| Previous Section | Home Page |
Column 239
Woodcock, Dr. MikeYoung, Sir George (Acton)
Younger, Rt Hon George
Tellers for the Noes :
Mr. Tom Sackville and
Mr. Nicholas Baker.
Question accordingly negatived.
New clause 7
Adult education funding for community colleges
.--(1) A community college may, notwithstanding the provisions of section 6 of this Act, for the provision of specific courses offering further or higher education to adult persons, submit direct to the Funding Council covering the location in which it is located, an application for financial support, to be given on terms laid down by the Funding Council concerned requiring the applicant to apply such funding only for the specified purpose.
(2) Every community college applying under the provisions of subsection (1) above shall keep and maintain separate accounts to receive such Funding Council payments ; and the money in such accounts shall be held in trust for expenditure only in accordance with the terms laid down by the Funding Council as a condition of making such funding available.
(3) For the purposes of this Act, the term "community college" shall be taken to mean a school (whether or not owned by a local education authority) which offers to adults courses of further or higher education in addition to its primary function of providing secondary education to children of school age.'.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Sir Robin Maxwell-Hyslop (Tiverton) : I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : With this we may consider the following amendments : No. 6, in clause 5, page 4, line 26, at end insert or
(c) an existing service which provides a course or courses mentioned in Schedule 2 to this Act and which is the local deliverer of quality provision meeting local needs.'.
No. 14, in clause 6, page 6, line 21, at end insert ;
or
(c) where an external institution has an existing substantial and significant profile of courses falling within Schedule 2 to this Act, its governing body may seek permission from a regional committee to make application directly to a council subject to conditions specified in an order made by the Secretary of State.'.
Sir Robin Maxwell-Hyslop : The purpose of new clause 7 is to enable community colleges, for courses approved by the funding councils, to be funded directly by the funding councils after direct application has been made to them. By establishing that the payments received by community colleges for such courses shall be held in trust for the purpose for which the funding council provides them, that gets round the difficulty about which my hon. Friend the Minister of State wrote to me last November, when he pointed out that community colleges do not have a legal identity. Of course, a trust fund does. This not only provides the legal identity, which was, I think quite authentically, worrying my hon. Friend ; it also ensures that the money cannot be siphoned off by a malign LEA for another purpose. That other principal worry of Department of Education and Science Ministers is dealt with in this carefully drafted new clause.
Is it desirable that there should be community colleges? We are not talking about something that does not exist.
Column 240
We are talking about secondary schools--that is their main purpose--which also use their facilities, when they are not using them for providing secondary education for children, for providing a whole range of courses for adults. But, of course, the funding council would not fund the whole range of a community college's adult education courses, only those which met its criteria. There is no question that money provided by central Government would in this way be used for a purpose outside that which central Government intend. That is why I drafted the new clause--I drafted it myself--with very considerable care.I am aware that there are some community colleges--most notably Richmond-- which do not fall within my definition of a community college, because they are not primarily secondary education colleges who provide adult education as an extra. What I am saying is that the community college structure within the pattern of our education makes the best possible use of the resources, not just the resources of buildings, but of the equipment, of the facilities and of the staff. Very often--although not universally--they are in rural areas : not universally.
Plymouth certainly is not a rural area, yet it has a thriving community college. Indeed, its principal was one of the five whom I took to see, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller), the Secretary of State very early in September to persuade him to write into his Bill, while he still had time to do so, the provisions which I am now bringing forth. He could, in fact, had he wished to, have thought up means of getting round his own objections. However, as that is, we have to assume, beyond the skill of the parliamentary draftsmen, well, I have done it for them. It is a particular pleasure to see that it has attracted support from both main parties and others as well. It is in no sense a doctrinare new clause, unless one calls it doctrinaire to try and get the fullest possible use out of educational facilities rather than leaving them to stand idle when they need not do so in evenings. It also gets round in rural areas the undeniable problems of the changing--rapidly changing-- pattern of public transportation. The task, without this new clause, placed by my hon. Friend and by my right hon. and learned Friend, who is not gracing us with his presence tonight, on FE colleges is a very formidable one indeed because the FE college to whom community colleges will otherwise have to make their applications has to know about their accessibility and the accessibility of the community colleges by public transport. Because public transport can alter its pattern or, indeed, disappear after a week, the gift of prophecy is required, not just hard work to acquire knowledge.
