The future of adult learning

Tom Wilson, director, UnionLearn, TUC     David Hughes, chief executive, NIACE

Ever-rising levels of unemployment, lack of skills among sections of the population, equality, changing policy and funding rates are just some of the issues that those in further education need to battle on a daily basis.

But how do they move forward? The potential answers were discussed at The Future of Adult Learning, organised by the Westminster Employment Forum, last Tuesday.

Deborah Roseveare, head of the skills beyond school division in the directorate for education at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), said there are three reasons why adult learning matters.

She said: “First, it contributes to human capital development, both economic and social. Secondly, the changing skills demand, especially over the 40 years of working life.

“Thirdly, demographics mean if you want to boost the human capital and you want to meet changing skills demands, then you have to look at adult learning, because the university cohort adds such a little fraction to the labour force each year.”

Mrs Roseveare also told delegates the OECD is currently carrying out a survey to assess skills held by adults, which will be available in October.

She said: “One of the challenges that we have is that we don’t know what skills adults actually have and the good news is we are currently carrying out a major international survey of adult foundation skills.

“This is looking at literacy, numeracy and problem solving and a lot of information about background and how they are using their skills if they are in the workplace.”

Mrs Roseveare said adult learning should not be looked at “in isolation”, adding: “Adult learning needs to be linked to other economic and social policies.

“We are, in a few weeks, going to be releasing the OECD skills strategy, which looks at the evidence and sets out a framework for developing better policies for skills development and utilisation.”

David Hughes, the chief executive of the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education (NIACE), spoke of the opportunities and challenges for adult learning.

“I’m not wholly optimistic about the way things are going at the moment.

“Therefore, opportunities are difficult to focus on and actually I think challenges are what we should be focusing on,” he said.

He began with six “areas of context”, such as the economic crisis, which Mr Hughes believes is also a social crisis.

The second point, he added, is government uncertainty, “about understanding what they are about and what they stand for”.

His third point revolved around “fewer adults” learning, while the threat to widening participation, caused by declining numbers, funding cuts and reductions in the unit of funding for learning, was his fourth point.

He added: “The fifth is a shift, particularly around level 3, from state funding to state financing, so we are moving into a world where we are asking people to take loans at level 3 which has never happened before.

“We should be worrying about the impact of that.”

His final point related to the government’s localism agenda.

Moving on, Mr Hughes then spoke of key challenges, including the “need to promote adult learning in terms of its wider benefits” and inequality.

He also added: “I think there is going to be a social wave of concern around social inequalities in our society. We’ve got to get in there and show just how unequal so much of the adult learning sector is in terms of the sorts of people who participate.”

Mr Hughes also stressed “all forms of adult learning are equally important” and the best employers “really do understand that learning is an important skill”.

However, he also suggested that the sector needs to “rehabilitate the word ‘learning’”.

He said: “We’ve focused too much on skills, too much on training and too much on teaching, rather than learning.

I’m not wholly optimistic about the way things are going at the moment”

“It’s positive to us in this room but if you go to many people out there, they don’t think learning is a positive. If you think about people taking their driving tests, they are proud if they do it in as fewer lessons as possible, as the learning is not what they want, it’s the passing.

Meanwhile, Tom Wilson, director of unionlearn, the learning and skills organisation of the TUC, said: “From a trade union perspective, we are quite optimistic.”

He also said: “Through unionlearn, we have around 230,000 people every year going through some form of learning.”

Mr Wilson spoke of a recent trip to Germany with skills minister John Hayes.

“There isn’t that same distinction between personal, informal and what counts as company learning. There is encouragement for all sorts of learning and a recognition that the two blend into each other,” said Mr Wilson.

The director also said it is the union’s view that, in order to get “any kind of job” in Britain today, you need “at least” a level 2.

He said: “Most of the young unemployed are people who can’t get a job, because they can’t get a level 2. If you think about all sorts of jobs, retail, working construction sites, social care, restaurants, hotels, they require basic levels of skills, which they didn’t used to.”

Mr Wilson later said: “It’s not the squeezed middle, it’s the excluded bottom.

