If all the oratory about the importance of education means anything, it is surely that this country badly needs to become a learning society. What exactly a learning society might be gives fertile ground for debate. For present purposes, suffice it to say that one characteristic will be that, once out of compulsory education, people will want to go on learning and will have the opportunity and encouragement to do so throughout their lives.

So, how far off is a learning society in this sense today? The National Commission on Education will soon be publishing a short report on education and training after 16, bringing up to date what it had to say in Learning to Succeed 16 months ago. Rather than attempting to be comprehensive, its aim will be to identify some things that need to be tackled now if progress is to be made.

Politicians on all sides agree that "investment" in education is "vital". Anyone interested in what is going on finds quite soon that you have to have a sharp eye for the difference between rhetoric and reality. There has been welcome progress in staying-on rates for 16 to 18-year-olds. Last academic year 73 per cent of 16-year-olds enrolled for full-time education, as did 58 per cent of 17-year-olds. By our standards that is great (though not what you would call world-class). But ask what is behind the statistics and you find that only 40 to 50 per cent stayed on for a full two years and gained the qualifications for which they were studying. So the problem is not cracked.

Will the modern apprenticeships which the Government has "challenged" industry to introduce help? Yes and no. They are a good idea, but success is not a foregone conclusion. It is likely that, if they take off, they will do so by attracting young people away from full-time education, so that staying on figures may actually fall.

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A tough battle remains to attract those who get least out of their compulsory education to go on learning afterwards, say a third of each generation. One thing that cries out for attention is the structure of qualifications at 16 and 18. It is not that the existing ones individually do not have merits. But from the students' point of view, or their parents', it becomes obvious that the three-track approach at 18 of A levels, GNVQs and NVQs is already out of date. Learning at 14 to 18 is being planned as a single whole. Why should boys or girls be forced to make decisions at 14 which can commit them irrevocably to one or other of the three tracks? What they want is to be able to make choices as they go along, building on their own individual interests and "intelligences" and getting due credit for their successes. They need also to acquire the core skills which employers insistently remind the world are so much needed. The future lies in a unified national framework of high-quality qualifications. It has become obvious to college heads, to secondary heads and to the heads of independent schools, to the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering and a range of other learned institutions. It has certainly become crystal clear to the National Commission, whose proposals for a General Education Diploma offer a obvious way forward.

The Scots will have their unified national framework working by 1997. South of the border there is no sign of official movement. Only the Duke of Cambridge (who thought the time for change is when it can no longer be resisted) could approve of that. Take higher education first. The British system is one of the most expensive in the world for tax-payers, and yet many students are on the edge of poverty and many universities' facilities are under great strain. That is the reverse of the coin; the obverse is an amazing success - the doubling of HEnumbers in less than a decade.

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The solution is obvious. University education is a "good buy" for students. They can properly be asked to make a bigger contribution, which would go both towards the cost of courses and towards their living expenses. But the terms on which they are asked to do so must be fair, which means that they should be able to make deferred payments through the tax system when their income rises to a point when they can do so without hardship.

Much less noticed, but worse still, is the plight of many others who want to go on learning after 16. The system of discretionary grants is in disrepair. Too many students are so poor that they cannot afford the bus fares to get to college, let alone a proper meal in the middle of the day. This is again the reverse side of a coin, the obverse of which is a success; the expansion of further education so that in range and quality of choices it begins to attract a wide range of people whose needs have been neglected in the past.

The vision of a learning society is a noble one that could perhaps inspire a nation to great things. Sometimes glimpses of that vision seem to take shape, shimmering like a distant oasis. There will be many a mile to tread, and many a beguiling mirage on the way, before that oasis draws near.

Sir John Cassels is director of the National Commission on Education. The commission's views on post-16 education will be set out at a conference sponsored by The THES and in The THES's FE Synthesis next Friday.

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