Alexander Report

Community, Learning and Development (CLD) has played a unique contribution to contemporary society. CLD has been around for a long time however only recently became a recognised integral profession. With societal and political issues influencing CLD policy and planning, ensuring they support all walks of life, with effective community engagement and high participation.

There are several different ways in which to define a community; a community can be defined geographically – when people live in a certain area, it can also be defined as a territorial community where people share common interests and this shared interest is understood geographically. Despite people living in the same area, however, doesn’t mean they communicate with one another,

The Alexander Report understood that adult education should help those at a disadvantage whether they are unemployed, lone parents, early school leavers, older people or ethnic minority communities (Tett, 2010). Participation in CLD was expected to enable these groups and individuals to build their capacities as well as promotion of lifelong learning and social inclusion. The Alexander Report believed that ‘adult education should be regarded as an aspect of community education and should, with youth and community services, be incorporated into a community education service’. The Alexander Report wanted to escape from the more traditional school-based classes that had very low involvement and instead create a new service which will have a curriculum within the local community, allowing it to be more relevant and therefore more appealing, resulting in participation. The Report argues for change and qualitative improvement and redirection, rather than an expansion that was more of the same (McConnell, 1999). The Alexander Report plays a vital role in the contribution to CLD as he suggested that the three should be merged into one, under the new name of Community services, which later became known as Community Learning and Development. Each strand would maintain its distinct identity within the combined heading of Community Services. This recognised the need to train community educators to the fullest standard and quality to take on the challenge. However, The Alexander Report failed to include voluntary organisations within its remit therefore not providing any validation for the valuable services they provided in the area of youth work (McConnell,