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"[1]. 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[2] 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"[3] 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;

· 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

 

NIACE

Renaissance House

20 Princess Road West

LEICESTER

LE1 6TP

[phone]

[e-mail]

 

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[1] Bill Rammell MP quoted by the BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7164699.stm [accessed 03/01/08].

[2] Select Committee for Education and Skills, The future sustainability of the higher education sector: international aspects (HC 285-I) 5 August 2007.

[3] 'Train to Gain - a plan for growth November 2007 - July 2001.' Learning and Skills Council, Coventry 2007. page 7.