Motivations and Affordances for Engaging in CET

There are compelling imperatives from governmental and enterprise perspectives for working-age adults to participate in continuing education and training (CET). These are associated, respectively, with them remaining employable across lengthening working lives, having highly skilled national workforces able to sustain the viability and responsiveness of the private and public sector enterprises in which working age adults are employed. Consequently, whether and how adults elect to participate and engage in CET provisions is central to those imperatives being realised. Yet, that participation and engagement is shaped by a range of factors about which these adults make decisions. Unlike in compulsory education that is legislated or has mandated requirements for initial occupation preparation, working age adults’ participation in CET (i.e., whether they enrol or not) is largely premised on their interest and imperatives. That participation is likely premised on: (i) the purposes that they want to achieve, (ii) how these provisions are aligned with their needs in terms of accessibility and relevance, and their (iii) readiness to engage. This complex of factors includes opportunities to engage and trade-offs in terms of financial, personal and time commitments. Thus, securing desired levels of participation in CET to support individual employability across working life and workplace viability is partially dependent upon working-ages adults’ electing to participate and engage effectively in CET provisions. Drawing on data from the national study, this chapter reports and discusses the findings about what motivates working age adults’ participation in CET and the kinds of affordances for supporting their engagement in CET, and the degree by which those motivations are realised. The findings indicated that the recent CET graduates were motivated personally and professionally to take CET courses, and that most of them partially or fully achieved their purposes. Importantly, they report valuing learning not only for instrumental purposes such as employability, but also learning for its own sake. Yet, there was a mix of personal and institutional factors supporting as well as inhibiting their participation and engagement in CET. These findings inform how a provision of CET needs to be positioned to make them attractive and accessible for working age adults.