Examination of Witnesses (Questions 145-159)
LEARNING AND
SKILLS COUNCIL
8 MARCH 2005
Q145 Chairman: Good morning to you both.
Ms Clarke, maybe you could introduce Ms Roberts and yourself the
we will get started.
Ms Clarke: My name is Jaine Clarke;
I am Director of Skills Strategy and Planning at the Learning
and Skills Council. I work at the National Office there but previously
I worked in the Black Country Learning and Skills Council which
is part of the West Midlands Learning and Skills Councils.
Q146 Chairman: You gave evidence to us
in that capacity.
Ms Clarke: I did, yes.
Ms Roberts: I am Kit Roberts and
I am responsible for equality and diversity, working in the national
office. We have a remit looking far more externally at what is
happening externally, what is happening at the point of provision
rather than internally.
Q147 Chairman: We have been looking at
these areas for a few weeks now and we have had people in from
the EOC and their research suggests that at about the age of fourteen
both boys and girls are willing to look at non-traditional jobs
but when the prospect of hanging concentrates the mind, as it
were, they tend to revert to what might be called gender stereotypes.
Can you give us any indication as to where this problem arises?
Is it the advice they are given at school or is it the training
on offer? How do you see this problem, if indeed a problem it
is?
Ms Roberts: I think it is quite
a broad issue to do with the whole of society and the Learning
and Skills Council has a part in this. I think when you are about
twelve to fourteen you are possibly more willing to listen to
ideas but by the time you get to the age of sixteen you are really
much more into thinking about relationships, thinking about your
own identity, thinking about the views of your peers, thinking
about the views of your parents. When you get to the age of about
sixteen when we are looking for young people to make choices and
to go out of stereotypical routes, that is the point when they
actually feel more vulnerable and less willing to take what may
be a courageous step and do something different. So maybe some
of it is about timing. I think information, advice and guidance
is a critical part of this agenda and we all agree on that, but
the introduction of the Fourteen to Nineteen White Paper will
give us a opportunity to work far more closely in partnership
with local education authorities and through the business partnerships,
and actually starting to engage at an earlier age. Our responsibility
is at the age of sixteen but if we can interface earlier on that
would be very good. We have done some research during the last
year or so looking at learner engagement and motivation of young
people. We were very concerned from a diversity point of view
about how we remove barriers and we wanted to really engage with
diverse groups themselves and understand their thinking, what
made sense to them from their own perspective, about their own
learning experiences and unlocking their energies and their talents.
We set about meeting quite a lot of young people, asking a range
of questions about why they had disengaged from learning, what
we can do to re-engage them. That research will conclude at the
end of March and we can provide information after of that. But
some of the information that is coming through from girls in particular
is around this issue of the vulnerability that they feel about
making decisions to take career paths at the age of sixteen that
are not traditional in their family or in their peer groups. We
can pass more of that information on to you after it has finished.
Ms Clarke: In terms of the work
the LSC is trying to do at the age of sixteen the Equal Opportunities
Commission rightly point out that people make choices at fourteen
so it is not just about what we all do—that is the Learning
and Skills Council and others at fourteen—it is what we
do before then because young people, boys and girls, make decisions
at the age of fourteen when they are choosing their options for
their GCSEs or their vocational routes. So really we have to get
into their minds before then that they have more choice, they
have more options than young girls continuing to chose health
and social care and young boys continuing to chose manufacturing.
Otherwise what we are doing is trying to fiddle around the edges
between the ages of fourteen and sixteen or at the age of sixteen.
I think the Tomlinson review and subsequent Fourteen to Nineteen
White Paper will give us an opportunity to really open up the
vocational options that young people have at fourteen. That can
only be done well in terms of gender if young people are being
exposed to those potential options from the time that they go
into secondary education so that they are pursuing the right options,
concentrating in the right areas between the ages of eleven and
fourteen and then making sound choices at the age of fourteen.
Once you are locked into a particular route, be it academic or
vocational or a mix of the two between fourteen and sixteen, that
really does have a strong influence on what you do at the age
of sixteen or what you do subsequently at the age of eighteen.
I think the fourteen to nineteen White Paper is quite right to
focus on the age of fourteen to sixteen or fourteen to nineteen,
but we need to do something about exposing young people to a broader
range of vocational areas between eleven and fourteen as well.
