English language literacy and numeracy support, TAFE colleges providing vocational courses, regional and rural providers delivering pre-vocational training and a host of others.

Larger providers, such as TAFE, offer the full range of adult learning experiences from non-accredited activities which provide a gateway to learning, through to accredited and nationally endorsed qualifications. They also offer a learning environment tailored to the learning needs of adults, as well as support services.

Experience has shown that engaging the disengaged learner requires a variety of strategies. One size does not fit all. This is where community education and training providers come into their own.

These are not-for-profit, community-based providers of adult learning programs. There are around 1200 of them across Australia and they have a proven record of engaging people marginalised from the more formal training system.

And while these providers are best known for their delivery of non-accredited training, they actually also deliver a significant proportion (around 16%) of all accredited vocational education and training delivered nationally.

This sector has tremendous potential to do even more in this accredited space – both in delivering accredited generic skills such as language, literacy and numeracy, as well as vocational training.

In addition to providing disadvantaged individuals with the skills, confidence and knowledge they need to secure a job and access services, adult education also delivers significant flow-on benefits which collectively serve to provide broader benefits to the community.

A greater ability to engage allows learners to interact more effectively with their families and communities, and supports the development of social capital.

Stronger social networks underpin vibrant, healthy communities and can help to break the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage.

Children learn as parents learn, and the ensuing sense of empowerment and comfort within educational structures can contribute markedly to opportunities available to the younger generation.

Enabling access to educational pathways for adults can contribute significantly to addressing these indicators of disadvantage.

I applaud the role played by adult education providers, not only in providing education and training, but also in improving the quality of life of Australians, their families and communities.

Clearly, there is a tremendous breadth and depth of education and training provision, and a wealth of delivery styles, to suit the needs of just about any potential adult learner.

This same rich and varied training environment is also capable of responding to the needs of employers and industry.

In doing both of these things, adult education and training is ideally positioned to make a substantial contribution to increasing social inclusion.

The challenge is to reach out to those who may have been disengaged from learning for a very long time. And this is where Adult Learners’ Week can play such a crucial role.

It can reach individuals and let them know about local opportunities. It can connect with employers and help them see what adult learning can do for their business. And it can encourage adult learning organisations themselves to make connections and review their activities and support services.

This year, as Adult Learners’ Week kicks off on 1 September, each State and Territory has scheduled a full week of events and activities to celebrate and promote the power of adult learning.

I am also delighted to see this year that several government agencies have decided to take an active role in Adult Learners’ Week. These organisations function as training providers in their own right, yet this role is not widely recognised or understood in the community.

By participating in Adult Learners’ Week and using the ALW banner to promote their programs in the first week of September, they will be aligning themselves with the broader aims of instilling a life long approach to learning for all Australians.

I also take this opportunity to thank you for giving me the opportunity to feature in this year’s Community Service Announcement promoting Adult Learners’ Week.

I would like to congratulate the coordinators for their hard work, their creativity and their commitment to this festival of learning.

The link between adult learning and social inclusion is clear and we must continue to find opportunities to use the power of lifelong learning to empower individuals and build more inclusive communities.

And so, it gives me great pleasure to officially launch Adult Learners’ Week for 2008.