The Barber Institute of Fine Arts at the University of Birmingham was the venue for a special lecture delivered by Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, to celebrate the centenary of Fircroft College. The lecture, entitled ‘Unfinished business in widening participation: the end of the beginning’, was a thought provoking and fascinating look at the current state of adult education – in particular the low participation in adult education by people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

    Click here to read the lecture

Helena Kennedy is a Labour peer, one of the country’s leading barristers and a champion of civil liberties, social justice and human rights. As an acclaimed and passionate public speaker, she is a frequent guest on current affairs and discussion programmes on both radio and television, including Any Questions, Newsnight, Question Time and The Today Programme. She has presented Heart of the Matter, Raw Deal and the award-winning Time Gentlemen Please, all for the BBC.

She is also president of the Helena Kennedy Foundation, whose mission is to tackle injustice and social exclusion through education by supporting disadvantaged students from the further and adult education sectors to complete their studies in higher education and move on successfully into employment. Each year the foundation awards a number of bursaries to adult students in order to meet this mission - a number of Fircroft students have been grateful recipients of these awards in the past.