More, Different and Better

My interview today with Satnam Gill, Principal of Working Men’s College, is the penultimate in a NIACE series celebrating unsung heroes across the learning and education sector. The series is part of NIACE’s activity for Black History Month 2012.

Why did you become an educator?

It always upset me that my Dad never learned English and that my Mum could not read or write in any language at all. I always thought that it really damaged their life chances. My Dad was a great carpenter. He made everything and anything you could imagine, but he just could not get a job in this country that fully used his skills because of his lack of English. I always felt that was really wrong.

I wanted to help make sure that people like my parents are able to fully utilise their skills.

What really tempted me into becoming principal of the Working Men’s College is that it sits in an area where there were, and still are, tens of thousands of people, who just like my Dad, don’t speak a word of English. People who have been here for between 5 and 30 years and whose talents are so wasted, simply because they haven’t yet learned to communicate properly in this country.

That really fired me up to do this job and that’s why virtually half our work is teaching English to local people on the estates. I feel absolutely committed to making sure local people can get work and fully utilise their skills.

Were you faced with any barriers or challenges and if so how did you overcome them?

Coming to England at the age of 7, in fact, removed barriers for me. I moved from a school in India in a single room in half a building in the village, to one with real buildings and of course learned English from the other children. After that I seemed to walk it really and don’t remember having any difficulties in my own education.  Many of the white schoolkids were unpleasant and at times even violent, but learning was enjoyable.

What was particularly helpful, outside of formal learning, in helping you to progress and achieve?

I had a different perspective from some of the others at school on what hard work was like.  I can remember thinking isn’t school easy and enjoyable to what we had in India. 

What really drove me to work hard, apart from finding some of it easy, was that I was really keen to move on and to see my family move on, to get out of the poverty that faced us when we came to Bradford.

I also had friends at school from similar backgrounds who were ambitious and who went on to do great things.

With significant strides in race equality over the last 30 years, what do you think the barriers are today for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) learners and how do they differ from those experienced 30 years ago?

When I went to primary and middle school, we were put into an immigrants’ class in a hut in the playground. We did not get to go to ordinary classes. However, the one thing we did do was spend a lot of time learning English even though I was fluent in English by the time I as 8 years old.

Then, when we went to secondary school we were put down 3 streams as they didn’t believe that immigrants could do the work. But after just 9 months we were promoted to the top stream. That was just how secondary schools operated in Bradford at that time.

Today, the barriers are less structural than in those days. We were just immigrants and we were in the immigrants’ class and if you did well you were lucky. Today there is a lot more looking at how to deal with what effectively amounts to racism in the school and the differential achievement of the students, in a way that never was in my day.

We know that there are significant differences between particular groups and sub-groups of minority ethnic learners, what can practitioners/providers do to support these learners?

First of all you’ve got to recognise that there are differences and that people are performing differentially. What I try and do here is look at how we can eliminate that differential performance, whether it’s by reorganising classes or providing additional support in different ways.

We had a whole period when our Black African students didn’t do anywhere near as well as the Chinese students for example. What we found was that they wanted a lot more access to computers. So for 3 years we have run extra classes which allowed them to spend more time on computers. Over 2 years we found that their achievement rates had improved by 8%.

One particular barrier for many BAME communities is access to good quality, affordable ESOL. How have reductions in ESOL provision impacted on your learners and how has your organisation responded?

I fought a big battle with both the ministers when they announced the changes which would have resulted in a 42% reduction in our funding.

It was going to hit us much more than any other college, so in the end we negotiated a deal. Unlike many FE colleges, at Working Men’s College we have been able to use, and do use, the income from our investments to support our ESOL classes wherever we can.

If there is a barrier to people achieving their potential in this country, it is not being able to communicate. I couldn’t run an institution where people cannot learn English, where I cannot provide English classes, irrespective of the funding regime.

What would you like to see changing over the next 30 years for BAME learners and what role do you want to play in that?

There is a shift happening and the number of BAME people going into education is increasing. When I first went into teaching and did my training at Goldsmiths in 1976, out of 200 people doing that post graduate certificate, there were just 4 of us from BAME backgrounds. Now, 30% of the students who come to us for teaching practice are from BAME backgrounds – that’s quite a significant shift and a really important one.

I think the future is bright because there is increasingly an assumption that BAME learners will succeed, and an expectation amongst the BAME students themselves that they will achieve. There is no longer an assumption that they will be at the bottom of the pile.

How do you see your role as a BAME leader and the impact this may have on learners, aspiring leader s and the wider community?

Having black leaders makes it much easier for other aspiring black people to become leaders. If there are no black principals or BAME people in senior positions in a college, it’s much harder for people to imagine getting to that position.

There are increasing numbers of black principals and black senior managers, certainly in the further education sector. This makes it that much easier to push for and demand a place at the top table, and to be confident that you can get it.

Interview with Paul Jarvis, Adult Learners’ Week award winner 

Interview with Suzanne Overton-Edwards, Principal of Gateway College 

Interview with Gary Chin, Principal of Greenwich Community College