We all love a good news story and GCSE results day, with its pictures of beaming 16 year olds receiving the required A*-Cs, happily provides this once a year. People’s hearts are warmed, in part because this is a milestone we all at least half-remember.

On A-level results day, alongside stories of the ecstatic students who received the grades required for university, newspapers usually roll out an I-failed-but-look-at-me-now story, of someone with an achingly cool or distinguished professional title.

But there’s rarely an equivalent I-got-10Fs-in-my-GCSEs-but-now-I’m-a-total-success. There’s a tacit understanding that if you tank in your GCSEs, there is no way forward for you. This should focus minds on the value and huge importance of adult further education, but unfortunately it rarely does.

Hopefully that will change this year. The “dramatic fall” of 2.1 percentage points in GCSE A*-C grades is in part a result of the new compulsory retakes for 17 year olds who didn’t make these grades in English and maths the first time around. Last year, nearly three-quarters of 16 year olds sitting English gained these coveted grades, compared with just 35% of 17-year-old “resitters”. Students who have failed their maths or English GCSE sometimes need years of further classes before they are able to attain the qualification at this level. This is one of many reasons why adult further education really matters.

Nearly half of those of working age lack basic numeracy skills, and over 5 million adults can be described as functionally illiterate, having literacy skills below that expected of an 11 year old; they wouldn’t be able to pass a GCSE exam. And for every statistic in this debate, there is a person who may experience anxiety around the simplest of tasks – a bus ride to a new area, or a visit to the supermarket. They will often have to work for poverty pay, and have a ring-fenced social life – a world of meaning they cannot access, just beyond their reach. Adult further education should be seen as a fundamental feature of an equal society, and the fact that it is currently under threat tells us a great deal.

Wouldn’t it be great if each August we used results day to focus our minds on what is happening to adult education? We’d perhaps begin to see it as a permanent national necessity, something that should be accessible to everyone, not just the privileged. Perhaps it would make us question how we can allow our government to cut the adult skills budget by 40% and lose nearly 200,000 course places. We might heed the warning last year from the Association of Colleges that in less than four years, adult education in England will cease to exist. What will happen then to the hundreds of thousands of adults studying to improve their basic English and maths skills?

The ability to fund a college course is, unsurprisingly, one of the main barriers for adults who would like to return to education (also, of course, the difficulty of studying part-time while working full-time). Last year the government decided to extend its further education loan scheme to 19-23s. In straitened times that will be hailed as good news, but it remains the case that many, concerned about taking on even more debt, particularly in economically uncertain post-Brexit Britain, might not feel confident enough to take up these loans.

Since 2010 there has been a steady decline in the number of those aged 24 or over studying level 2 and 3 courses (GCSEs, A-levels or their equivalents). And since 2012, there has been a 40% reduction in the proportion of mature and part-time students at universities, following the introduction of tuition fees.

Over five million adults have literacy skills below that expected of an 11-year-old

Theresa May’s talk of improving the life chances of the “just managing” and “left behind”, is, as former education secretary Estelle Morris rightly points out, all well and good, but without a commitment to well-funded adult education, it rings hollow.

When columnists bemoan the public’s lack of engagement with politics and pervasive disaffection, politicians and their bubble-speak are often blamed. Yet we aren’t asking enough questions about what education plays in that apathy – and not just the type of education perceived as solely for the young, or for privileged adults who can afford extortionate postgraduate fees.

Education should be lifelong, and shouldn’t just be about adults retraining to develop skills that fit a fast-changing market. Learning has its own worth. Removing the barriers to further education is one important way of ensuring we as citizens remain engaged in our communities and wider society. On GCSE results day we should remember that education isn’t just important to the individual, it’s fundamental to the functioning of our democracy.