ESOL leaders have questioned the government’s “vague” promise to make it easier to attend language classes in its immigration white paper.
In the ‘Restoring control over the immigration system’ white paper this week, the Home Office announced plans to cut net migration numbers by “around 100,000” a year by demanding higher English language levels for people applying to extend their visa or settle permanently.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper claimed the new language requirements sought to ensure migrants could “integrate and contribute”.
But the white paper, published on the same day PM Sir Keir Starmer delivered his “island of strangers” speech, contained no plans or funding to improve English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) provision.
The final paragraph in the section on new language rules states government departments “will make it easier” for people needing “additional help”.
Meanwhile, the adult education sector is braced for 3.7 per cent cuts to the national adult skills fund next year amid sustained demand for ESOL courses from the estimated one million people in England and Wales who cannot speak English well or at all.
Paul Sceeny, co-chair of the National Association for Teaching English and Other Community Languages to Adults (NATECLA), said: “Whilst the white paper is unambiguous about wanting to reduce net immigration and tighten English language conditionality, it includes only one vague statement about ‘[making] it easier for those already in the UK to access classes for English language lessons’.
“ESOL has borne the brunt of the devastating cuts to adult education throughout the UK over the last decade and a half, and the [non-devolved] adult skills fund in England is about to be slashed by a further 6 per cent.
“NATECLA has been calling for an England-wide ESOL strategy/framework for almost a decade, and this mismatch between rhetoric and rules versus reality on the ground just underlines the need for a much more coherent and joined-up approach.”
What are the rule changes?
The rule changes most likely to increase demand for ESOL classes are that all adult dependents should have level A1 English levels, known as ‘beginner’.
Anyone wishing to extend their visa will need to show they have improved to level A2, or ‘elementary’, and the majority of those applying to settle permanently will need to prove they are at level B2, or ‘upper intermediate’.
This can only be proved by taking a test through a limited number of Home Office approved test centres.
Significant strain warnings
Colleges and ESOL experts have warned that adult education courses are being asked to do “more with less” amid high demand for language lessons.
An estimated one million people in England and Wales cannot speak English well or at all according to the 2021 census, but only 170,000 people participated in an ESOL course in the 2023-24 academic year.
About five per cent of those learners – less than 10,000 – enrolled on regulated level 2 ESOL courses, which are roughly equivalent to the Home Office’s B2 requirement for settlement visas.
A spokesperson for London’s Capital City College Group said the decision to raise language requirements was likely to place “significant additional strain on already overstretched ESOL provision”.
They added: “Demand for ESOL courses in the capital is already high, with long waiting lists across many colleges and providers.
“The recent cuts in adult skills funding for both devolved and non-devolved areas will place additional challenges to meet the demand, especially in towns and cities with diverse migrant communities.”
Privately, some in the sector have questioned whether the new rules will increase the risk of fraud through a repeat of issues that led to 36,000 student visas being revoked in the 2010s.
A DfE spokesperson suggested that a further announcement on supporting ESOL capacity will be made “in due course”.
Other ESOL issues
Experts told FE Week the ESOL sector is plagued by several issues that are holding back the economic potential of thousands of second-language speakers in England.
Dr Philida Schellekens, who co-wrote a review of ESOL provision in England for the Bell Foundation last year, said a lack of English holds many migrants and refugees back from using their “considerable education, skills and experience”, such as university-level qualifications, forcing them to be “unemployed or underemployed”.
This is acknowledged in the immigration white paper, which points out that migrants with proficient English skills are 20 per cent more likely to be employed or self-employed.
Other issues raised in Dr Schellekens’ report include a “postcode lottery” of provision across the country, unattractive pay for teachers, and funding rules that incentivise moving learners onto English functional skills courses which are not designed for second-language learners.
The current national ESOL curriculum, published by the then ‘Department for Education and Skills’ in 2001, is also “out of date”, she added.
Sceeny said: “If it is ‘common sense’, as the prime minister says, for people to learn English, then the government really needs to step up to the plate with a clear plan to engage with the sector, expand provision and deal with the rigid eligibility rules that often lock out those who’d benefit most from opportunities to improve their English.”
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