Ms Roberts: I think it would be
very good if young people, both boys and girls, had increasing
opportunities to have exposure to non-stereotypical types of work
experience opportunity and within apprenticeships so that both
sexes see each other in those domains and start to become more
confident about being there. That is another way we can change
attitudes.
Q148 Chairman: How do you do that? How
do you get the schools to fix up the schemes to go into non-traditional
employment and small businesses which cannot cope with what they
have, let alone bringing in children, and if you are doing it
to make it, worthwhile it has to be on a regular basis? What is
the resource implications of that? How do you set up networks?
Is that happening or is this just pie in the sky at the moment?
Ms Clarke: The engagement of businesses
in education works through a whole variety of means, not least
the education business partnerships which occur in most if not
all local areas. What you have there are a wealth of employers
who are willing to participate. I think part of the role of the
Learning and Skills Council and others—we do not deliver
education business partnerships on our own—is to ensure
that those employers are alert and wide awake to the issues that
we are talking about today and a whole range of other issues.
I think there is more that we can do to ensure that they are aware
of the demographic challenges that the UK will face, the skills
challenges that the UK faces and equality and diversity in its
broader sense and gender imbalance as part of that. This is something
that we—not necessarily the Learning and Skills Council—the
partners can do about what goes into the curriculum certainly
from secondary education to ensure that when young people are
being taught maths or history or English or whatever, we are trying
to take out some of those gender stereotypes that occur in those
curriculum areas right from the beginning so that we are exploring
the opportunities in the way that teachers can within the classroom.
Rather than seeing it as something that happens at fourteen when
you go into a career's advice session and you are told it is okay
to be a young man in health and okay to be a woman in manufacturing,
in my view that is too late and we need to really embed it into
the curriculum right from the time that a young person enters
secondary education, if not before.
Q149 Judy Mallaber: You were talking
about exposing young people to a broader range of non-stereotypical
work and obviously the work experience at fifteen or whatever
is very important. However, from my experience young people are
themselves asked to try to fix up their own work experience places
in the first instance, or they might be given a list of places
to try. The problem is that there is then no attempt to suggest
that they try other areas. Have you done anything at all or do
you have any ideas as to who might intervene to try to break that
down so they are encouraged to try different areas of work?
Ms Roberts: The example you give
is a fair example in some areas but in other areas the local Learning
and Skills Council, the local education authority and other partners,
typically driven by employers through education business links,
have changed the way that work experience works for young people
so that young people are not given a list of employers to phone
or, worse than that, told to find their own. There is actually
a bank of employers and it is much more managed and in good examples
we have it happens well before the age of fifteen; it happens
all the way through their secondary education. I think there are
some good examples that we should look to, learn from those experiences
and see how we can replicate them because you are absolutely right,
if it is left to young people then they have to be very resourceful
in the first instance, or their families do and they are likely
then to follow the paths that their family experienced—which
might be good but might not be good—but there are good examples
of where work experience works well.
Q150 Judy Mallaber: Can you send us some
information on some of the good examples?
Ms Roberts: Yes, certainly. We
do have information on good practice and again that is one of
the strengths of the Learning and Skills Council operating nationally,
regionally and locally with a range of partners, but we need to
maximise our ability to share good practice and support people
to work in a more planned way to ensure that young people are
not left to their own devices and feel that they have to sort
it all out. We agree with you; we have to do better.
Ms Clarke: I think there is something
to be said about some of the industries where we have particular
issues with gender—construction might be a good example
of that—where we really need to work with other known partners
such as the Sector Skills Council to really tackle that particular
issue in that particular sector in a way that we have not done
to date. There the statistics continue to show both in FE provision,
in apprenticeships and more generally in the employment population
that we are not making a sufficient difference in terms of gender
in some of those sectors. I think there is something for the Department
for Education and Skills, the DTI and LSC relationship with Sector
Skills Councils as they emerge that can really drive home this
message and look at very practical ways that we can make a difference
in some of the local areas that we are working in.
