The number of adults participating in literacy or numeracy learning has fallen 60 per cent since 2010, and urgent action is needed, writes Stephen Evans  

“We have found that people are staggered when one confronts them with the basic facts about literacy and numeracy, and rightly so… It is a shocking state of affairs in this rich country, and a sad reflection on past decades of schooling and policy priorities over the years.”

So wrote Sir Claus Moser when his government-commissioned 1999 review found that one in five adults had low literacy or numeracy and recommended a government strategy to change this. In 2001 the government launched its Skills for Life strategy, backed by investment in provision, the teaching workforce and a national awareness campaign. Over the next decade, more than eight million adults gained basic skills qualifications and so many lives were changed.

However, sadly there are still one in five adults with low literacy or numeracy ̶ some nine million people in England. Yet the number of adults participating in literacy or numeracy learning has fallen 60 per cent since 2010. As a result, a new Learning and Work Institute report finds it will take 20 years on current trends for all adults who need help to get it. 

Add to this the almost 12 million adults who lack basic digital skills and you have a hidden crisis.

It’s a crisis because of how fundamental literacy, numeracy and digital are to life and work. Low basic skills limit your chances of finding work, progressing in a career, accessing public services, supporting children in their learning, being active in your community, voting, developing financial and health capabilities and so much more.

And it’s hidden because it’s slipped down the political agenda. Yet under-investing in these skills is a false economy of epic proportions for the government too. Want to “level up” opportunity? Want to improve health and wellbeing? Want to help people access public services online? Want to help people retrain, find work, update their skills? Want more people to gain level 3 and above qualifications? All of these are made harder by the scale of the basic skills challenge.

That’s why we’ve formed the Skills for Life Alliance, bringing together a range of organisations to try and raise the profile of adult basic skills. One of our first steps is to analyse the drivers of falling participation. The huge cuts to the adult education budget, along with a nine per cent real-terms cut to funding per learner, are clearly a key factor. But the lack of awareness-raising (love or loathe the Skills for Life gremlins, you couldn’t really miss them) and cuts to services that used to refer adults to basic skills learning have played their part too.

Reversing the current sorry picture will require investment. But it will also require a collective effort to inspire adults to want to learn and provide learning opportunities that fit around their home and work lives. That means political leadership from the government, but also metro mayors giving priority to basic skills for their devolved funding ̶ as well as employers, community groups, health services and housing providers working together to engage people in learning.

If you want to know what progress looks like, look at Ireland. They’ve recently published their Adult Literacy for Life Strategy, a ten-year plan to improve literacy, numeracy and digital skills. Launching it, their minister said that if you have low basic skills, that’s not your failure, it’s a failure of society and the state and they were going to do something about it.

I’m not holding my breath for the spending review to launch a new Skills for Life strategy for England, though we all live in hope. But I hope we can all work together to make the case that improving basic skills is an investment in both economic growth and social justice, so that a new report in 20 years’ time doesn’t paint the same shocking picture that Sir Claus did.

The entry gap between disadvantaged and more affluent students is now the widest it has been in 15 years, writes Sam Tuckett

Enrolment into higher education is on the rise. Statistics published yesterday by the Department for Education show that the proportion of young people progressing into higher education in 2019-20, the year before the pandemic, was higher than ever before.

The increase seen in these statistics is a continuation of recent trends, with an ever-growing proportion opting for higher education (HE) since 2005/06.

Crucially, these students would have finished their 16-19 study and enrolled in HE prior to the pandemic, so their decisions will not have been affected by the different grading processes and economic uncertainty we have seen during the last 18 months.

However, although there have mostly been increases in HE take-up across the board, some student groups have made greater progress than others.

Over a quarter of students eligible for free school meals (a proxy for disadvantage) now go onto enrol in higher education. This is an increase from around 20 per cent in 2010-11.

In isolation this may seem a positive development – until you quickly see that the growth in the proportion of all other students entering HE has outstripped this.

In other words, the entry gap between disadvantaged and more affluent students is now the widest it has been in 15 years.

To think of this a different way, those from better-off backgrounds were over 1.7 times more likely to enter higher education in 2019-20 than those from more economically deprived backgrounds. And this ratio has been increasing.

The higher education disadvantage gap is even greater when we consider those that go on to enter higher tariff (more selective) institutions. Poorer students are only a third as likely as their better off peers to apply and secure a place.

Poorer students are only a third as likely as their better off peers to apply and secure a place

What also leaps out from the new data is the fact that, within the state school sector, HE uptake has increased since the previous year.