“The two or three million out there, of any age, who can’t get in the workplace or easily engaged and we have to reach out to them and the way to do that is informal learning.”

Deborah Roseveare, head of Skills Beyond School Division, Directorate for Education, OECD

Other discussions continued with talks from representatives of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, Working Links, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, National Numeracy, UNISON and Rolls Royce.

Meanwhile, president-elect for Association of Colleges, Maggie Galliers, gave an insight as principal of Leicester College into adult apprenticeships.

But it was a question from the floor, surrounding the “disappearance” of ESOL, which caught the eye.

Mr Hughes said: “It’s a question we keep asking ministers.

“It’s gone quiet, I think really simply for political reasons and that mixture between ESOL being about people coming in to this country and that whole paranoia, right-wing paranoia, about immigration.

“They just want to put it to bed. What they’ve done is said nothing about it and hope it goes away as an issue.

“We should be promoting ESOL as a positive part of creating a society that we want to live in. That’s the kind of positive that we want to turn it around to and I think the government and ministers don’t want to talk about it.

“So keep asking and keep prodding them.”

Redundancies at Elmfield Training

Elmfield Training Ltd, who have been scrutinised by the BIS Select Committee for their delivery of apprenticeships with Morrisons, are starting to make redundancies.

A spokesperson for Elmfield Training told FE Week: “In respect of the staff consultation, part of running a business is to make sure there are the right people in the right geographical areas to meet customers’ needs and this consultation is part of this process.

“Having gained new customers recently, as well as continuing to work with existing ones, we expect to be able to redeploy the majority of staff who might be affected and where this is not possible we will make every effort to help them get alternative jobs.

“The current changes taking place affect a relatively small proportion of our workforce.”

The spokesperson did not disclose how many redundancies are taking place, or if there are more to follow.

FE Week approached Elmfield Training about the redundancies following an unpublished comment posted on the FE Week website. It reads: “The ‘little guys’ are already beginning to pay the price as Elmfield started its first round of redundancies this week.

“As a dedicated employee who has been involved in assisting learners to enhance their skills and increase their employability prospects (which is what the company so proudly presents as its goals) we are now faced with being thrown on the scrapheap as a result – hypocrisy in the worst form.”

Another comment left on the FE Week website, which has not been published, claims that assessors are being pressured into accrediting Morrisons apprentices prematurely.

When asked about the claims a spokesperson for Elmfield Training said: “This has been a highly successful contract with great outcomes for learners.

“Our stringent governance and quality control arrangements mean that our work is very carefully monitored, with all of our staff working within a strict code of conduct and any deviation away from this is taken very seriously.”

The CEO of Elmfield Training, Ged Syddal, was accused by an MP of a “rip off” during an evidence session held by the BIS Select Committee for their inquiry into apprenticeships.

It follows pre-tax profits of £12.3 million for the company in 2009/10, which Mr Syddall has confirmed “was all government money”.

The provider was also scrutinised during the BBC One Panorama programme, “The Great Apprentice Scandal.”

Hundreds of funding rates ‘realigned’ upwards

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has realigned the funding rates used in the Employer Responsive (ER) Other funding stream, matching the funding rates currently paid for Adult Learner Responsive (ALR) delivery.

More than 750 learning aims have been changed in-year, significantly increasing the amount of funding which providers will receive for delivering qualifications.

The changes, which are effective immediately, will also back pay providers for the previous nine months in the 2011/12 academic year.

A spreadsheet published by the SFA shows that the funding attributed to each qualification have all risen, with some, such as the Diploma in Roof Slating and Tiling, increasing by as much as 781 per cent.

The SFA has not revealed the overall cost of the change, but told FE Week: “We have modelled the impact of these changes and this was taken to the Funding External Technical Advisory Group.”

Many private training providers used to be only funded on the basis they would be delivering qualifications in the workplace.

The training was thought to take more teaching time than if it was delivered in a classroom, and was therefore funded at a lower rate.

However, the introduction of the single Adult Skills Budget (ASB) has enabled providers to deliver classroom provision, creating an anomaly in funding rates.

By upping the rate where the differences are marked, the SFA appear to be equalising rates fairly and encouraging a broader range of qualification delivery.”

