Biopolitics and lifelong learning: the vitalistic turn in English further education discourse

Abstract

This paper argues that a shift in discourse about the nature and purpose of Further Education is under way in England. A recent White Paper, 'Skills for jobs: lifelong learning for opportunity and growth', issued by the UK government, is couched in terms which suggest that a prior reliance on the ideology of neoliberalism is now moving towards the objectives and instruments of what Michel Foucault termed biopolitics or the exploitation of life itself. I analyse the White Paper and related recent texts to show how a form of vitalist discourse accompanies attempts to accelerate potentially problematic processes of value-extraction. While these developments respond partly to the societal changes resulting from the threats to life of the Coronavirus pandemic and other existential crises, their likely impact suggests a shift in the discourses of lifelong learning: an existing apparatus of normalisation and control is now turning to biopolitical exploitation.

Corporatization of Professional Bodies: A Comparative Study of the Chartered Institute of Government Finance Audit and Risk Officers (CIGFARO) and Institute of Local Government Management (iLGM)

“…Monitoring compliance and measuring and the extent of its fulfilment impose transparency and accountability on learning activities of members (Friedman and Afistka, 2023). CPD has been identified as a coercive form of lifelong learning (Beighton, 2021).…”