8.45 pm
It is also, as I pointed out on Second Reading, necessary for the FE college not just to know what it is intending to put on itself, but to know what other FE colleges are putting on. That is quite a task, because the other FE colleges will not know what they are putting on until the course has been advertised and they know whether they have got a high enough response to decide to put it on rather than not to put it on. This is the reality.
Yet before that is known, the FE college which has to handle the community college's applications has to exercise this quite astonishing degree of prophetic power, so that it can either forward it, saying in good faith to the funding council that it does not think--it cannot know--that there is adequate provision for the course
Column 241
concerned without the community college putting it on ; or that there is not adequate public transport to get potential students from the area where the community college is to the location where the FE college concerned is--or, hypothetically, another FE college. This is the problem it is going to be faced with.I do not need to speak at any further length, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I really deployed the case for this on Second Reading. That case is unchanged. What I have had since then is a large number of letters from community colleges outside Devon--of course, I have been dealing with community colleges inside Devon before, but I have now had letters from community colleges all over the place where, frankly, I did not know that they existed, and very helpful some of those letters have been too.
I will end again by saying that I have been at great pains to meet the specific objections which the Minister of State wrote in his letter as recently as last November to me. Those objections cannot apply to new clause 7. I therefore hope that my hon. Friend's response will be one of gratitude and acceptance. He will know that, if this is accepted and added to the Bill tonight, it does not reopen the whole Bill in another place. It only opens this particular new clause to acceptance, rejection or amendment. Since I do not doubt that there is a majority for it as it is in the other place, there will be every incentive for them to hasten it back here rather than to hold it up so that they lose what they have given plenty of evidence of what, in fact, they want--namely, a provision of this kind in the Bill.
Mr. Carr : I do not intend to speak for long--
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : The hon. Gentleman looks lonely.
Mr. Carr : I am deeply grateful to the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) for being concerned about my apparent loneliness ; I am greatly touched.
I do not propose to make a lengthy speech because the hon. Member for Tiverton (Sir R. Maxwell-Hyslop) argued his case admirably. Ever since I was a practising teacher--long before I came to this place--I have been surprised that the model offered by community schools and colleges has not been followed elsewhere. Many authorities and areas--particularly rural areas--would benefit from having community colleges.
The community colleges offer a range of opportunities for adults to return to and continue with their education. They also provide a focal point for many other community activities. Although we are not here to discuss those activities now, it is worth mentioning that the community schools and colleges contribute more to the communities in which they are located than merely the provision of educational opportunities.
Let us consider the schedule 2 provision that community colleges seek to make. New clause 7 certainly sets the matter out simply. There will be no problem about maintaining separate accounts. We heard from Ministers earlier about the receipt of funding for higher education institutions from a number of different sources. The arrangements do not appear to present a problem in respect of higher education institutions and there is no reason why they should present a problem here. The new clause will give community colleges the right to apply direct to the funding councils in respect of schedule 2 courses.
Column 242
Many adults progress from community colleges to follow award-bearing vocational courses and, in rural areas, the Bill as drafted sheds some doubt over those arrangements. I am not from Devon and I am not familiar with Devon's pattern of provision, but I am assured, in letters that I have received from Devon, that the community colleges there are widely supported and highly regarded by those whom they serve. Right across the community, and irrespective of political or other affiliation, there is a desire to ensure that the colleges continue to provide the excellent education facilities that they offer at present.The Government have rightly given flexibility to schools through the local management arrangements. Despite Ministers' rhetoric about decentralisation and the devolved administration of educational establishments, the Bill is a centralising measure, in the sense that it gives powers to funding councils that are answerable to Ministers. The new clause recognises the role that the community colleges have played and the fact that they need to be separately funded from further education colleges.
Sir John Farr : I support the new clause so ably advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Sir R. Maxwell-Hyslop). Fortunately, my amendment No. 6 has been grouped with it. That gives me an opportunity not only to explain my support for my hon. Friend's proposal but to touch upon the real concerns that we still have in Leicestershire.
I say "still" because my hon. Friend the Minister of State was kind enough to see me on two occasions with two delegations of Leicestershire Members. On the first occasion, we said, in a nutshell, that we wanted amendment No. 6--or, rather, an amendment identical to that amendment. He said, "Come back with your experts and convince us." A week later, my hon. Friend was kind enough to see several of my hon. Friends representing Leicestershire constituencies, together with our chairmen of governors and our community college and adult basic education principals.