The SFA website reads: “The consequence of this has been to highlight differences between the funding rates in Adult Learner Responsive (ALR) and Employer Responsive (ER) Other provision, due to the different drivers used to set rates historically.

“This will not be an issue in the longer term.

“Under our testing of a new streamlined and simplified funding methodology, to be introduced from 2013/14, the aim is that there is a single funding rate for every learning aim regardless of the mode of delivery.”

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) has welcomed the change in ER Other funding rates, as well as the SFA’s plans to equalise the funding of all stand-alone workplace and classroom based qualifications in 2013/14.

Paul Warner, director of employment and skills for the AELP, told FE Week: “The good news about the ER alignment is that it aligns the variances where the variances are most marked, as opposed to aligning merely the most popular qualifications.

“By upping the rate where the differences are marked, the SFA appear to be equalising rates fairly and encouraging a broader range of qualification delivery.”

He added: “We don’t see why any provider should lose from this if they are performing well. However, as the funding for alignment will come from claw back money, we hope that this move will not adversely impact on the ability of good providers to grow under the new system.”

Training providers which will benefit from the changes include Building Crafts College, who expect to receive at least an extra £100,000 throughout 2011/12.

Philip Wildman, director of corporate affairs for Building Crafts College, told FE Week: “Do we welcome it? Absolutely. These increases have actually, from our perspective, restored the values available to us under the previous regime.”

‘Stop wasting money’ Unison tells colleges

Colleges spent at least £65 million on agency staff during the last financial year, according to information obtained by Unison.

The trade union has calculated a combined bill of £64,613,485 for 170 colleges through freedom of information requests.

The disclosure, which details spending between August 2010 and July 2011, follows plans for potential redundancies at a number of FE colleges across the country, as revealed in FE Week last month.

Unison say using agency workers is “a disgraceful waste of money”, and colleges should be using their resources to either protect jobs or improve wages.

Jon Richards, head of education at Unison, said: “Colleges are claiming that they cannot afford to relieve the pressure on workers and their families by giving them a pay rise.

“These staff will be rightly shocked that colleges have tens of millions to spend on agency workers and on VAT bills.”

Mr Richards added: “It is time for colleges to stop wasting money and manage their budgets so they can pay workers fairly and safeguard jobs.”

While Leeds City College appears at the top of the table, it is important to look at these figures in context.”

Leeds City College, who spent a total of £2,777,628 on agency workers in 2010/11, came out highest in the information gathered by Unison.

However, the college told FE Week it is common practice to employ external contractors and consultants.

A statement from the college reads: “It is imperative for the college to be able to fulfil its key function of teaching and learning – and due to a number of factors (for example maternity cover, staff absences as a result of illness), there may be the requirement for the use of highly specialised academic or business support personnel for short specific periods of time and/or projects.”

It later adds: “While Leeds City College appears at the top of the table, it is important to look at these figures in context.

“Leeds City College is the third largest FE college in the country and any additional temporary spend is likely to be numerically greater than that of most other colleges.

“In 2010/11, the College had an annual turnover of £80 million, with more than 45,000 students over multiple sites.

“College agency spend highlighted is the equivalent of 3.4% of total turnover.”

Rotherham College of Arts and Technology, which spent £2,214,529 on agency workers in 2010/11, has also defended the practice and says it helps them to quickly respond to learner needs.

Gill Alton, principal and chief executive of the college, told FE Week: “We use agency staffing as a part of our overall staffing mix.

“It enables us to respond flexibly to changes in student demand but also funding changes, of which there are a lot in further education at the moment.”

Unison say agencies regularly charge “as much as three times” what they would for a permanent member of staff, and also have to pay 20 per cent VAT on agency bills.

Evan Williams, director of employment and professional services at the Association of Colleges said: “Colleges, which are independent organisations, are aware of the financial benefits and implications of employing agency staff, but it is not always easy to fill these specialist positions often leaving the institutions with few alternatives. It is up to colleges to best channel resources to account for these conditions and they are always looking to be prudent.

“It is a more complicated issue that requires an all-round approach to maintain quality provision.”

‘Disappointing’ drop in adult participation says NIACE

The number of adults taking part in formal learning has fallen five percentage points, a survey by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) has revealed.