Q151 Linda Perham: In the memorandum
you mention the work experience project that Gloucestershire ran
with the 120 pupils going to non-traditional sectors; I think
they are called taster sessions. It looks as if they really got
something out of it; there was a huge shift in attitudes. It does
not say how long ago that was. Have you had any feedback about
how positive that was in the way of choosing school subjects or
training or starting work?
Ms Roberts: Anecdotally I spoke
to people in Gloucester yesterday and they confirmed that they
are still in contact and the indications of that project are that
it has been successful. They will provide further information
that we will pass to you to give a longer term view on how that
work has continued to develop.
Q152 Linda Perham: If that was some sort
of pilot and will be deemed a success, is there a plan to roll
that out into other areas?
Ms Roberts: One of the things
that will happen is that it will be included in the publication
that the LSC and the EOC will publish when the EOC produces their
second report on their General Formal Investigation. It will be
included in there as good practice. In terms of have we considered
taking that through other regions, I do not know that we have
fully explored that opportunity yet but it is certainly something
that we would be very happy to do; it is a very good suggestion.
Q153 Linda Perham: From the evidence
we have had it would seem to me that it is a really good idea
because a lot of the problems with the occupational segregation
and people choosing non-traditional work is that they do not have
the experience of them so these taster sessions where they actually
have real experience of seeing what it would be like working in
engineering or something would be good. It just seems so obvious
but this is a pilot and has not been taken up. It could be that
later on there are other factors—I think we touched on those
earlier on—with family and peer group pressure and all that
kind of thing, but it does seem to me that real experience of
other types of work are an obvious route in helping, particularly
girls, to consider other occupations than the ones we think of
as being quite obvious. You talk about the role of FE in particular
being critical. The Equal Opportunities Commission found that
there was evidence of sexual discrimination amongst FE lecturers
in the way they treat girls and boys differently. Have you experienced
problems in that regard? Is the Learning and Skills Council doing
anything about that?
Ms Roberts: I think the real challenge
is how we take this message to all the different partners who
are involved. The Learning and Skills Council has a duty to promote
equality of opportunity in terms of race, gender and disability
in legislation so we have taken greater steps to do that; we take
this agenda very seriously. We are building it into our business
planning cycle, into the development planning, into performance
review, into all of the ways that we operate so we are using our
leadership capacity to influence but we are not at the point of
delivery where the interaction will happen. It is usually in our
power to influence those that we fund, those that we work with
to understand that we do take this agenda very seriously, we do
have expectations that they will act in a way that is non-discriminatory
but it is difficult for the Learning and Skills Council to get
into the classroom where some of that is happening. We have to
work through our networks and with our partners and those we are
funding to assist in challenging these practices.
Q154 Linda Perham: You admit you have
come across that as a problem in FE.
Ms Roberts: I think there is anecdotal
evidence across all of the sectors that people will revert to
stereotypical behaviour and make assumptions about people. Most
probably all of us in this room will do it at times and it is
therefore a process of education and training for all of us in
the public sector to look at our behaviour.
Ms Clarke: I think there is something
we can do at the Learning and Skills Council in terms of the leadership
we would expect from further education institutions which of course
receive great sums of public money to invest in skills in education
and we can work with partners in terms of what we expect from
the leaders of those organisations. Also in terms of the governance
of colleges we can look at how we can ensure that the governors
are aware and alert of this issue and others and are fulfilling
their roles and responsibilities in terms of promoting equality
and diversity. There are of course anecdotal pieces of evidence
of where stereotypical behaviour has affected young people, but
there are also a lot of good examples in the FE sector where they
have really tackled this issue of gender stereotyping on a making
available provision. The particular example I am aware of is in
construction where in the Black Country area where I was from
previously there are three colleges who run female-only construction
courses as a way of supporting young girls at sixteen through
what is traditionally a male dominated learning area and employment
area. There are other examples of where colleges have particularly
helped more mature women into non-traditional sectors. I think
the experience of those courses were positive for the individuals
but also for the colleges and the teaching staff themselves. When
you speak to the lecturers in the Black Country they have taken
a lot of their experience back into mainstream provision, either
because they have decided no longer to do gender female only courses,
they have decided to take a different approach to mixed groups
or because they are going to continue with doing gender specific
courses because that works for that group of people at that time.
So there are good experiences as well as poor.
