All on the left would welcome a revival of independent working-class education.

But while it's important to remember the heroic period of the Ruskin strike, the Central Labour College (CLC) and so on in the 1910s and '20s, it's a mistake to think that there's been nothing going on in independent workers' education since.

I am reminded of Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, where the characters are always looking back to a previous "golden age" and missing the good things in their own time.

It is also important to define what "independent" means. Many of the battles in the early years of the last century were about curriculum, with students rejecting subjects like temperance and religion and demanding politics and economics.

However, overall control still remained with universities like Oxford, which took the view that if the working class was going to come to power through the extension of the franchise, then they had better be Oxford men like all the others. A look at subsequent Labour cabinets shows that this was not far off the mark.

The idea that the breakaway CLC and then the National Council of Labour Colleges (NCLC) created a mass base for independent working-class education misses the mark.

The CLC was very small, and the NCLC's courses were mainly about what we would now call "basic skills" or "liberal studies," with subjects like improving English grammar and literature being dominant.

It is also important to note that much of this education was about individual self-improvement.

Although one or two students of the CLC, such as Nye Bevan, went on to play an important role, the issue of how to use education to build collective strength was not met.

The trade unions were much more important in developing large-scale education programmes, and what is more important, they had full control over what was taught and who taught it.

In the most progressive unions, education was seen as a way of building the collective strength of the organisation.

Often this involved a partnership with the Workers Educational Association, NCLC and the universities.

Some great work was carried out, particularly by unions such as the NUM - for example, its long courses with Sheffield University - NUPE, Nalgo, Unison and the T&G, which ran summer schools from the 1950s onwards and fully funded comprehensive regional and district education programmes from shop stewards and safety reps right up to political education.

The TUC scheme, set up in 1964, concentrated rather narrowly on shop steward and safety rep training, but the best tutors and providers used this as a catchment base for bringing trade unionists into much more varied and advanced education.

It was also central to the development of active discovery and learning methods, far beyond the "chalk and talk" of the early years.

By the first years of the Blair government, many unions had established union learning reps and accredited partnerships with universities and colleges, which gave union members free access to learning up to the highest levels.

Progress was slowed by the Blair and Brown governments, which went back on their 1998 policy The Learning Age, and followed a skills and productivity agenda led by employers - a legacy that has been cut further by the current government.

Colleges like Ruskin and Northern have survived mainly as vehicles for accessing either higher education or areas of employment such as social work.

However, much good work is still under way even in more difficult circumstances.

So how do we revive and extend independent working-class education? The cost of education is such that financial support has to come from somewhere.

New Labour's introduction of fees for university education, although argued as "redistributive" by Gordon Brown, has actually hit part-time students the hardest.

A revival of the trade union movement will be essential, along with firm and wide-ranging rights to paid release from work.

The TUC Union Learn scheme could be extended with better funding and wider terms of reference.

Funding will have to be available for groups beyond the unions. What is essential is to recover the principles set out in The Learning Age.

The wider question is, as always, education for what purpose?

For people to rise into the middle class, and even become academics "educated beyond the bounds of common sense"? To become more productive, flexible workers? To develop personal skills and confidence to fight for rights as workers, or as women or as particular minorities?

This debate will go on, and those wishing for education to strengthen the collective power of workers will have much to do in finding ways of achieving this.

Dr John Fisher was formerly the Director of Education at the T&G, now part of Unite. He is the author of Bread on the Waters: A History of TGWU Education Lawrence & Wishart, 2005)