The annual adult participation in learning survey, published by the independent charity last week, shows that the majority of adults (62 per cent) have not participated in any formal study in the last three years.

The research also shows that more than a third of adults haven’t taken part in any learning since they left compulsory education.

David Hughes, chief executive of NIACE, said: “Participating in learning can help people secure work, stay and flourish in their jobs, keep healthy and play a positive role in their community.

“All of those are even more important now with a tough labour market, an ageing population and stressed communities.

“So it is disappointing that participation in learning is declining, with many of the people who could most benefit missing out.”

Roughly one in five adults who responded to the survey said they are currently learning, while 38 per cent said they had participated in the last three years.

NIACE say this is a drop of five percentage points since 2010.

What’s needed now is for policy-makers, providers, businesses, unions and charities to work together to encourage more people to take up learning.”

A Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) spokesperson said: “Adult learning has great benefits for individuals, their families and their communities as well for the economy and growth.

“That is why despite declining budgets we have protected investment for priority groups including the low skilled, young adults without intermediate and advanced qualifications and the unemployed.”

Toni Pearce, vice president (FE) at the National Union of Students (NUS), told FE Week the figures were “very worrying” and likely to decline further once the government’s FE loans scheme is introduced.

“It would be a national tragedy if those who have been shut out of education in the past, and who are increasingly unlikely to be offered the right opportunities to re-enter, were even further deterred from taking up life-changing routes to lifelong learning by the creation of new financial barriers to education and skills” she said.

“Ministers now need to urgently take the initiative and create a lifelong learning climate to replace the one-chance-and-you’re-out approach which casts those with huge potential onto the scrapheap and threatens to do permanent damage by offering no route back.”

The research, which surveyed 5,237 adults aged 17 and over, also provides a comparative snapshot in participation rates between adults in work, looking for work and retirement. More than 40 per cent of respondents in full and part time employment said they had participated in some kind of learning in the last three years, compared to only 14 per cent of retired people.

The survey also shows that adults who stayed on in initial education are much more likely to participate in learning than those who left at the earliest opportunity.

Mr Hughes said:  “Our survey shows that you are much less likely to take part in learning if you are retired, or outside of the labour market, if you are in a low skilled job, or if you didn’t do well in school.

“What’s needed now is for policy-makers, providers, businesses, unions and charities to work together to encourage more people to take up learning.”

The Association of Colleges (AoC) say it is difficult for providers to maintain the participation levels of adult learners when budgets are being cut and “student entitlements are being eroded.”

Joy Mercer, director of policy at the AoC, said: “It is a testament to the commitment of providers that there has not been a more substantial decline in the number of adult enrolments.

“Having said that, if colleges are going to be part of the solution to high levels of unemployment then there needs to be positive encouragement. Those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds should be helped as much as possible to engage with education, to retrain, or to upgrade their skills.”

BIS Select Committee announces final apprenticeship evidence session

The BIS Select Committee have announced details of their final evidence session on Apprenticeships. On the 16 May at 9.50am John Hayes MP, Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning will join Gila Sacks, Deputy Director of the Apprenticeships Unit (BIS/DfE), will give their evidence. The session will be streamed live on Parliament TV and is open to the public on a first come, first served basis.

For more click here

The Skills Funding Agency don’t do planning, and neither can you

When Skills Funding Agency (SFA) replaced the Learning and Skills Council in April 2010 a critical difference in function was a very public end to central planning.

This was accelerated by the coalition government when in June 2010 they scrapped the Summary Statement of Activity (a national template for provider plans) and introduced the ‘freedoms and flexibilites’ of a single Adult Skills Budget.

Yet, take a forensic look at how the SFA have been managing the £4bn budget, and you would be forgiven for thinking they did not want anyone else to stick to a plan either.

• In August colleges are unexpectedly told that despite policy announcements the previous November to the contrary, many unemployed learners on ‘wider benefit’s’ might remain eligible for full funding after all.

• In November colleges unexpectedly start being offered millions by the SFA to be spent on NEETs before the end of the academic year. With no explanation as to how this would be recorded nor monitored, the SFA simply told FE Week: “The funding forms part of the existing Adult Skills Budget that is being redeployed as part of our normal quarterly performance review”.