I think that we won the argument, and at the time I was confident. I was utterly shocked to learn a couple of weeks after our last meeting with my hon. Friend that the Bill was to proceed in its present form. In view of the fears that are felt in Leicestershire and elsewhere in the country-- colleagues from East Anglia and Essex are also a little concerned about the consequences of the Bill as drafted--the least we expected was that my hon. Friend would proceed with the higher education part of the Bill and leave the further education part for further reflection and consideration. He did not take that course, and I therefore have no option but to support the new clause.
As I explained, amendment No. 6 is a chrysalised version of the original amendment which I submitted to my hon. Friend the Minister of State before Christmas. It is the amendment we wanted and the one we talked about when we were lucky enough to see my hon. Friend in January and February.
Let me explain why we wanted the amendment. In Leicestershire we have a highly advanced system of adult basic education as of right. We are proud of our system of one-to-one education in the home and feel that it is something on which we should build. Her Majesty's inspectors have recently examined our adult basic
Column 243
education system in the county and say in their report--of which I have a copy--that it is the sort of system that should be built upon. I come now to further education, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton spoke so ably. In Market Harborough, we have a community education centre called Welland Park community college. The buildings are in full-time educational use. As soon as the kids from the local secondary school go home at tea time, the FE college takes over. Full use is made of those fine buildings, for the benefit of the community.After I went to see my hon. Friend the Minister with my experts from the county, I had a meeting with them and they told me that they felt that they would lose unless changes were made in the Bill. They listened carefully to what my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State said on Second Reading. In relation to provisions in clause 5 which I have mentioned, he referred to parts of clause 6. We had a further meeting in Leicestershire and the education experts considered what was said. They felt that, unless specific mention was made somewhere in the Bill and colleges of further education had direct access to the Further Education Funding Council, we would lose out.
Mr. Fatchett : I endorse everything that the hon. Gentleman has said. I know the Leicestershire system very well, as I was the parliamentary candidate for Bosworth in the 1979 general election and I got to know Leicestershire very well. I lost on that occasion and I am not sure what that says about the people of Leicestershire. However, the adult education service and the community colleges in Leicestershire were supported by all the electorate and all political parties. It is interesting to note in Leicestershire the extent to which the development of the community colleges has occurred not on a partisan basis but across all three political parties, largely because of the nature of the local authority.
Sir John Farr : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. Leicestershire has a hung or balanced local authority. For many years, no one party has had overall control. The adult basic education structure and further education structure in the county has blossomed so much because the three parties have got together around the committee table and done what is best for the people who created that balanced authority.
9 pm
The purpose of amendment No. 6 is to encourage funding councils to recognise and retain existing high-quality provision such as free-standing adult basic education and English as a second language schemes in Leicestershire which have a structure that meets the needs of local users.
My hon. Friends the Members for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Latham), for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) and for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) came with me to meet my hon. Friend the Minister. However, there are still real fears that, as a result of the Bill, the county will lose out in respect of its present highly regarded situation. There has been much comment about the damage that may be caused to the county. As my hon. Friend the member for Tiverton said, we do not have a system in Leicestershire that is based specifically on FE. Some of the
Column 244
education takes place in community colleges and some in students' homes, in village halls, in very small groups or, quite frequently, on a one-to-one basis in the home. The purpose of our FE structure is to build up the confidence of people who found school difficult and to whom a classroom atmosphere has always been alien. That is why I will vote in favour of new clause 7.I want to finish by leaving with the House a message contained in a letter that I have just received from Mr. Lee, the head of community education at Welland Park community college, after he and I had the benefit to meet my hon. Friend the Minister of State. He wrote : "The Government would create a lot of goodwill if they allowed selective other institutions--ie Welland Park college--to have direct access to the funding councils."
I endorse that request and nothing that my hon. Friend the Minister said has led me to change my view that we, in Leicestershire, have something that is too precious to lose. I will vote for the new clause.
Mr. Morley : I welcome amendment No. 14 and give it my full support. I cannot understand why the Minister of State continues to say that there is no problem in community colleges, adult education colleges or adult education consortia which can go to various further education colleges and make applications. If they could go through that system, it would surely make a lot more sense to accept the amendment.
It worries me that the hon. Member for Harborough (Sir J. Farr) and his hon. Friends have gone along to the Minister of State with local experts, local people and principals of adult education colleges and community colleges to put that point. I am sure that they put their point fairly and professionally in a non-partisan manner, but they have been completely ignored. That is what worries me about the thrust of the Bill. If there are issues in it that the Government consider worthy, why do they not listen to the reasonable arguments about securing important parts of the adult education service, whether it be the community college side or the adult education service ?
