Adult education providers will only need to ask the residency status of learners under simplified eligibility rules released this week.
From August 1, adult learners signing up for non-devolved adult skills fund (ASF) courses will be eligible if they can prove they are ordinarily a UK resident on the first day of learning.
Initial ASF rules for 2025-26, which came out in April, listed a long set of learner residency criteria, including where they were from and how long they had lived in the UK.
But the Department for Education this week simplified residency requirements for courses taking place in England.
That means learners who have been temporarily living outside the UK, Irish citizens, learners who have applied to extend their visas, EEA nationals and non-UK nationals could have eligible residency status from day one of their course.
Funding experts hailed the DfE’s move as “wonderful news” but different rules still apply for mayoral combined authority areas, and visa changes could make it difficult for providers to prove a learners’ eligibility status.
An updated version of the funding rules will be published early next month.
Sue Pember, policy lead at HOLEX, said: “This is really good news. We could have done with it 10 years ago, but it’s still really good news.”
Referring to combined authorities with devolved powers she added: “I’m hoping they just all adopt DfE rules now.”
Funding and data expert Steve Hewitt told FE Week: “Whilst it is wonderful news that DfE are making these long-needed changes, it is a shame they’ve only announced it because they’ve been forced into it due to the removal of dates from visas in the Prove Your Immigration Status system, leaving providers with no way of checking a learner’s status.
“It is even more of a shame that this leaves apprenticeship funding rules even further out of step and even more discriminatory to learners on visas who now find themselves in the Kafkaesque situation of knowing they are legally here but being unable to prove it to the satisfaction of the DfE, despite them doing everything the Home Office has asked of them”.
The DfE confirmed it would not be changing adult education course requirements for asylum seekers.
Asylum seekers are only eligible for central adult funding if they have lived in the UK for more than six months while the Home Office is considering their claims.
The DfE has maintained bans on access to ASF funding for those on student visas, on holiday or on restricted-residence permits.
Alex Stevenson, deputy director at Learning & Work Institute, said: “Increasing flexibility in adult skills fund eligibility is helpful in supporting more learners, including migrant communities, to access learning.
“But the bigger picture is that nine million adults have low essential skills, and tinkering with eligibility criteria does nothing to reverse over £1 billion of cuts to adult skills investment since 2010, which have resulted in 2.1 million fewer adult learners gaining essential skills like literacy and numeracy.”
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