Lifelong Learning Entitlement: Ready for Take-off!

Chocks away! Like a plane taxiing on a runway, the Lifelong Learning Entitlement is manoeuvring itself into take-off position. The latest update on the policy, published by the DfE last week, gives us a clear indication of the LLE’s flight-path and confirms the flight schedule: bookings will be open from September 2026 for a January 2027 launch. It also clarifies that only a carefully selected range of courses will be available for the full LLE experience. The response to this from some parts of the HE sector shows that there is still some confusion about what the LLE is and isn’t.

For a start, it’s not an education policy but a skills policy. The LLE is not attempting to radically alter the higher education experience for school leavers, or increase the number of young people entering university. Its target is adults of working age, most of whom will already be in the labour market, people who need high level workplace skills to improve their prospects and make career progress. Which is why the update makes it clear that on the great majority of degree courses the LLE will only fund full years of study, not shorter modules.

Instead, a carefully selected range of subjects directly related to skills priorities will be eligible for this new kind of step-by-step modular approach to learning. Using the Industrial Strategy’s eight priority growth sectors as a guide and adding in other pressing priorities such as the need to increase the workforce in health, care, teaching and social work, a cluster of subjects at HTQ and degree level will be open to the full range of LLE flexibilities. Others, we are promised, will be included in future years.

Despite this cautious approach, it’s clear that the DfE is doing all it can to encourage a good supply of LLE providers. The approval process for registering is open from now on, and for most institutions will require nothing more than a short expression of interest. There’s also a promise that the OfS will consult in the autumn on a more streamlined process for LLE registration for the FE sector.

But the big uncertainty is not around the supply side – many colleges, universities, and training providers will flock to one of the few significant new income opportunities in town. No, it’s the demand side that is going to be crucial to the LLE’s success. Providers will already be thinking about how to market this new proposition to the millions of potential adults who might be interested, and the key will be to find a simple language with which to explain the LLE to members of the general public for whom modules and credits are arcane edu-babble, and income-contingent loans no more than obscure financial jargon.

But beyond that, bearing in mind that LLE customers will typically be commuting students looking for opportunities close to home, a number of actions will need to be taken at local and regional level to prepare the ground for the LLE. For a start, the availability and accessibility of careers information, advice and guidance for working adults will need to be greatly enhanced. Some of the Mayoral Combined Authorities have already invested in this, and there are some promising initiatives under way in other areas of the country (which we’ll be exploring in detail during 2025/26), but in many parts of the country it’s far from clear how adults will get expert, independent advice to signpost them to LLE opportunities and to help them make the cost/benefit calculations needed to work out whether taking X modules of subject Y will actually boost their earnings by Z.

The LEI has long argued that the LLE policy has two limitations: the reliance on loan funding and the fact that it only applies to higher level qualifications. But both of these can be overcome by combining the LLE with local initiatives which draw in funding from employers and the government. Our 2024 report, “Making Lifelong Education Work: Skills Accounts for Bite-Size Learning” offers a blueprint for a workable local system that pump-primes the LLE through using Adult Skills Budgets and the potential flexibilities of the Growth and Skills Levy.

This will rely on developing a strong and dynamic set of partnerships between providers, employers and local authorities - a local skills ecosystem. Our latest report, in partnership with the University of Newcastle, “Mapping the Course: Education Partnerships for Continuous Skills Development”, explores this in detail, taking as its starting point the network of collaborative relationships forged in the Northeast during a period where regional devolution is still evolving. The headline recommendation is for the government to support the formation of Regional Education Partnerships as a vehicle for collective action at local level. Just as Chambers of Commerce have boosted business growth since the 19^th century, so the creation of regional “Chambers of Learning” will boost skills growth in the 21^st century.

The massive expansion of the university sector over the past twenty years has hugely expanded the pool of highly-skilled graduates, although gaps remain in several critical areas. But the growth in traditional three year degree provision has come at the cost of a collapse in the number of working adults accessing higher education. The LLE is designed to be the answer to this issue. Through raising the skill level of the UK’s existing workforce and ensuring they keep up to date with technological innovation, the hope is that we won’t just be a well-educated country, but one with an economy that’s jet-propelled by skills.