Lifelong Learning and the European Union: What now? Social Mobility and the Mature Learner UALL 2016 Annual Seminar

Outline The Brexit issues are little clearer than in June We should own Brexit as an educational issue We will need to make decisions about our international partnerships

Analysing Brexit

Down to racism? Source: Centre for Social Justice/Legatum Institute 2016

Down to racism? Source: Goodwin & Heath 2016

Media bias? TV is far more important a news source than newspapers Readership figures (and advertising revenue) are plummeting The online world is polarised – a series of disparate comfort zones

Is it more about class? Source: Centre for Social Justice/Legatum Institute 2016

Is it also about education? Source: Goodwin & Heath 2016

Is it also about education? While Goodwin and Heath report a close correlation between electoral support for UKIP and the Remain vote, ‘public support for Brexit is more polarised along education lines than support for UKIP was’. Source: Goodwin & Heath 2016

And overall? …the vote for Brexit was delivered by the ‘left behind’ – social groups that are united by a general sense of insecurity, pessimism and marginalisation, who do not feel as though elites, whether in Brussels and Westminster, share their values, represent their interests and genuinely empathise with their intense angst about rapid social, economic and cultural change. Source: Goodwin & Heath 2016

And after Brexit . . .

University Lifelong Learning and the EU European dimension Likely impact of Brexit Erasmus+ Horizon2020 Structural Funds Skills agenda Broad EU policy

University Lifelong Learning and Europe

Wider opportunities beyond Europe?

Six rather hesitant predictions Institutional (re)positioning (neglect the private sector at your peril) Addressing the (socio-cultural) divide The productivity gap The four nations Borderless learning through mobile and digital technologies JAMs and the ‘bottom ten per cent’