Listen to this story Members can listen to an AI-generated audio version of this article. 1.0x Audio narration uses an AI-generated voice. 0:00 0:00 Become a member to listen to this article Subscribe When I started teaching in FE and adult education in the late 1980s, ESOL was often a quiet and improvised part of the system. Classes took place in community centres, church halls and borrowed rooms, supported by skilled teachers working with too little recognition and too few resources. Yet what happened in those rooms was unmistakable: people gained not just grammar, but confidence, independence and a stronger place in the world. That truth has not changed. What has changed is almost everything around it. ESOL now sits much closer to national debates about immigration, employment, integration and public services. The stakes are higher, the learners’ needs are broader, and the pressure on providers is more acute. The question is no longer whether ESOL matters. It is whether the system has kept pace with what ESOL has become. Around one million people in England and Wales cannot speak English well or at all, according to the 2021 Census. Yet in 2023-24, only around 170,000 people enrolled on an ESOL course and only a proportion of them were regulated award based qualifications. This is not a small technical gap. It is the distance between what policy increasingly expects of people and what publicly funded provision is able to help them achieve. Become a member for unlimited access to FE Week subscribe Our members enjoy early access to exclusive content and in-depth articles before anyone else. Get expert journalism on FE and skills, experience fewer ads, and unlock a growing range of member benefits.