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Ministers and funding chiefs have disagreed over government
plans to take even more control over college spending. The
Learning and Skills Council (LSC) wants a simpler, more flexible
system but the Government says cash must be targeted better
to meet the immediate skills training needs of industry.
Sources in the Department for Education and Skills (DfES)
say there has been a row with the LSC over where responsibility
for making policy stops and implementation begins. A funding
system that is more responsive to employers was proposed in
the further education (FE) white paper. An FE Bill will set
out such 'demand-led' plans.
Mark Haysom, chief executive of the LSC, is said to be concerned
that this approach could damage colleges and other providers,
removing rather than increasing flexibility. At the LSC summer
roadshows principals have said that they fear a return to
the market-driven policies of the mid-1990s that pushed many
colleges and training companies near to bankruptcy.
A spokesman for the DfES denied there was a rift with the
LSC, saying: "Everyone supported the demand-led proposal when
it was made. Colleges must provide the skills employers need.
By 2015, the bulk of training supply will be demand-led."
(TES, June 30 2006)
The man behind the creation of England's biggest-spending
quango says it has failed some of the country's most needy
teenagers. Sir Michael Bichard, who was permanent secretary
at the Department for Education and Skills when the Learning
and Skills Council was set up, said the quango's priorities
were making social inequalities worse.
He said: "As someone who played a central part in the
establishment of the LSC, this is personally very disappointing.
Because the simple fact is that the council is not treating
seriously or equitably this most vulnerable group." As
chairman of Rathbone, a training charity dedicated to helping
disadvantaged teenagers who have failed at school, he said
he could see how LSC policies are squeezing out opportunities
to take NVQs, apprenticeships or entry to employment courses.
He was speaking at the City of York Annual education lecture,
where he said Treasury targets had put the few opportunities
open to low-achieving school leavers under threat. Free-standing
NVQs in work-based learning are no longer being funded, removing
one option for low-achieving students. Many of these teenagers
have already failed at college or have poor behaviour which
discourages colleges from taking them on, he said.
He said the LSC has put pressure on training firms which makes
it less likely that they will take on those who have struggled
at school as apprentices. Training providers are becoming
more selective because they are under pressure to improve
the numbers of apprentices completing their course.
The LSC is also encouraging training companies to increase
the numbers of apprentices who are already in work. He said
the LSC was increasingly putting a 22-week cap on funding
for entry-to-employment courses, which is not enough for those
with serious literacy and numeracy problems.
Sir Michael said the effect of all these policies together
was to shut a group of students out of the education system.
He said: "I am one of those who has cause to be grateful
for the English education system. I never want to close behind
me that gateway of opportunity to motivated, gifted children,
whatever their family background or social class."
Stephen Gardner, director of work-based learning at the LSC,
said Sir Michael had misunderstood the funding priorities.
(TES, 10 March 2006)
Cuts are threatening projects in which thousands of business
people take time off work to help primary pupils with reading
and maths. Over the past ten years the highly-regarded Reading
Partners and Number Partners schemes have helped tens of thousands
of pupils. Now they are to be scaled back as ministers focus
on involving businesses in secondaries. The news is being
greeted with dismay by the charities that run the projects
and the companies, many of whom prefer to work in primaries
and argue that they are more likely to make an impact with
younger children.
This year 8,500 employees from around 400 businesses are
visiting primaries under the Reading Partners scheme to help
pupils, either on a one-to-one basis or in small groups. The
projects have largely been run by local Education Business
Partnerships, a network of 126 organisations which with schools
provide work experience and other business-related schemes.
Learning and Skills Councils have funded partnerships that
provide a member of staff or broker to recruit volunteers
from companies, arrange which school they are sent to and
carry out police and other bureaucratic checks.
From September 2005 this partnership work will no longer
be funded, as the LSCs, which have a national budget of £9
billion, concentrate on companies' work with 14 to 19-year-olds.
In London, the situation has been exacerbated by the demise
this year of London Accord, which since 1998 has provided
more than £400,000 a year to support business people
working with 5 to 14-year-olds across the capital. In Devon,
Cornwall and Somerset, where more than 200 volunteers have
been working with schools, central support is being withdrawn
after £18,000 of LSC funding was cut.
Bob Wigley, chair of education leadership at Business in
the Community, which represents 800 firms, said: "Once
the brokers have gone, we have lost all hope of engaging generations
of volunteers to support our youngest pupils." A department
for Education and Skills spokeswoman said: "We support
the LSC. However, it is up to the LSC to make judgments on
how they allocate their resources." The LSC said that
its support for education-business link organisations was
being cut this year but that there were other significant
potential sources of income for the partnerships.
(TES, 24 June 2005)
Thousands more people than feared could lose out on education
as the extent of cuts in adult-learning becomes clearer. Concern
is deepening over the future of adult education with a warning
from the Learning and Skills council that the post-19 budget
could be cut by up to 10% - equivalent to more than 300,000
adult places. Courses cut include lessons for adults with
disabilities, IT, painting and decorating, music and evening
A-level classes.
David Russell, director of resources at the LSC, which provides
the bulk of colleges' funding, has written to principals admitting
that the cuts needed have been "higher than anticipated".
The Association of Colleges, which was already anticipating
the loss of 200,000 adult places as the result of worse-than-expected
funding allocations last month, now fears that this estimate
may prove optimistic. As the letter reached principals' desks
this week, there was no comfort from the Department for Education
and Skills, which says colleges must face the reality of concentrating
on their "priority" areas or increase their income
from course fees.