But this increase is more modest amongst A level students than when considering all students collectively, regardless of their 16-19 study programme.

This may suggest an increase in the number of students using applied general and other qualifications to progress into higher education.

But what yesterday’s statistics cannot tell us is how the pandemic may have affected these patterns.

UCAS data suggest HE entry has increased substantially over the last two years, resulting from the lack of good labour market alternatives, and the significant increases in grading resulting from the disruption to exams.

More broadly, our understanding of who won and who lost in 2020 and 2021 is still emerging.

Indeed, upcoming EPI research will investigate whether the greater increases in A level grades compared with other qualifications gave more academic students an additional advantage over vocational students when competing for HE places in 2020.

If this is the case, then we might also expect disadvantaged students to lose out, as they are more likely to take alternatives to A levels.

As disadvantaged students are already the equivalent of around 3 grades behind their better off peers during the 16-19 education phase, this is deeply concerning.

Only time will tell how post qualification admissions, minimum entry requirements, the introduction of T levels and the removal of applied general qualifications, not to mention the unequal impact of the pandemic, will piece together in terms of access for disadvantaged young people.

What is very clear is that for any significant improvements to take place at this stage in education, we must first tackle the differences in grades that young people achieve before progressing to university.

The evidence is clear that inequalities in education arise early on in a young person’s life – if the government wants make any progress in reducing the HE participation gap, and see better outcomes for the large proportion of students who do not opt for this path, it must focus its efforts more on narrowing gaps throughout compulsory education.

The latest government data out today shows more people need to progress into levels 4 and 5, writes Nick Hillman

The higher education sector – universities, colleges and private providers – has made huge strides in widening participation in recent times.

Degrees were once for white middle-class men. Today, female students outnumber male students and enrolments are proportionately higher for people with BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) backgrounds than for others.

Meanwhile the likelihood of people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds making it to higher education is much higher than in the past.

Relative to other national institutions or the elite professions, higher education institutions have become more reflective of our society (at least among their students if not always among their senior staff).

This positive story has been maintained throughout COVID. Most people did not expect that.

Last year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the UK’s most respected think tank, predicted the pandemic could lead to a significant drop in home students (and a huge drop in international students) as well as a wave of institutional bankruptcies.

Had that upheaval happened, you can bet your bottom dollar that it would have affected students from the poorest backgrounds first and worst.

But nearly every prediction about how the crisis would affect higher education has turned out to be wrong: demand from UK school leavers is up, not down; drop out rates are down, not up. The big jump in young people’s grades has made it easier for them to attend higher education.

This story partly reflects the paucity of good alternatives in the crisis – gap years are out, for example – but it also proves the pandemic has not dampened the aspirations of students.

That is the good news. But the overall picture on widening participation resembles a painting that looks good from a distance but which looks worse with every step you take towards it, as the detail hoves into view.

The latest data confirm this. Some groups have been left behind as others have made rapid progress. For example, the proportion of white British males entitled to Free School Meals (FSM) is just 12.6 per cent and has fallen for two years running.

While almost half (48.5 per cent) of pupils in Inner London entitled to Free School Meals (FSM) make it to higher education by age 19, the number for FSM pupils in the country as a whole is just 26.6 per cent.

Such facts are depressing, though it also shows the rich dividends you can get from the sort of concerted effort to improve education that London has seen.

However, as this week’s debates in the House of Lords on the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill shows, there are some new blots on the horizon that could make further progress hard.

Much recent growth in widening participation has come from students with BTECs, yet they are now under threat.

After enrolment, students from groups that were traditionally under-represented are more likely to drop out and less likely to achieve so-called ‘top’ grades (Firsts and Upper Seconds).

After graduation, new inequalities arise, most notably for female graduates who face a large graduate pay gap. The education system may have a man problem but the labour market has a woman problem.

If we are to move from having a low skills economy to a high skills economy, as people across the political spectrum rightly keep saying they want, we need more educational opportunities of all sorts – especially as the number of young people grows over the next decade.

Yet some influential policymakers still argue that higher education places should be capped.

The Association of Colleges in contrast know it must not be a zero-sum game where mid to higher level opportunities come at the expense of the highest opportunities.

The country’s skills problem is not too many graduates; it is that too many people’s formal education stops at Levels 2 and 3 (or below). Unless we have more people progress to Levels 4 and 5 and more people then progress to Levels 6 and 7, widening participation will come to a juddering halt and then reverse.