ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the significance and impact of policies aimed at increasing the flexibility of education and training provision as an aspect of the wider promotion of flexibility, what might be termed a ‘governing metaphor’ (Yeatman 1994) for contemporary change. We explore the significance of flexibility within the economy and workplace and some of the possible positions of flexible learning and delivery within those changes. Drawing on explorations in policy analysis we examine the rationales for and effects of moves towards greater flexibility in learning, both in servicing flexibility within the labour market and workplace and in educational and training organisations becoming more flexible themselves. In the process, we argue that the nature of flexible learning is contested and that its influence around the globe is being shaped by what some might term ‘policyborrowing’ and others a ‘policy epidemic’ (Levin 1998) in the context of globalisation. Flexible learning then is in the process of being forged and national and organisational policies are often forged from other sources. This suggests that policies towards flexible learning are part of a wider policy ensemble through which more flexible social and economic practices are promoted, in which organisations and individual identity are constituted increasingly as enterprises. Pivotal to both, in mediating the practices within many workplaces and brokering links with formal providers of learning opportunities, are the practices of human resource development. The chapter illustrates and argues for the need for an analysis and formulation of policy beyond that to be found within the boundaries of education and training, or management and employment, if the significance of flexible learning and human resource development are to be understood and sound policies are to be formulated. This means that policy processes may, as Nunan has indicated in Chapter Four, themselves have to become more flexible.
