Examination of Witnesses (Questions 158-159)
MS SALLY
HUNT, MR
PATRICK WINTOUR
AND MS
BHARTI PATEL
1 APRIL 2008
Q158 Chair: We have representatives from
two different organisations so I shall leave it to you to decide
who responds to the question and if the other organisation wants
to add to it, then please do. I should like to start off by focusing
on ESOL provision. What effects do you believe the recent changes
in ESOL funding have had on the integration of migrants?
Ms Hunt: It is fair to say that
within the University and College Union we have done extensive
work in terms of talking to our members about the impacts on this.
What we know is that immediately following the changes there were
shifts in waiting lists, there were cuts in courses, there were
changes in the numbers of people and the communities who were
making use of courses coming in. The difficulty we have had, even
though we have submitted in our evidence the data which we have
got so you can see it, is that it is still quite patchy in terms
of being able to assess this. What we are concerned about is that,
even though research has been done by the Department on this,
it is aggregated so it is very difficult for any outside organisation
to break that down. Anecdotally we know that a lot of communities
where women do not necessarily work have been impacted upon and
are not necessarily applying in the same numbers they were. We
know that there have been different impacts, depending on whether
it is settled communities or not. What we cannot tell you, and
no-one can unless we get the information coming through from the
research already done, is quite how that works in terms of the
spread across the country. We know that the students have changed.
What we do not know yet is how that pattern has developed throughout
the year. It is something we are very worried about.
Mr Wintour: The Board of which
I am Acting Chair advises on naturalisation and integration and
our principal concern therefore is with those who could loosely
be termed aspirant citizens. In my day job I have been tracking
things around ESOL over a number of years and I have to say, having
seen various substantial pieces of research by KPMG and the National
Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) and now looking
at this most recent consultation from the Department for Innovation,
Universities and Skills, DIUS, on the future strategy of ESOL,
there does seem to be a very real difficulty around measuring
the impact of the current investment in ESOL and being able to
identify what is actually happening in terms of the delivery of
the teaching of English to the different categories of learners.
My experience is that the whole funding of ESOL has remained something
of a swamp and I see no signs of that changing.
Q159 Chair: The changes which have
been announced are giving priority to the groups which one might
expect to be applying for citizenship essentially, or indeed some
of them may already have it, that is those settled in the UK and
overseas spouses and those with refugee status essentially. Are
you saying that there is no evidence from either of your organisations
whether the investment in free ESOL provision actually has any
effect on integration or not?
Mr Wintour: We still wait to hear
a very cogent explanation of what the impact of the current level
of investment of ESOL has been. Members of my Board, which includes
those who have been working in this field for many years, continually
visit FE colleges and monitor what the situation is. It seems
to be very patchy; there are some areas where there are reports
of a significant waiting list for precisely the groups one would
have thought would be priorities and therefore should be the beneficiaries
of possible changes in funding. I suspect that part of the problem
is that the FE colleges, who are the primary deliverers of the
teaching programmes, do not have any real appetite for identifying
groups by their immigration status and therefore the collection
of data about who the learners are and what impact the whole ESOL
regime is having does seem difficult to unravel.
Ms Patel: Anecdotally it is fair
to say that probably all of us here would say that the investment
into ESOL is having a positive impact. I think Patrick's point
is that what it needs is some further evaluation to work out exactly
what that impact is in terms of integration. Certainly the Board
has undertaken some visits to FE colleges quite recently and when
we go out on these visits we talk to the participants, the learners
themselves and it is clear to us that the interaction within the
classroom is quite beneficial for integration. If you ask the
individuals themselves, they say just how valuable the experience
has been for them and for their lives and their integration to
be able to speak English. I think Patrick is right when he says
that we have not yet seen a formal and rigorous evaluation into
the money which has been spent versus what is coming out the other
end.
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