One step forward, two steps missed?

An initial NIACE response to the Further Education White Paper "Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances" (Cm 6768)

Published: 27 March 2006

1. NIACE welcomes the publication of the White Paper Further Education: Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances (Cm 6768) as a recognition by the Government of the sector’s potential to contribute to both economic and social policy. There are a number of positive reforms in the paper but the paper is also a significant missed opportunity to address the balance of investment between full and part-time students as well as people preparing to enter the labour market, returners to it, those seeking mobility in it and those who have left paid employment.

Positive moves

2. We applaud the announcement of a new system of learner accounts for adult learners, believing that these pilots will succeed in ensuring people have greater choice and control over their learning.

3. We also welcome the proposals, first made in Budget 2006, to introduce an entitlement to a first Level 3 qualification free of charge to learners aged 19-25. But urge the government to commit, over time, to removing age limits on this entitlement.

4. The further development of the Train to Gain initiative will provide extended opportunities for more adults in work to access skills-related learning although we urge Government to ensure that public funds do not displace employers’ investment. NIACE is also concerned to ensure that employees in companies that are ‘cool to training’ and choose not to participate in Train to Gain are not left behind.

5. Recognition of the continuing place of public support for learning for personal fulfilment, civic participation and community development is welcome and NIACE sees value in there being some flexibility in delivery so that local authorities, colleges and voluntary organisations can each contribute in ways that best meet local needs. We would not support the migration of this work wholly into the voluntary sector as this would make it more vulnerable to neglect and atrophy in the future. It is also a cause for concern that, in comparison to the detail elsewhere in the paper, that the linkages and progression routes are left largely under-developed when it comes to this kind of learning and foundation learning, cities’ initiatives and the joint DfES/Home Office work on Active Citizenship.

6. Addressing the interface between further and higher education is also a positive step forward although more time is needed to assess the merit of the particular approach adopted.

7. Attention to the Foundation Learning tier below the Level 2 target is welcome – but still assumes too much that all adults will have a firm and explicit idea of their vocational intentions.

8. There are also positive proposals for adult information, advice and guidance, plans to implement the Budget announcement of support for women with low levels of skills (including those in part-time employment) and workforce development.

9. Overall, the white paper reforms show evidence a number of good intentions and the Government’s desire to ensure that, at a time of tightening funding, public investment is deployed to best effect. Nevertheless, we are concerned that, having built up a lifelong learning infrastructure since 1997, the Government is now allowing it to wither away or be dismantled.

A missed opportunity?

10. At a time when the country’s demographic profile is ageing rapidly and the numbers of young people are set to decline from 2009, it is surprising that the DfES feels that this issue can be covered adequately in a single paragraph (2.38). The scale of the challenge does not seem to be recognised. Despite growing awareness that 2 in 3 of the new jobs to be created in the next decade will be filled not by new young labour market entrants but by adults (and that the first four of 25 sector skills agreements have assumed collectively, the recruitment of more than twice as many young people as actually exist) the DfES is in danger of fiddling while Rome burns.

11. NIACE believes that the balance of the white paper over-emphasises measures to improve (indeed ‘goldplate’) arrangements for the 14 – 25 age range but offers less to people over 25. Why, for example, is there not an entitlement for an “Educational Healthcheck” at age 50 or 55 for adults re-thinking their late career in the labour market beyond 60 and 65?)

12. While employers will be offered subsidies up to 100% through Train to Gain, the pace of change proposed for new fee arrangements elsewhere in the system has not been market-tested and runs the risk of risk slashing adult participation in learning. The absence of a participation element to the ‘Balanced Scorecard’ (chapter 5) is one more omission. This is a significant equalities issue since monitoring participation allows Government, the Learning and Skills Council and providers to understand who is missing and remedy exclusion.

13. NIACE is not against increased fees being generated from adults who can afford them – but only if there is increased investment from Government and, especially, from employers.

14. Research evidence is increasingly clear that the place to break the link between poverty and weak literacy skills is intervention at “pre-entry level 2”. But this is not captured in the Government’s current targets which are set in the wrong place. Instead of taking the opportunity to fine-tune the policy, the danger is that the most valuable provision risks being squeezed out. The danger is that in hitting the targets, Government misses the point.

The NIACE Test

15. The government aspires to an 80% employment rate in the UK. If this is to be achieved, the balance of focus of future white papers must shift away from young labour market entrants – there will simply not be enough young people to fill their parents’ shoes. The success of the White Paper in preparing Further Education to meet the challenge will be demonstrated by how well it is permitted to meet the needs of groups consigned in the past to the margins of labour market policy.  NIACE invites the Government and providers to ask what this white paper offers the following eight groups:

16. The White Paper offers relatively little to these groups of adults for whom the Government’s targets are not sufficient or not appropriate. The one exception being women with low skill levels for whom additional support was announced in the budget. We would like to see this approach extended.

Conclusion: It’s time for a Big Conversation

17. The Government invites formal responses to the White Paper by June 19th 2006. In order to secure an informed public debate about the proposals, NIACE will run a Big Conversation to celebrate those adults who succeed in learning and debate how policies could be improved. This will include a rolling lobby of Parliament around Adult Learners’ Week (May 20 – 27). The questions we urge NIACE members, supporters, providers and learners to consider are:

18. For more information about this response, contact Alastair Thomson (Senior Policy Officer) 0116 204 4241. (Out of hours press contact mobile: 07787 534413).

NIACE
20 Princess Road West
LEICESTER LE1 6TP

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