Local Election Campaign Follow Up: What Can You Do Next?
Summary
The 2004 local elections are over and results have been announced around the country. We have newly elected members of Town Councils, Borough Councils, City and County Councils, many of whom will play a key role in shaping the future of Adult Education services on the ground. It is now very important that we connect with our local representatives to ensure that the profile of Adult Education is maintained at both local and national levels.
AONTAS is urging its members to use the Your Education Your Vote! Campaign as a starting point from which to develop a strong local Adult Education lobby. It is vital that we continue to strengthen our profile in the run up to the next General Election to ensure that we get a continued political commitment to the Adult Education Agenda.
Actions that we recommend you now take are:
- Identify your Local Councillors, contact them and build a picture of their interests and roles. Maintain this contact as regularly as possible.
- Inform your Local Councillors about Adult Education issues, about your work and about your service users. Invite Councillors to your Centre to engage with your work.
- Encourage Councillors to feed your issues up through their party structures so that Adult Education is knitted into policy development. Monitor progress on this.
- Get copies of your Local County or City Development Board Ten Year Strategy and see where Lifelong Learning and Education fit in. Consider where the work of your group or Centre fits in with this Strategy.
- Identify the key workers in the County or City Development Board structure and make contact with them. Check to see that actions in Board Strategies are carried through.
- Explore all the options for you and your group in terms of participating in VEC structures, County Development Board Learning Forums and other local representative bodies.
- Encourage learners and staff to participate in local decision-making where possible.
- Use the opportunity provided by European Year of Citizenship through Education 2005 to examine the role of Adult Education in promoting local democracy.
- Raise the profile of your Centre and your work by engaging with the local media. Ensure that Local Councillors know who you are, what your work is and what support you need.
The importance of getting a real commitment from politicians, especially at local level, to the development of Adult and Community Education should not be underestimated. AONTAS continues to do this at national level, but we need groups to lobby at local level also.
In this way we can build an effective lobby now in advance of the next General Election.
