100 Years of Radical Adult Education in Scotland: Building Hope for the Future (Transcript)

Abstract

This pamphlet contains the transcripts of talks made on November 16th 2019, at the only event held in Scotland marking the 100th anniversary of the 1919 Report on Adult Education. The 1919 report shaped the development of formalised adult education in Britain and continues to influence the current adult learning landscape. We met just a few days before the publication of the 2019 Centenary Report on Adult Education, with its call to reinvigorate our national infrastructure for adult learning necessary for securing adult learning so essential to civic and political life. Sponsored by the Lipman Miliband Trust, the event was held at the offices of the Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC) on Woodlands Road in Glasgow. The purpose was to look back to the social and economic crises that shaped Scotland in 1919, immediately after the Great War, considering the role of radical adult education within social movement responses. This was no nostalgia trip. The intention was to be reminded of how adult education was born out of crisis and was integral to collective refusals to accept social injustice and inequality. Our assumption was that this reminder might inspire our own responses to current political and social events.