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Working and ageing
136 Guidance and counselling for mature learners

focused on specific, formal qualifications, rather than on broader, or more
work-embedded forms of learning. While older people are less likely to have
formal qualifications (because in the past many young people were not
encouraged to seek them), many have invaluable experiential, but
unaccredited, learning. The training which employers and employees welcome
is rarely qualification based, but rather focuses on improving performance in
the current job, where returns are visible and quick.
However, there is evidence that the pattern of training by age is changing.
National surveys of adult learning, carried out annually by the National Institute
of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE), which uses a very broad definition of
learning, reveals that whereas participation used to decline steadily from 20
to 65, it is now fairly constant from 25 to 55, after which it still falls (Aldridge
and Tuckett, 2009). The explanation offered most frequently by employers and
employees in the qualitative interviews is arrival of information technologies
in the workplace. This happened in almost all jobs in mid-career for those now
in their 50s and 60s, and created an evident and unavoidable need for training
for all. This changed peopleʼs perception of the need for training, and of their
ability to do it. If this is right, one might expect training levels to rise among
older workers in the next decade.

7.9. Is training necessary?

While levels of training are higher than they used to be, and less affected by
age up to the early 50s, participation then falls significantly. However, the most
striking finding of the research is that neither employers nor older employees
think there is a problem. When asked how well their skills and knowledge
match the requirements of the job, only 5% of all workers said that their skills
were lower than needed. By contrast, nearly half (45%) thought they were
overqualified for their jobs. When responses were examined by age, the
proportion reporting ʻabout rightʼ rises, from 52% in the early 20s to 70% at
70. This suggests that over time most people settle into jobs where they feel
they fit and can cope, and no longer expect, or feel a need to progress.
However, this is not a universal experience, and a significant minority in the
learning and work in later life survey say they are ʻvery overqualifiedʼ, rising
from 12% of workers at 50 to over 20% at 70. Although some have deliberately
chosen less demanding work as they age, and some overestimate their skills,
this still represents a waste of human resource. One strategy for addressing
this is to make more use of older workers as mentors, trainers and supervisors