I fail to understand why the Government cannot allow those organisations to make their own bids in the same way as a sixth form college or a further education college would. Why should they be treated in that way ? I do not accept the Minister of State's assurances. We have already seen the Secretary of State floundering when answering a question by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) about capital allocation and how it will work.
I now refer to the adult education service on a countywide basis. Some very important difficulties have not yet been cleared up, or I certainly have not heard the answers. I appreciate that the Secretary of State tried to be helpful in dealing with some of the points that I raised with him, but he did not satisfactorily answer my question. For example, if there is a countywide service and more than one community college, if they have to make a bid to the existing FE college, which FE college will it be? In the case of community colleges, does it have to be the nearest FE college? The right hon. and learned Gentleman did not say that they could channel a bid through one college. I take that as a helpful clarification of what can be done.
The Humberside adult education service is bigger than most of the FE colleges in the county. It is a matter of how the bid is channelled through the colleges. In my constituency, the adult education service has several adult education centres. One of those centres is in a building
Column 245
known as Ancholme house. The building is owned by the FE college, but the adult education service operates within that building and provides a range of services, including basic education, which is actually being taken away from it by the Bill. There is a further complication. To get the service back, it would have to bid possibly through the very college which has the service within its own buildings. One can see the potential for complications and difficulties in such a situation.There is no doubt about the value of adult education in community colleges or consortia. That point has been made time and again. It is not good enough for the Government to say that there will be no changes and that every level of service will be guaranteed. At present, they are not in a position to say that because of the way those colleges will have to bid. The amendment would safeguard community colleges at least and make the position much clearer and more coherent in respect of obtaining funding. For adult education consortia, there is still a worry about bidding and how they will obtain money.
The Minister of State fails to understand that, with a countywide service, a consortium and some community colleges which will be part of such a consortium, the service is provided on the basis of the total number of courses. The service is staffed to meet those courses and it is resourced to meet those courses. Under the proposals, in my county of Humberside 50 per cent. of those courses would be lost and would go technically under the control of the colleges of further education. They may or may not be given back to the adult education service as part of its bid. We do not know : no one knows. The Minister does not know, and I certainly do not know. The service does not know.
The adult education service has an infrastructure of adult education centres. I went round the one in Priory road in my constituency recently and I have visited the one in Ancholme house. I saw the nature and range of the work that the adult education service does. If the service loses half its staffing and half its funding, the county council LEA will not be able to maintain all those centres, whether in villages, towns or cities. The level of provision and potential level of service of the whole consortium will be undermined. That issue has not yet been dealt with satisfactorily by the Government.
The principle behind the new clause is perfectly sound and rational. If the Government believe that there will not be a problem, why do they not accept the new clause? All of us in the Chamber believe that the new clause is a much more rational approach to funding adult education than the bits and pieces approach under which no one is clear what will happen. I hope that the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) can persuade as many of his hon. Friends as possible to vote for the new clause and send it back to another place, where it can be given sympathetic consideration to speed this part of the Bill through.
Earlier we heard a diatribe from the Secretary of State against local authorities, and Labour authorities in particular, but he grudgingly conceded that adult education under LEA control has prospered and done well, despite all the obstacles that the Government have put in its way. Standard spending assessment calculations, which are bizarre, and the threat of poll tax capping have had an impact which has been felt by adult education services.
Column 246
In my county, despite all the problems that Humberside LEA has, I am pleased to say that the LEA spends its full SSA allocation on adult education and provides one of the highest levels of service in Britain. It is one of the largest providers of adult education. It has every right to bid as a service direct to the funding council to ensure independence, continuity and the same high standard to which the service has been delivered by Humberside county council. The principle behind the new clause is sound and I hope that the House will support it.Mr. Geoffrey Dickens (Littleborough and Saddleworth) : Unless I have misunderstood the Bill, there is no great merit in the new clause. As I understand the Bill, the further education colleges, and perhaps sixth-form colleges, will have to bid to the regional further education funding council for their funds. Some vocational and academic courses are run in community centres or community schools. If those courses lead to a certified national award, I am sure that the FEFC will be willing to fund them.
The Bill is about the pursuit of excellence. We want to compete with the rest of the world and develop our brain power. The only way to do that is to ensure that our higher and further education is second to none.
