Examination of Witnesses (Questions 740-756)
PROFESSOR FRANK
COFFIELD AND
MS LEE
HOPLEY
4 JUNE 2007
Q740 Stephen Williams: Have you come
across any evidence that the brokers are improving the relationship
between employers and FE colleges?
Ms Hopley: I think it is too soon
to say. It is intended to have a feedback loop where a broker
will recommend some provision; people will be sent on training
and there will be a follow-up to see whether the objectives have
been met or whether the employ wants to take it further with additional
training. For the length of time Train to Gain has been up and
running I do not think we can be that far through the feedback
loop.
Q741 Stephen Williams: Professor
Coffield, I enjoyed your lecture—admittedly I skim-read
it—in particular your description of the Learning and Skills
sector as a vast and complex world and your invitation to the
audience to hold onto their mind in case they lost it during the
course of the lecture, perhaps when they looked at the various
diagrams. You also say that it is a world that remains invisible
to most politicians, academics and commentators. The Chairman
often remarks that when we have these sessions we have a few commentators
here. Are you basically saying that in this country policy-making
is elitist and most of the people here who comment on what we
do just have no empathy with or understanding of the skills needs
of the majority of the population?
Professor Coffield: I do not think
lack of empathy is the problem; they just do not have experience.
Having interviewed 131 officials, my experience is that none has
come through this sector; they have all gone through the sector
that I went through: grammar schools, universities and onwards.
But we have a group of six million learners in society and most
people do not know the work of FE colleges. Adult community centres
or work-based learning is another world for most policy-makers.
The other problem is that there is not a lack of empathy; it is
the amount of change and churning that goes on within the Civil
Service. It is very difficult to go back either to the LSC or
the DfES on a particular issue and find the same person in charge.
We have been doing this study for three and a half years. The
only constant in that time is my own research team. We are the
only ones who have stayed together; everyone else has changed
both in FE colleges and throughout the sector. Because of the
turbulence everyone is moving round, sometimes from box to box
within the sector, but they wear a different hat and have different
loyalties.
Q742 Stephen Williams: But is there
any alternative to that? Basically, you despair at the 21st century
method of policy-making with revolving doors and a minister's
need to hold onto his agenda every day in case somebody else tries
to blow him off it. Is there any alternative to making policy?
Professor Coffield: I believe
that in one of its latest documents the strategy unit at the Cabinet
Office has suggested that maybe if we had more senior civil servants
shadowing principals of colleges and other major parts of the
sector, seeing it at the grass roots and being alongside it to
observe the strains and tensions in making all these policies
work simultaneously instead of just talking about it, that would
be immensely helpful. That suggestion comes from Government.
Q743 Stephen Williams: Several of
us as MPs take part in different shadowing schemes. I do that
with scientists. I do not have a science background and I find
that useful.
Professor Coffield: I agree.
Q744 Chairman: What is your reflection
on the different experiences of the devolved assemblies? Are they
doing it better? Do they have a remit here?
Professor Coffield: I must say
that we are not doing a comparative study but it is interesting
to note that one of the most interesting parts of Foster is the
appendix at the end which does some cross-cultural work. He looks
at the same kinds of sectors in Ontario, Canada, Denmark and Germany.
One of the major conclusions it comes to is that all of these
countries have highly successful post-compulsory sectors and do
not have the major regulation that we have in England. This sector
is over-regulated. The one major conclusion is that in other countries,
including Scotland, professionals are more trusted and are part
of the policy-making environment. Part of that is to do with size.
In Scotland it is possible to have all the FE principals in one
room which you can hardly do in England, so size does make a difference.
Q745 Chairman: You appear to be very
much in favour of the college sector providing education, but
when I talked to senior persons in the construction industry I
was told about their problem in going to colleges. They know their
supply chain. The fact is that 60% of the houses they now build
with modern methods of construction hardly require the use of
bricklayers because parts are prefabricated offsite. They need
a whole new set of skills. What they are about is not training
their own employees but the SMEs in their supply chain so that
they go along to a college supplier and say, "Can you do
this?" and the college is deeply reluctant to stop providing
plumbers and bricklayers in a conventional mode. Is that something
you recognise?
Professor Coffield: I think there
is something in that complaint. One of the issues that colleges
find so difficult is that they are funded for long qualifications
and a lot of employers want bits of qualifications. That is part
of the tension between the two sectors. I think there is a need
to move more quickly towards a credit system where you can do
smaller bits of work and have them accredited by colleges, and
for that to be funded by the LSC and to build on it over time
towards a qualification. That is a move towards a lifelong learning
system. We do not have it yet. Unfortunately, the LSC funds long
qualifications and most employers do not want all of them; they
want bits and pieces of it. We need to be more flexible.
Ms Hopley: I believe that a more
modular approach to gaining qualifications is important, and not
just for employers, because when Learner Accounts are rolled out
how they engage in learning will be important from an individual
perspective. I was not sure whether you are concerned with the
appropriateness of some of the training offered by providers.
Q746 Chairman: Yes. The other comment
they make is that when their people go into the FE college they
will be told, "We know that you have come to do this but
wouldn't you rather do that because we already have qualified
teachers to teach it and it is more difficult to provide teaching
for the training that your employers said they want?"
Ms Hopley: I now sound like a
broken record, but the Sector Skills Council input, which understands
how technologies are changing, should be influencing to a greater
extent the supply and content of qualifications. There is no point
in having boat-building courses in wood when the primary manufacturing
material is fibreglass or something else, but that still happens.
Q747 Chairman: What is your view
about apprenticeships? One of the constant themes in life, if
you look at skills training, is apprenticeships. We have had them
for ever; they are the longest form of training that we have,
and we have an amazingly ambitious target to have 500,000 apprentices.
