Memorandum 53
Submission from the National Institute
of Adult Continuing Education
1. The National Institute of Adult Continuing
Education (NIACE) is an independent non-governmental organisation
and charity. Its corporate and individual members come from a
range of places where adults learn: in further education colleges
and local community settings; in universities, workplaces and
prisons as well as in their homes through the media and information
technology. NIACE's work is supported by a wide range of bodies
including the DIUS (with which it has a formal voluntary sector
compact) and other departments of state, by the Local Government
Association and by the Learning and Skills Council. The ends to
which NIACE activities are directed can be summarised as being
to secure more, different and better opportunities for adult learners,
especially those who benefited least from their initial education.
2. The ends described above mean that we
have some sympathy with the DIUS Minister of State's assertion
that "For the taxpayer, funding people for a first degree
has to be a higher priority than supporting those studying for
a second degree".[51]
We believe however that the Government's proposals, set out by
the Secretary of State in September 2007, are flawed and potentially
disfunctional in that they may reduce rather than expand participation
in higher education.
3. NIACE supports wholeheartedly the re-prioritisation
of resources within the English higher education system so that
it can better widen access and participation, maintain quality
and become more equitable. The Government's proposals are deeply
depressing because, of all the ways it might have found £100
million for re-prioritisation, they focus on a relatively small,
apparently marginal and weak, soft target (ELQ study) and failed
to address the far greater inequalities in the system which systematically
privilege full-time students extending their initial education
at the expense of part-time students and which could have freed
up far greater sums. These larger inequalities were considered
by the former House of Commons Committee for Education and Skills
which, in its final report[52]
stated (page 14): "The distinction between part time and
full time students for the purpose of fee and income support is
now so blurred as to be no longer sustainable. We recommend that
the Government reviews as a matter of urgency the current arrangements
for fee support". The Government's timidity in this respect
is a real wasted opportunity for serious and necessary reform.
4. The Government claims that funding saved
from supporting institutions to teach ELQs can be better spent
on providing places for 20,000 "first-time" HE students
over the coming three years yet has offered little convincing
evidence of the source of such students. Already almost all school
and college leavers completing initial education and qualified
for higher education go on to it—and the size of this cohort
will shortly decline year-on-year for the next decade. Neither
is it likely that, without considerable additional public support,
high numbers of people will sign up for part-time higher education.
Thirdly, even if UK businesses were to embrace the Government's
proposals for cofunding HE, this would not be of help to people
outside the labour market, such as women returners, nor to people
with career aspirations beyond those of their existing employer.
5. In November 2007, the Government announced
changes to its flagship "Train to Gain" programme. These
included greater levels of flexibility for eligibility for public
support:
"People from priority unemployed groups who
are recruited by an employer will be eligible for a second full
level 2 qualification where they need retraining"[53]
and "Funding to give a second Level 2 or 3 programme, in
specified circumstances".
NIACE urges the Committee to ask Government
why a similar degree of partial subsidy rather than the current
"all or nothing" approach would not be appropriate to
ELQs in higher education. There is a real need for the Government's
re-skilling policy to be as sophisticated as its up-skilling policy.
6. Part-time students already pay unregulated
fees upfront and a whole educational ecology will be destabilised.
If fees rise to full-cost levels (as for overseas students), potential
students will vote with their feet. Without teaching funding and
fees from ELQ students, courses (full-time as well as part-time)
will cease to be economically viable for institutions to run.
Franchised HE courses run in FE colleges (making them more locally
accessible) will be especially vulnerable as the unit of resource
is generally lower anyway.
7. In addition the proposals will jeopardise
the provision of shorter continuing education courses undertaken
for smaller volumes of academic credit. As well as having an intrinsic
public value deserving of modest support, such courses offer people
opportunity to try-out a subject before committing to more expensive
and intensive study.
8. It would appear that those providers
which have done most to widen participation and to reach mature
students are more likely to be adversely affected whilst, (with
some exceptions), institutions that have done less to adapt to
a socially inclusive and modern mission for higher education face
less disruption.
9. NIACE, has in earlier briefings, warned
that the proposals risk harming, among others:
— "First generation" HE students
who may have had less good advice on the appropriateness and utility
of their first degree.
— Ex-offenders who may be legally prevented
from returning to a former occupation.
— Women returners to the labour market
after years of child or eldercare responsibility during which
the value of their initial qualification has decayed.
— Older people displaced in the labour
market in mid to late career.
10. Rather than the current "all or
nothing" proposals, NIACE urges the Select Committee to consider
whether other approaches might deliver the results the Government
wants in less painful ways. In particular we recommend two ideas:
— exempting those with qualifications
obtained some considerable time ago (for example 10 years) from
the proposals; and
— introducing tapering levels of public
support to indicate the government's priorities.
11. Part-time students working toward equivalent
or lower qualifications are not fat-cats with their noses in the
public spending trough, denying places to others. They are voters
seeking to improve the quality of their private lives (and sometimes
their economic position) as well as making the UK's public culture
more civilised, informed and reflective. NIACE hopes that the
Select Committee will urge the Government to amend its approach.
12. We would be happy to supply further
information and analysis to Members on request. In the first instance
please contact Alastair Thomson.
January 2008
51 Bill Rammell MP quoted by the BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7164699.stm
[accessed 03/01/08]. Back
52
Select Committee for Education and Skills, The future sustainability
of the higher education sector: international aspects (HC
285-I) 5 August 2007. Back
53
"Train to Gain-a plan for growth November 2007 to July
2001". Learning and Skills Council, Coventry 2007. page
7. Back
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