Community education, on the other hand, is basically leisure and recreational, although much of it may lead towards a more vocational course. It is terribly important in terms of building people's self-esteem and giving them a social life outside their home. As I understand it, it is to be funded by the LEA.
Both in writing and verbally, we have all heard from the Secretary of State that the LEAs will not be underfunded, and that community leisure and recreational courses will continue as normal. I represent two boroughs, Rochdale and Oldham. About 20,000 people enjoy community education in both boroughs. If some of those community centres or schools run vocational or academic courses, the proper place to get funding for the continuation of the courses is through the FE college, via the regional FE funding council. I do not think that the people of Littleborough, Saddleworth or the village of Shore would wish to be dragged into the centre of Oldham or Rochdale to the FE college, as it would mean long journeys late at night. People, and especially the elderly, do not like travelling late at night because of transport costs, difficulties with transport and fear of travelling at night, which is a real fear and one that must not be set aside.
As I understand it, the Bill does not try to make difficulties for education but tries to improve it. I cannot believe that, if a well- supported course--which leads to, or is part of, a vocational or academic qualification--is run in a village a long way from anywhere, the bid by the FE college locally, through the FE funding council, will not be successful and allow the course to continue.
If I have understood the Bill correctly--I think I have--there will be no need for my hon. Friend's new clause or for the fears expressed by some of my hon. Friends and by the Opposition. I shall wait until I have heard what the Minister has to say, and I shall reserve my judgment.
I honestly believe that I have understood the Bill correctly and that we are talking about the pursuit of excellence--ensuring that the United Kingdom develops people to their full potential so that we can compete with the rest of the world in terms of brain power, which will
Column 247
make us successful. If we do not do that, we might as well stay at home, because we will not be competitive or win orders throughout the world. We must not forget that this nation produced the jet engine, which made the world smaller, and television, which came from radar, We have always had brain power. We had it long before we found mineral wealth.I am sure that the Bill is designed to encourage the development of our brain power and to prevent a brain drain abroad, so that we can develop our nation and go forward in the pursuit of excellence. 9.15 pm
Mr. Haynes : I am not surprised at that contribution from the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens). I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Tavistock. Is it Tavistock? [Hon. Members :-- "Tiverton."] I am sorry. I visited that beautiful town during the summer recess last year.
Mr. Haynes : Tiverton. The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) was a little cheeky upstairs. Now he is being cheeky down here.
Mr. Fatchett : He will not be here after the election.
I support the new clause. We shall be looking to see whether the Government take it on board, and I want to tell hon. Members why. Honestly, we never won a thing in Committee. The Minister rejected every amendment out of hand. That is what will happen tonight, unless the Minister tells us at the Dispatch Box that we have won and that he accepts the new clause.
The important thing is that I am back on the subject of Fred Riddell, who-- for your information, Mr. Deputy Speaker--is the chairman of Nottinghamshire local education authority. If we are not careful, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) said, we will lose a fair amount of what we already have, and the situation will get worse.
Make no mistake about it : the Bill is full of obstacles, and that is why the hon. Member for Tiverton (Sir R. Maxwell-Hyslop) and his hon. Friends have tabled the new clause, especially in the interests of adult education.
It is all right the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth talking about facilities for leisure in the community. That is an important thing to our constituents.
Mr. Dickens : That is what I said.
Mr. Haynes : The hon. Gentleman flippantly went across it, and he blew it out of the water.
We want to be able to provide the proper facilities for adult, further and higher education. However, when the community colleges make an application to the funding councils, we must remember that the Minister and his cronies will have loaded the councils with their own kind. Nine times out of 10, the councils will say, "Get lost. You can't have anything." That is what is wrong with the system and that is what we are afraid of.
The Labour party will change all that after 9 April. My hon. Friends will be sitting on the Government Benches
Column 248
and some of the Conservative Members will be sitting on this side. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will be in the Chair listening to a Labour Government. The Labour Government will make all the changes that are necessary to further, adult and higher education. There is no doubt about that. People outside the Chamber, who are clamouring for change, will get the satisfaction that they do not get under this lot. The Government are destroying further education.I never forget Fred Riddell telling me what happened in Nottinghamshire as a result of the Government's provision of resources. We know that the Government want to put money into the pockets of the rich at the expense of the poor. Those people who have been put out of work and cannot get jobs want to better themselves in adult and further education and, if they can, in higher education. This lot and the Bill have put a block on that.
I will be in the Lobby to support those Conservative hon. Members who tabled the new clause, because it is a good one.
