21 April 2006
Free further education for 19–25-year-olds and a radical white paper suggest that the long-neglected college sector is finally getting its day in the sun. But what about the funding gap, asks Stephen Court
Further education is frequently described as the Cinderella of the education system. But the normally forgotten sister is now having attention showered on her.
Earlier this year, Prime Minister Tony Blair described adult skills improvement and further education as 'the really big issue for the future'. In last month's Budget, Chancellor Gordon Brown offered education's Cinderellas 'a second chance to make the best of themselves'. He announced additional funding so that those aged 19–25 would have free further education to Level 3 or A-level standard, plus adult learning grants to help with the cost of living. Until Brown's announcement, the government paid the fees only of 16–18-year-olds.
The following week, Education and Skills Secretary Ruth Kelly presented her further education white paper, Raising skills, improving life chances, co-signed by Blair and Brown. The white paper, which covers only England, put the government's seal on the direction for further education proposed by Sir Andrew Foster's review last year.
Kelly said: 'We agree with Sir Andrew Foster that the key strategic role for the sector… is to help people gain the skills and qualifications for employability, so that they are equipped for productive, sustainable and fulfilling employment in a modern economy.'
In Kelly's eyes, employment is number one. She wants further education to pull its weight in the labour market, to equip young people with the basic and vocational skills they need at the start of their working lives, and to ensure that vocational training is as 'demand-led' as possible by focusing on the needs of employers.
Aligning further education to employability will be a major task. There are around 930,000 full-time and more than 3 million part-time further education learners in England, in around 400 colleges. Most colleges are general, but there are also about 100 sixth-form colleges, and a small number of curriculum specialist colleges – covering art and design and land-based subjects, for example, as well as specialist designated institutions.
The white paper is clear that young learners are to be given priority. 'We will strengthen our support for institutions focusing on young people as part of 14–19 reform', it states, underlining the importance of sixth-form colleges in helping young people on to Level 3 qualifications and then to higher education.
The government's decision to extend free further education to a first Level 3 qualification for those aged 19–25 means that the definition of 'young' is being widened. This recognises the fact that many under-achievers at school do not decide to go for their 'second chance' of education until they are in their early 20s.
There will be an impact on funding on top of the £25m being provided to support this change from 2007/08 and £11m for a weekly means-tested maintenance allowance for 19–25-year-olds. There is likely to be a demand for more funding to meet the outcome of the current Leitch review of skills, if the ambitious targets in last year's interim review are anything to go by.
The government intends that the proportion of fees paid by post-25 learners will rise to 50% in the longer term. Kelly says: 'The state cannot and should not pay for all education and training for adults.' Public funding for some kinds of provision will be stopped.
Shifting part of the cost of training young people on to older learners could backfire if disadvantaged adults in work are unable to learn new skills during their careers, particularly since, according to the chancellor, workers will on average change jobs seven times during their working life. The vast majority of today's workers will need to train or retrain for tomorrow's skills. In addition, increasing costs for older learners could undermine Labour's aim of making education and society more inclusive.
A new system of learner accounts – combining contributions from the government, learners and employers, and intended to 'hand power to learners' – is to be trialled next year, hopefully avoiding the abuses encountered in Individual Learning Accounts.
Kelly's blueprint also calls for more specialist colleges. 'We believe that greater specialisation will be an important means of delivering the mission,' she says. Since 2001, more than 400 centres of vocational excellence in specialist areas, such as care, horticulture and construction, have already been established.
Not all will be able to make the specialist grade. 'A growing proportion of provision will come to be concentrated in the institutions most capable of delivering it effectively,' Kelly says. But if provision becomes more concentrated, some potential learners might find they live too far from their nearest provider of a particular subject.
One proposal in the white paper that has provoked hostility is that failing colleges could be handed over to the private sector (currently 2% of colleges are judged to be inadequate). Kelly suggests that voluntary and community sector providers could be involved in adult education; new providers will be encouraged for expanded 16–19 provision; and the Learning and Skills Council – the further education funding and planning body in England – will be given a Blairite remit to 'secure choice, and diversity and specialisation of provision for learners and employers'.
But the white paper is not just about colleges. Employers are given a prominent place. A new workplace-based, employer-led training scheme for adults, Train to Gain, subsidised by the government, starts this month. The white paper proposes sector skills agreements, involving the government, employers and Sector Skills Councils, to determine priorities for public spending. And there are to be employer-led National Skills Academies in each major sector of the economy, with 12 by 2008.
So, if the white paper is implemented in full, the further education sector of the future is likely to look younger, with greater emphasis on skills for employment; colleges will be more specialised and employer-focused, with less post-25 education and fewer non-vocational courses.
What is the likelihood of this happening? Resources will be crucial. Free further education for 19–25 year-olds will put pressure on college income. In non-priority areas fees will rise, and some provision will lose all subsidy. Colleges will need to ensure that departments, especially those going for specialist status, have the necessary up-to-date equipment and infrastructure for their subject area, together with recruiting, retaining and developing teaching staff who have the appropriate skills and know-how to prepare learners for a particular field of work.
The funding gap between schools and colleges for like-for-like provision will also need to be addressed. The Department for Education and Skills plans to reduce this from 13% to 8% by 2006/07, by a further 3% from 2008 and beyond that, as resources allow. DfES data show that funding per full-time equivalent learner in further education in England grew by 27% above inflation between 1998/99 and 2005/06.
Although this rate of increase was not as fast as for school pupils over the same period, it represents a significant cash injection. But since 2004, after several years of double-digit growth, funding for the LSC has been very tight, and will be cut by 1% in real terms next year.
Capital spending by the LSC increased from £300m in 2003/04 to £372m last year, out of total LSC expenditure of £9.3bn. In the 2006 Budget, Gordon Brown announced £500m of capital funding for the sector by 2008. In last year's Budget, he pledged an extra £350m for investment in FE buildings in 2008/09 and 2009/10, so it is not clear how much new money, if any, is involved in this year's announcement. Again, it is not certain whether this will meet the sector's needs to the end of the decade.
Much will depend on staff. There is general discontent at the growing pay gap between schools and further education, and the 1.5% pay offer for 2006/07 has provoked a two-day strike next month. A below-inflation pay rise will not be the most effective way to recruit and retain the staff needed to deliver the changes and specialisation required by the white paper. Plans to spend £11m a year for recruitment and retention and continuing professional development (CPD) initiatives for the FE workforce – including a 30 hour a year CPD requirement for teachers from next year – will not go very far among 233,000 employees.
It remains to be seen whether joined-up, employer-led thinking on skills will really take off. Will there be enough pay-off in skills development to encourage companies to invest their time, money and effort – particularly if the government listens to the Association of Colleges and makes employers pay more for training? Not least, the bewildering and often changing plethora of qualifications (including new specialised diplomas), initiatives, organisations and acronyms in further education might act as a barrier to employer involvement.
Meanwhile, Cinderella awaits.
Stephen Court is senior research officer at the Association of University Teachers. In June, the AUT is merging with the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education to form the University and College Union
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