Ms Roberts: There are other initiatives,
for example where acting has been used to help draw out some of
the ways that people behave. That has had quite a considerable
impact on those who have been involved with it, challenging the
way they related to students and the way they interact. As Jaine
is saying, there is also good practice in place and we need to
ensure that that practice is developed across the whole sector.
Q155 Sir Robert Smith: One of the things
that we have been told is that the New Deal for Skills has not
been organised in such a way as to make it easy for people with
important domestic commitments—for example parents looking
after babies or young children or elderly relatives—to access
the training. What, if anything, is being done to address this
issue?
Ms Clarke: New Deal for Skills
is not something that the Learning and Skills Council leads on;
that is led on by Jobcentre Plus colleagues but many local offices
have very strong relationships at the local area with Jobcentre
Plus. I think it is a problem across the whole of this sector,
be it FE or work-based learning (but particularly in FE) of delivering
learning in a very traditional manner between nine and five, Monday
to Friday and not during the school holidays of course. The work
we are doing through Agenda for Change, the work that every local
office is doing in terms of ensuring that their colleges are more
responsive to the needs of employers and individuals will pay
off with New Deal for Skills because the provider networks are
typically the same provider networks. I think the problems which
will be experienced by New Deal for Skills will be there in the
FE sector more generally and it is something we are working with
partners to tackle. There are good examples elsewhere, not necessarily
in New Deal for Skills—although there are some there—but
in terms of how the Learning and Skills Council has delivered
employer training pilots in the 18 areas that we have them in
where, because the learning takes place in the workplace, the
individuals do not have to overcome barriers over childcare, travel
and transport and the costs associated with that. There are some
very good lessons there not only in terms of training during the
work time but also flexible training by the use of online through
organisations such as Learn Direct and others and also one to
one support outside of the workplace. That sort of mix seems to
work well and I think this is something we could look at in terms
of the experiences we have had on ATP and look at how they may
be transferable back into New Deal for Schools. There is not a
simple answer in terms of how we can make this different; it is
something that works but the sector has realised there is more
that we need to do.
Q156 Chairman: What about lone parents
as a particular grouping? We have heard that even though there
is a New Deal for Lone Parents it does not quite fit in there.
Ms Clarke: I cannot talk specifically
about the effectiveness or otherwise of New Deal for Skills because
it is not something I am sufficiently familiar with. I think in
terms of FE—and the providers are the same so I think the
key learning points will be the same—provided traditionally
work between nine and five on Mondays to Fridays and not in school
hours and that makes it very difficult. There are examples of
where providers have changed the way they work. There are examples
of where certainly online development and access to learning has
helped women with children and lone parents. However, that pre-supposes
that they have easy access to the internet so this is not something
that we can do on our own; it is something that is more general
than that.
Q157 Chairman: What was the Learning
and Skills Council's input into New Deal for Skills?
Ms Clarke: I think our input is
planning at a local level to ensure that the provision that we
are making available for adult learners and adult learners in
the workplace fits with the work of Jobcentre Plus through New
Deal for Skills so that we are not duplicating each other's efforts,
so that we have a good understanding of what is needed locally.
Q158 Chairman: The impression you are
giving me is that this is happening after the event, that you
were not involved in the initial planning, that this is something
which has come down from on high, the `on high' being somewhere
in the Department of Work and Pensions but not the DTI and not
the Department for Education and Skills.
Ms Clarke: As a key partner we
would have been involved in the shaping and scoping of New Deal
for Skills, the design of New Deal for Skills, but I would still
say that it is what happens at the local level in terms of which
providers we are working with, what approach do we take that will
make the biggest difference and I think that is where we have
to focus with this programme in terms of ensuring that in big
urban areas and in other areas that the provision best meets the
needs of the communities that are there, and accepting the point
that at the moment there are gaps or problems in the provision
that we need to work with our partners on.
Q159 Chairman: Would you say this is
an example of seamless joined-up government?
Ms Clarke: The intention is there.
At the local level you have to be sure there are very strong partnerships
and that those partnerships are pragmatic and effective and I
think in some cases we will find examples of where it works well
and where the whole range of provision, whether it is through
Jobcentre Plus or through the Learning and Skills Council . .
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