Mr. Dickens : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) misrepresented my speech. I said that community education built self-esteem.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : That is not a point of order for me.
Mr. Speller : I have enjoyed not just the debate, but the work which led up to it. It has been one of those occasions when one is rightly obliged to consult principals of community colleges and those in further education colleges and to listen to what is said. Three points have come over most strongly to me. The first is that many non-vocational courses that are taken almost for pleasure may lead to a vocational course. It would be criminal to make cuts and force a student to go to authority A for one course and authority B for another.
The excellent community colleges in Devon have been referred to at some length. The principals have community tutors and teachers who make full use of the premises for youngsters by day and for older students in the evening. They are fully aware of what the local community requires. With the best will in the world, the worst thing one can do is to seek to impose national uniformity across a country where, over recent years, we have sought to allow local folk to take control of local matters in the educational sector. It would be a retrograde step, when we have attempted to improve local choice and responsibility and appointed local governors, to seek to apply the whitewash of uniformity.
I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State that money has been well provided. I do not suggest that both sides of the House do not want the same thing, which is better education for both youngsters and older people. I have been interested in the arguments of hon. Members in all parts of the House, who all want the best. Some are schoolteachers and, years ago, I was a chairman of a local education authority at a time when our schools were turning comprehensive even though that was against my political wishes. We can be successful in education only by working together, with all-party co-operation. We must not mess about with education. If education needs anything today, it is a period of peace. I fully understand the need for change where change is necessary, but we must now allow the education
Column 249
authorities to settle down. I plead with the Minister to remember that dual decision and dual funding are the classical bases for dispute. That is bound to happen, be it in the health service or in the social services. Where there is national and local funding, the question who is to lead and who is to pay the greater proportion is bound to arise. Where one authority is producing the cash and making the decisions that makes sense.I agree almost entirely with the principles behind the Bill and should hate to have to vote against it in toto because i disagree with it in part. I urge the Minister to be cautious. I have spoken in North Devon to my intelligent and principled principals, their associates and local governors, all of whom have told me, "Our present sustem is good." I have been worried by the ministerial argument today which says, "Because it is only working all right, we must somehow improve it." I am happy with it as it stands, so I support my hon Friend the Member for Tiverton (Sir R.
Maxwell-Hyslop).
Mr. Rogers : The hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens) said more than once, "If I understand the Bill correctly." He does not understand it. He does not understand the process of adult education correctly. He is equally lost in understanding the new clause.
Adult education is not, as the hon. Gentleman seemed to suggest at one stage, a substitute for a course of psychiatric treatment, although I do not deny that he might have regarded it as such at one time. Nor is adult education about providing certificates in every subject. It is about people wanting to participate in the education process without necessarily obtaining a qualification.
The hon. Member for Tiverton (Sir R. Maxwell-Hyslop) talks about community colleges providing liberal, non-vocational, adult education. In that sense, it will not at the end of the day have to deliver a certificate as a result of a course having been taken. That is not to say that the content of the course might not be far higher than many purely academic courses leading to a qualification. Had the hon. Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth attended extra-mural or local authority courses in the areas of which we are speaking, he would be aware of the wonderful provision that we make in Britain. Adult education is in many respects non-political. My experience of it in Wales is that it did not matter what was the politics of the local authority. It was purely and simply a matter of whether people were committed to education. Whatever their political complexion, if they had a commitment to adult education, the facilities were provided, but if that commitment was missing, the resources were not made available.
The hon. Member for Tiverton is trying to ensure that the money and resources not for further or higher but for adult education in free- standing community and adult colleges are available. We may have funding councils and give money to local authorities, further education colleges, and so on, but experience shows that when demands are made on the purses of those bodies, adult education is shuffled off and is the last item for which provision is made. The reason for that is sound in some ways. Because no certificate is awarded at the end of a course, local authorities understandably feel that they must fund certain courses because people depend on them for a living, so there is an imperative on those who dispense the money. If
Column 250
we are to have a properly funded adult education service, which this country has never had, the Minister should take the new clause on board.9.30 pm
Although I shall support the new clause, it could have been changed to take account of free-standing adult education colleges which operate like community colleges but entirely in their own premises. In answer to a letter, the Minister told me that those colleges would be properly funded, and there have been examples of that. Ministers keep giving that reassurance, which is fine, but how do we resolve the problem in Gwent, where a community college is attached to a school? It uses all the school's facilities but is separate from the school. How will such a college be funded?
| Next Section
| Home Page |