Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 142)
WEDNESDAY 12 OCTOBER 2005
SIR DAVID
NORMINGTON, MR
STEPHEN KERSHAW
AND MR
STEPHEN CROWNE
Q140 Mr Marsden: Given that is the
case, can I just emphasise and urge you to relay this to the LSCs,
that the impact of many of the cuts that we are hearing about
in terms of adult learning are falling disproportionately on those
courses which are being delivered in non-traditional FE environments,
such as community centres and so forth, and for those groups of
people who have been most reluctant in the past to enter into
the FE structure, unless attention is given to that, the whole
social inclusion aspect of this programme will be jeopardised.
Sir David Normington: If you have
those examples we would like to have them. I know Bill Rammell
would like to have them.
Q141 Chairman: We have been talking
about priorities and we understand governments have to prioritise
their spending, but as you do go round the country, as all of
us do who are interested in education, you must hear what we hear
about Academies. People are in favour of Academies, they think
it is a very good regenerative innovation, but they wonder why
it has to be so expensive. Why do all Academies have to be new
build? Why does it have to be £25-30 million? Why can there
not be partnerships with universities and Academies? It is the
cost. People say there is nothing wrong with it in principle but
why should they be such costly items?
Sir David Normington: The reason
they are as expensive as they are is because they are new builds,
as you say. We would like to have more refurbishments. In fact,
we have one or two now in the pipeline. We do not think all Academies
need to be new builds from the start. Very often Academies are
replacing schools that in many respects have been neglected and
are in areas where they have never really had decent educational
provision. One bit of feedback I have had is from people who have
said, "We never thought we would see anything like this in
our community, it does not happen in places like this". That
sort of reaction makes the investment worthwhile because it has
a bigger community effect than just the educational effect. One
last point on this: over the years we have not built many new
schools, not many really brand new secondary schools, so when
people are seeing these brand new schools going up they have not
got much to compare them with. In fact, these schools are not,
as new schools particularly in inner cities any more expensive
on average. Some individual projects are but overall they are
not any more expensive than if you were building an ordinary new
school. There is a sort of myth about this that somehow they are
very expensive. There are some very expensive projects and they
are usually expensive because of some problem with the site, the
clearing of land and so on, which has important community benefits;
if you have got polluted land cleaning it up is a good thing to
do. Overall the average cost of Academies at this moment is not
significantly ahead of the cost of building new schools.
Q142 Chairman: Sir David, that is
part of our mission here, dispelling myths. Can I thank you, Sir
David and the two Stephens, for your attending and your answers
to our questions. Could I congratulate our new team on having
just as much capacity and ability in asking difficult questions.
I hope everyone understood that our job is to be as robust as
we possibly can be. Thank you for your attendance and we will
see you again in the not too distant future.
Sir David Normington: Thank you.
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