(TES, 10 June 2005)
Widespread redundancies are expected across the UK as colleges
get to grips with lower-than-expected funding allocations
for 2006, research has revealed. Three quarters of colleges
will receive less money from the Learning and Skills Council
than they expected. Out of 400 colleges approached, 30% said
they would get less than last year, and 77% said they would
get less than expected under the "plan-led" funding
arrangement with the LSC. 51% said they will cut jobs, with
up to 60 staff members expected to go in some colleges. Thousands
of courses are also likely to be scrapped as colleges divert
funds to meet targets on provision for 16 to 19-year-olds.
Principals estimated that cuts will lead to the loss of up
to 200,000 adult places.
(TES, 20 May 2005)
Two national inquiries into the state of adult education
have been launched amid evidence of a sharpening decline in
the take-up of courses at colleges and community learning
centres. In the first, the Learning and Skills Council has
appointed KPMG consultants to investigate exactly what is
spent on adult and community learning programmes. In the second,
Chris Hughes, who is due to retire as chief executive of the
Learning and Skills Development Agency, will head an inquiry
set up by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education.
It follows a NIACE study showed the proportion of adults with
recent experience of learning had slumped from 46% to 39%
over the past three years.
NIACE figures show that the proportion of such adults rose
from 40% to a high of 46% between 1997 and 2001. Since then,
rates have steadily declined. Evidence is now emerging from
colleges' autumn recruitment programmes that while the number
of 16 to 19-year-olds signing up for courses has reached record
levels, adult recruitment has declined further. Both the Association
of Colleges and NIACE say tight LSC funding policies are squeezing
flexibility out of the system. Also, conflicting Government
policies, which set colleges and schools in competition for
post-16 students, were making things worse.
Colin Flint, former principal of Solihull College, said the
need to meet Government targets had resulted in many ordinary
adult education courses disappearing in colleges, particularly
those that did not lead directly to qualifications. "There
does not seem to be an understanding in the LSCs of the historical
role of FE colleges in providing adult education," he
said.
(TES, 12 November 2004)
The youth of Bristol could graduate from a 'university of
life' in a scheme from the local Learning and Skills Council.
Under the Education Unlimited proposal, youngsters who do
not want to enter further education will be able to build
up a passport of experiences.
These would range from working for a few weeks at a local
theatre to bricklaying. Their experiences would count towards
a certificate that they could present to potential employers.
Students will be able to pick and mix so if they do not
enjoy what they are doing, they can move on top another skill.
The proposal is aimed at offering further education programmes
to young people who would neither go to college or stay on
at school.
Each year several thousand 16-year-olds in Bristol do not
stay in education after GCSEs. The idea is to make them employable
while they explore what they want to do for a living. Bristol
LSC, with the backing of the local chamber of commerce, is
bidding for £30 million from the Department for Education
and Skills for the project.
The college would not be based at a traditional campus but
would have half a dozen offices across the region where students
could drop in for career advice. They would continue for as
many years as it takes to find their feet. The college may
even be appropriate for some teenagers who were excluded from
school before they reach 16.
Employers who co-operated with the project would be paid
for taking on teenagers.
(Financial Times, 3 September 2002)
Promotion methods which boosted the fortunes of oil giant
BP are being used to revitalise post-16 education and training.
Bryan Sanderson, former chairman of BP and now chairman
of the Learning and Skills Council, is masterminding a £2
million survey to measure customer satisfaction in schools,
colleges and among trainees at work.
Some 110,000 pupils, students and trainees will be interviewed
over the next five years to find out what they think about
their education. The survey will be done three times a year.
Telephone interviews with about 8,000 students will be carried
out each time by the independent polling company NOP World.
The survey is meant to supplement not duplicate local school
and college surveys. It is expected to build up a bank of
data to help shape policy. Education and training policy
should not be shaped by providers alone, said Mr Sanderson.
"We need a whole swathe of contributions to the education
debate. It is an immensely complicated and fast-changing system.
Learners, customers - call them what you will - all have valuable
information."
The fundamental point Bryan Sanderson learned as chairman
of BP is that "you cannot change attitudes unless you know
what those attitudes are." Without a clearer idea of what
motivates people to learn and where they want to learn it,
"we cannot shape policy to meet our targets."
Mr Sanderson added: "I'm very concerned about how we get
to the bottom 20% of the population who, typically, dropped
out of school - how we get them back into learning."
(TES, 8 March 2002)
Further education would become subject to the "command and
control" of Government ministers under the proposed Learning
and Skills Council claims Peter Robinson senior economist
at the Institute for Public Policy Research. National training
targets "have absolutely no role to play in a modern dynamic
market economy" and raise "the spectre of a return to manpower
planning" says Mr Robinson. He makes his comments in a joint
IPPR and Further Education Development Agency report, The
New Learning Market.
He says: "The bodies which provide information and guidance
to learners must not have their own axe to grind because they
have been given other targets as well, for example, to achieve
particular levels of qualifications in the adult population.
"How can this not lead to councils giving information which
is potentially biased, advising people to take courses not
because it is in their interests but because it will help
the councils meet their own targets?"
Mr Robinson also doubts the council's ability to achieve
the much-vaunted savings of £50 million in bureaucracy,
compared with the outgoing Training and Enterprise Councils.
(TES, 21 April 2000)
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