The Forum for Access and Continuing Education's (FACE)
One important role for FACE is to facilitate the exchange and dissemination of information and practices in Lifelong Learning and Continuing Education. By promoting collaboration and innovation between providers and practitioners FACE aims to support and encourage a socially inclusive framework for Lifelong Learning, challenging exclusion and fostering full participation. As a large multi-sector network we play a key role as a pressure group, service provider, staff development forum, national policy shaper, information service, event organiser.
A Brief History of FACE
FACE, originally entitled the Forum for the Advancement for Continuing Education, was formally established as an educational charity in 1993. Prompted by the abolition of the binary divide in HE, the development of FACE was part of a raft of significant changes in HE. Where there had been universities and polytechnics (and an earlier incarnation of FACE in the Polytechnic Association for Continuing Education) now polytechnics became independent of local authorities and were granted university charters with powers to award degrees and to undertake higher level research. At the same time there was growing recognition that continuing education, in all its manifestations, was central to economic growth and social inclusion. More...