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There has been a 3 per cent fall in the number of adults participating in learning in the last year, according to research from the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education.

In its Adult Learners' Week survey - Counting The Cost - the Niace has shown that the proportion of adults currently learning, or having done so in the last three years, has fallen from 41 per cent in 2007 to 38 per cent in 2008.

The survey has shown that full-time workers' learning has fallen from 51 per cent in 2006 to 49 per cent last year and now stands at 45 per cent in the current survey.

The numbers of 25 to 34-year-olds' learning has fallen from 50 per cent to 43 per cent in a single year and there is also a sharp drop in the number of adults planning to take up learning in the future, with 45 per cent in 2006, 43 per cent in 2007 and 36 per cent in 2008.

Surprisingly, the fall is most dramatic among current learners, dropping from 88 per cent to 72 per cent.

Alan Tuckett, director of the Niace, said: "This survey poses sharp challenges. Its major finding, that participation has fallen among key target groups for the government's learning and skills strategy, calls into question the balance of current policy instruments.

He added: "Despite the real gains of the Skills for Life and Train to Gain strategies, the very groups identified as key to the achievement of the Skills Strategy and in the Leitch Review are bearing the heaviest burden of the re-balancing of funding.

"The findings suggest that the price of investment in key groups of adults in workplace learning is being paid for by reduced participation by other adults from exactly the same groups. This is either because other workplace learning opportunities are being offered to those already with higher skills, or because those adults can no longer access public provision they previously chose for themselves.

"Since the object of policy continues to be to secure increased investment by individuals, and employers, as well as the state, the survey suggests the time has come for government to count the cost, as well as the benefits, of its current policies for adult learning."