What do you think of that ambition?
Professor Coffield: I am in favour
of it. My concern is the quality of it. By all means go for the
quantity, but the quality must be very high. Lorna Unwin who appeared
before you has very serious concerns about the quality of some
of the work placements to which these young people go.
Ms Hopley: There is an issue about
quality, but we have to look beyond young people. I do not think
that the target of half a million apprenticeships will be met
through the traditional 16 to 19 year-olds; it will have to come
from those who are now within the workforce.
Q748 Mr Marsden: Professor Coffield,
perhaps I may return to the issue of older learners. I have looked
at your lecture and there is much in it with which I sympathise.
The thrust of it is: let teachers teach and let learners learn.
A lot of that, not all, will produce its own reward and therefore
the Government can feel happy with it. But is there not a problem
as identified in Leitch in how one approaches older learners?
Leaving aside whether or not the 21st century way of doing things,
to which my colleague Mr Williams referred, can achieve this—assuming
that we want to do it—is there not a problem about saying
we can just let older learners learn, because we know that given
demographic change if we waved a magic wand tomorrow and skilled
up all young people to the levels we would like to see they still
would not make the grade? We need a system where we help older
learners not just to learn but to acquire additional skills. What
is the balance between some of the mechanistic approaches perhaps
that Train to Gain might provide, even if we get a large number
of employers involved with older learners, and the sort of enabling
skills about which I asked the LSC and RDA earlier? How do we
get that balance between pure libertarianism on the one hand and
a rather mechanistic approach on the other?
Professor Coffield: I do not think
these are so divided in the lives of the adult unemployed as we
have been looking at in two parts of England, the North East and
London. Many of the unemployed adults we have interviewed come
in for all sorts of reasons, most of them not about employment
in the first instance. They come back either because they realise
they cannot help their own children with their homework, because
they do not have the basic skills themselves, or because they
are women who have had two or three children and come for confidence-building
reasons. Slowly but surely, with the same people over the three
years their ambitions change; they begin to realise that they
have abilities and can go back into the workforce.
Q749 Mr Marsden: I understand that
and am sympathetic to it, but when we have had government ministers
before us and have, putting it bluntly, chided them for too mechanistic
an approach and say that they cutting too much money from adult
learning and so on they say that they can fund enabling skills
but they have to see an element of progression. What you are suggesting
does not really have a timeframe. I taught for the Open University
myself for 20 years and so I know the sorts of things about which
you are talking, but how will that fit into the sort of 2020 timeframe
that Leitch and other commentators say is very important for us
to have in mind?
Professor Coffield: I accept the
main point you make that the major job is to train the people
who are already in the workforce rather than simply to improve
the quality of the young people who come into the workforce. I
apologise that I have lost my next point and so I will pass it
to my colleague.
Q750 Mr Marsden: Ms Hopley, first,
do you accept the principle that we have to put much more emphasis
on skills for older learners and, more importantly—assuming
you accept that—so far is there much evidence that this
is something that employer organisations such as yours have signed
up for?
Ms Hopley: To clarify it, are
you talking specifically about older workers?
Q751 Mr Marsden: I am talking of
older learners who are either outside the workforce at the moment
and may come into it or who are in the workforce and need to retrain.
Ms Hopley: Are we talking about
the over-50s rather than the post-19 people?
Q752 Mr Marsden: Certainly not post-19.
Ms Hopley: There is certainly
a recognition, maybe more so in manufacturing, about the ageing
workforce within the sector and that people will need training
to keep them not in the role they have been performing for the
past five, seven or eight years but perhaps to move them into
a new role and to keep them productive within the company for
longer. I think that employers are increasingly beginning to recognise
that this is not something that they have done in the past but
must do so now and in the future. There is also an issue about
the willingness of employees to do that. In a survey we conducted
a couple of years ago we found that staff reluctance was quite
a problem for increasing the quantity of training given to employees.
Employees just did not want to do it.
Q753 Mr Marsden: Older employees
or any employees?
Ms Hopley: I just wonder whether
the problem is perhaps more acute among older workers who think
that they are coming to the end of their working lives. I suspect
that may be so.
Professor Coffield: Perhaps I
may return to the point that I forgot. My answer is that I think
we need a broader definition of progression. At present if you
do Level 2 mathematics you cannot get funding for Level 1 language
or anything else, for example IT. If you are good at this you
may not be good at that at the same level. At present even if
you go to Level 2 and move across that is not considered to be
progression. I think that is too narrow.
Ms Hopley: I agree with that point.
Q754 Chairman: This has been a very
good session. Is there anything that either witness will regret
not having said to the Committee if we finish the session three
minutes after six o'clock? Is there anything that you wish you
had been asked?
Professor Coffield: I believe
I have been treated very fairly.
Ms Hopley: I have nothing to add.
Q755 Chairman: Ms Hopley, I think
your evidence has been first rate, but the message that will go
back—I will send it in other ways—is that I do not
like the way your organisation has handled this matter. I shall
be taking it up with your President and Chief Executive.
Ms Hopley: I will have to check
to see what happened. It is my understanding that we had a request
for only one representative from EEF to attend.
Q756 Chairman: We were given two
representatives.
Ms Hopley: Subsequently, we were
contacted and asked whether it could just be one.
Chairman: The message we have is that
the Engineering Employers Federation has not taken this Committee
seriously enough. If it wants to be taken seriously I want a dialogue
with it as to why this has happened. Professor Coffield, it has
been a pleasure to hear from you. Perhaps both of you will remain
in contact. This is a very important inquiry and only with your
help can we make it a good one.
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