• In March colleges are unexpectedly given a share of £23 million in Discretionary Learner Support funding, to be spent before August. One principal told FE Week: “getting that sort of sum of money, in an unplanned way late in the year, just isn’t doing anybody any favour”.

• In April FE Week analysis of an SFA document shows that overall in-year allocations have increased a staggering £240 million since August. Newham College, for example, has received an in-year increase of more than £4m.

• In May the SFA unexpectedly announce they are adjusting 797 qualification funding rates with just three months of the year remaining. All 797 went up, some by more than 400 per cent. (See page 2 in the next edition of FE Week).

So it seems colleges and training providers are getting almost monthly calls from their friendly Skills Funding Agency account manager. If so, does the Agency say something like:

Forget the reduced funding rates and cut to your allocation while you were planning your courses, or that you made redundancies to find efficiencies. Now that your courses have started can you help us out? We have a couple of hundred million in unspent funding to offload.  Sound good?”

It may sound good, but how can providers be expected to sensibly plan the resources to deliver high quality courses with all these short-term ‘unexpected’ giveaways?

One claim from the SFA is these in-year increases reward success, and providers don’t earn the funding unless the courses are actually delivered. But this is not true. When funding went unspent last year the SFA said: “A tolerance of three per cent will be applied to the final out turn for 2010/11, so clawback will be waived for providers who have delivered 97 per cent or more.”

The other problem is that without an enforceable plan, colleges and providers can and do decide to use the funding for courses that the Skills Funding Agency do not want to purchase. For example, it is clear that 25+ apprenticeships starts continue to grow exponentially whilst the high priority 16-24 year-old starts have stalled.

So despite the end to central planning, when allocating funding for next year the SFA said that they don’t want “maintenance of current recruitment levels for those aged over 25” and “will monitor the pattern and volume of 25+ Apprenticeship delivery in-year”. Case of the SFA wanting to have one’s cake and eat it too?

Few support the principle of central control or giving money back to the Treasury, but Agitator sees a sector increasingly struggling to see the point of doing their own business planning much beyond lunch, let alone for the next academic year.

FE loans to be called “24+ Advanced Learning Loans”

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has revealed to FE Week that the new FE loans system will be called “24+ Advanced Learning Loans” when it’s introduced next year.

A BIS spokesperson told FE Week: “It is important that the name for the loans reflects the type of learners and learning that it will apply to.

“The vast majority of public funding for further education will continue to be grant funded, with loans representing between 10-15 per cent of the total FE budget.”

The spokesperson added: “After carrying out testing with a sample of learners we have chosen the name “24+ Advanced Learning Loans”.

“This describes the loan offer which covers learners aged 24 and above studying at level 3 and above.”

(Note: Look out for coverage of the roundtable debate on FE loans, held by FE Week, in our next printed edition)

UKCES appoints four new commissioners

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) has appointed four new commissioners.

Gail Cartmail, assistant general secretary for Unite the Union, Scott Johnson, chief executive of Chas Smith Shopfitters Ltd, Toby Peyton-Jones, HR director at Siemens UK & North West Europe and Neil Mclean, chair of the Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership have been appointed on a three year term.

They will join the 23 existing commissioners led by Charlie Mayfield, chairman of the John Lewis Partnership.

“I am extremely pleased to welcome four Commissioners of such high calibre,” Mr Mayfield said.

“They join the Commission at an exciting time, as we seek to ensure that skills development is really embedded within industrial policy to help boost jobs and growth.

“Gail, Scott, Neil and Toby join our other new Commissioners, Paul McKelvie and Scott Waddington, who were appointed by the Scottish and Welsh government respectively, and joined us last month.”

The appointments were announced by business secretary Vince Cable earlier today.

“Building a skilled workforce is a key part of our efforts to stimulate economic recovery and growth,” Mr Cable said.

“I am therefore delighted to announce these appointments, the diverse backgrounds and viewpoints represented by the new Commissioners will strengthen the Commission’s capacity to deliver skills for growth across all sectors.”