Surveying my winter crop of Governmental papers, freshly harvested from DfEE and HMSO, makes me wonder whether "The Learning Age", that flagship of governmental policy, is it still flourishing, or are there signs of wilting under the burden of expectation?
The key word in recent publications is Challenge.
Meet the Challenge is their latest paper on Education Action Zones; teachers and schools have both Teachers: meeting the challenge of change and The Government's National Grid for Learning Challenge.
And the revised Green Paper is couched in terms of changes and the challenges we face as a result.
So what are these challenges?
Many are centred on the familiar need for training, to "encourage people to ... develop their knowledge, skills and understanding and improve their employability in a changing labour market" as the green paper puts it.
This, clearly, is a challenge which those many colleges accredited by ODL QC can help to meet.
The Rapid Results College, for one, understand that much of the training, the re-skilling and equipping of the workforce that the country needs to survive and prosper, will only come through more and better training.
How the College has risen to that challenge, is set out in the article by Andrew Young.
RRC Business Training, as the College has become, is now clearly set to play a major role in supporting company-based training, in the UK and abroad.
But, as Brian Tucker argues in his article on Learner Led Learning, training, of itself, is not enough.
More training, in his view, however vital, will not of itself realise the Learning Society.
That will happen only when people want to learn, at least more than they do now.
