Memorandum 32
Submission from the Open University
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. Current regional and sub-regional arrangements
for delivering the skills strategy can be confusing to learners
and employers. It is hoped that the new arrangements outlined
under "Raising Expectations" will address this.
However, it is currently not clear how the higher education sector
will relate to these developments. Neither is it clear how The
Open University (OU) can effectively deploy its national scale
and reach to support objectives and activities that are conceived
and managed at regional and sub-regional levels.
2. We are concerned by the prevailing and
implicit view that further and higher education providers should
give greater priority to employer needs than learner demand. The
University recognises that employers have a legitimate voice that
needs to be better articulated. However, employer demand (as expressed
by what they will pay for) can often be focussed on addressing
relatively short-term skills gaps rather than on developing a
broader range of transferable competences.
INTRODUCTION
3. The Open University (OU) is committed
to increasing the opportunities for students to engage in lifelong
learning and skills development. We believe that both are vitally
important to ensuring personal and professional development, social
inclusion and wealth creation.
4. The OU is a national university teaching
students in all parts of the UK through a system of supported
open learning. It therefore has a distinctive role to play in
the development of higher level knowledge and skills and a unique
perspective on the operation of national, regional and sub-regional
strategies for change.
5. Our submission concentrates on the following
two issues on which the Committee has invited evidence:
— The respective roles of the further
education and higher education sectors in delivering a region-based
agenda for Leitch and their coordination with one other.
— The impact on students of these initiatives,
particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning.
The respective roles of the further education
and higher education sectors in delivering a region-based agenda
for Leitch
6. In the Open University's view current
regional and sub-regional arrangements for delivering Leitch can
be confusing to providers and employers. At the moment it is unclear
what aspects of the skills agenda are being co-ordinated at the
regional, sub-regional and local levels with the responsibilities
of the RDAs and the LSC in transition. This does not necessarily
impact directly on the University but in our view it does not
help employees or employees understand the "Leitch offer"
that the sectors are able to deliver.
7. Co-ordination of the "skills"
agenda at a regional level has in recent years been attempted
by the establishment of the Regional Skills Partnerships (RSPs).
RSPs have mainly focused on pre-HE provision but some RDAs, such
as the North West Development Agency, have made real efforts to
include the HE sector. However, it is not clear to the University
if the contribution HE can make to the skills agenda has been
fully valued across all RSPs. In some regions there has also been
unnecessary competition between organisations as to which organisation
should take the regional lead on skills.
8. Higher Education has traditionally asserted
its independence from attempts to plan at a regional level. The
Open University has sought to co-operate with initiatives such
as Lifelong Learning Networks, Aim Higher Partnerships and, more
recently, Higher Level Skills Pathfinders. This is despite the
fact that, as a national provider, we do not always find it as
easy as other providers to fit into regionally or sub-regionally
constructed projects. It has not always been transparent to the
OU how these regional and sub-regional developments correspond
to the development of national priorities or the requirement that
some activities can only be effectively developed at a national
level. In three regions the Higher Level Skills Pathfinders (HLSPs)
have been implementing the Leitch agenda. The Open University
is active in all three HLSPs. Interestingly, they have operated
quite differently and have demonstrated different levels of engagement
with the further and higher education sectors. This seems to us
to arise from a lack of clarity as to how the two sectors should
be working together to deliver the Leitch agenda.
9. It is also important to point out that,
as far as many large employers are concerned, regional and sub-regional
demarcations can be barriers to development. It is important that
the structures developed to implement Leitch appropriately reflect
the national and international dimensions of the skills agenda.
An international bank does not necessarily want courses tailored
to sub-regional or regional planning and funding requirements.
The challenge is to ensure that broader sub-regional and regional
"agendas" support and do not interfere with the delivery
of the "Leitch UK agenda". The Open University has a
valuable role to play in delivering the Leitch agenda and we want
to ensure that we are able to operate effectively at the national
as well as at the regional level.
10. The Sub National Review (SNR) confirms
that the RDAs will continue to have responsibility for managing
Business Link and ensuring a one-stop-shop for high quality diagnosis
and brokerage services. The Government considers that a single
brokerage service is the simplest way for business to access government
support on skills, and intends to fully integrate skills brokerage
with Business Link to ensure a single brokerage service managed
by the RDAs by April 2009. So far the brokerage service has, perhaps
understandably, been pre-HE focused. There is insufficient understanding
of the progression pathways to HE and the traditional local University
offer never mind that of the Open University. It is not clear
to the Open University how our unique role as a national UK university
offering flexible, high quality distance learning opportunities
will be maximised by the nine regional brokerage services.
11. The SNR supports the establishment of
Employment and Skills Boards (ESBs) and stated "it is at
this (sub-national) level that local employer-led Employment and
Skills boards should operate". There is a recognition that
these boards need to work flexibly to meet different needs in
different areas. It is not clear to us how these sub- national
ESBs will articulate with the Commission for Employment and Skills
at the national level and provide an appropriate framework for
employers and for universities (such as the Open University) that
are operating at national and international levels. We would welcome
further discussion with the relevant agencies on this.
12. In the English regions the roles of
both the Regional Development Agencies and the Learning and Skills
Council (LSC) are changing. The recent publication, on 17 March
2008, of the joint DCSF/DIUS consultation "Raising Expectations:
enabling the system to deliver" outlines proposed roles,
from 2010, for the successor bodies of the LSC including the creation
of a national pre-HE Skills Funding Agency (SFA). However, it
is not entirely clear what the regional and sub-regional planning
structures will be in relation to the proposed SFA. Therefore
it is not clear to us how the Higher Education (HE) sector and
the OU might wish to relate to these developments.
The impact on students, particularly in the context
of policies for lifelong learning
13. Comprehensive lifelong learning can
be understood as the provision of education and training from
early years to post-retirement which enables learners to realise
their potential to contribute fully to the economy and society.
14. The Open University supports both lifelong
learning and the objectives of Leitch. We strongly believe that
both are important and should be supported by government. However,
Leitch raises, rather than answers, a number of important questions
about the relationship between the two. Broadly, Leitch promotes
the idea that further and higher education providers should primarily
address employer demand rather than learner demand. The University
recognises that employers have a legitimate voice that needs to
be better articulated. However, employer demand (as expressed
by what they will pay for) can be focussed on addressing relatively
short-term skills gaps which are known to be impeding the achievement
of more fundamental national targets.
15. The growing internationalisation of
economies, the accelerating pace of change, and the introduction
of new technologies and company structures, require many employees
to posses up-to-date specific job-related skills and more generic
competencies that enable them to adapt to change. Overall, individuals
and the economy "require" high levels of transferable
skills which can be taken from one job to another as economic
structures and opportunities change. Employers also want employees
with longer-term, good transferable "employability"
skills such as communication, problem solving and learning to
learn skills—though it is not clear that they are willing
to pay for these.
16. Government policy can be implemented
with a "broad brush" and it is always limited by the
funding available. The Open University regrets that the current
policy climate tends to promote the view that the Leitch agenda
is the preferable alternative to lifelong learning rather than
regarding it as a necessary complement to it. It is this climate
that in the long-run will need to change. If Leitch is interpreted
crudely as only being about narrow specific job related skills
then individuals, employers and the economy will all be the ultimate
losers.
April 2007
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