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Latest News: January 2004
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Breakthrough For Part Time Students
After some 30 years of banging on the door, the adult learning advocacy body NIACE believes that the Government is, at last, committing to a more transparent and equitable higher education system in which the interests of part-time learners cannot be ignored.
In letters to Labour backbenchers seen by NIACE (available on request), ministers have elaborated upon earlier statements about reforming the funding of university teaching, and confirmed support for the Open University’s distinctive mission.
NIACE Director Alan Tuckett comments:
“We believe these proposals show a genuine willingness to listen to concerns raised about the treatment of part-time students”.
“It is clear that the Higher Education Funding Council for England has been given a signal by ministers. Now we have to ensure that everyone signs up to acting on the findings of the forthcoming review to create a level playing field where part-time learners get a fair deal”.
“We will also continue to keep up the pressure and will work for improved student support arrangements”.
| For further information, please contact Alastair Thomson at NIACE on 0116 204 4241 or alastair.thomson@niace.org.uk. Copies of letters to Hywel Francis MP and Brian White MP from Charles Clarke can be faxed on request. |
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Part-Time Students Should Benefit From the HE Bill
The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) welcomes the Government’s commitment to let full-time students pay for learning after completing their courses and believes that if this facility is extended to part-time students there would be a dramatic improvement in access to higher education.
NIACE welcomes the steps so far taken to improve support for the poorest part-time students and the commitment to do more. Part-time students represent 40% of all students at undergraduate level and an absolute majority of HE students. They already pay variable tuition fees in an unregulated environment.
Commenting on the Bill, NIACE director Alan Tuckett said:
“Ministers’ explicit commitment to promoting access to HE for part-time and mature students is very welcome. Given the strength of support for Hywel Francis’s Early Day Motion in support of part-time students, we are disappointed that no firmer commitment was made to ensure that such learners will not have to pay their fees up-front, as will be the case for full-timers. We look forward though, to working with the Department for Education and Skills to see how Ministers’ desire to further support the development of part-time study can be achieved.”
“In the long term we need to move towards a coherent single system of support for full and part-time study.”
In other comments on the Bill, NIACE policy officer Alastair Thomson said:
“Statutory entitlements to support for poorer part-time students are welcome and we trust that Ministers will include adult learners over the age of 54 in the proposals for full-time students, thus ending the inexcusable discrimination they have faced in access to loans.”
“We will also press for part-time students to come within the remit of the proposed Office for Fair Access. It is disappointing in this respect that clause 38 of the Bill states that ‘In this part “course” does not include any part-time or post-graduate course other than a course of initial teacher training’
“In addition we will remind the Government that universities contribute to the nation’s cultural capital as well as to the economy. Just as the Skills Strategy recognised this in terms of further education funding, we believe that a modest level of support for this role needs to be enshrined on the face of the Higher Education Bill.”
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Employer Training Pilots
In his Pre-Budget Statement to the House of Commons in early December 2003, Gordon Brown drew attention to the need for higher investment in workforce training – especially for the one-third of the labour force with the fewest recognised skills.
One of the key measures that the Government is taking to improve access to training is its programme of Employer Training Pilots (ETPs). Working closely with employers, these are testing out different ways of supporting lower-skilled people in work with the chance to gain basic skills or their first level 2 qualification.
Derbyshire was location of one of the pioneering ETPs in 2001 and it was joined the following year by a pilot in Leicestershire. Now that the Chancellor has announced the extension of ETPs for a third year, and intends to launch new pilots in six more areas, this NIACE seminar will provide a timely opportunity to look in depth at how ETPs have worked in the East Midlands region and to see what lessons can be learned. It will bring together participants with practical knowledge of ETP operations; those with a national perspective as researchers and managers and those who simply want to know more to anticipate the shape of things to come.
ETPs are a cornerstone of Government policy for workforce development and independent evaluations suggest that they are proving remarkably effective in bringing learning into more and different workplaces and reaching in helping more and different learners develop their skills. As such, they will exert a strong influence upon the development of the whole further education sector as it becomes more flexible and more responsive to need.
Click here for further details of NIACE’s conference on ETPs in the East Midlands on 22 January 2004 in Leicester,
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New website for Black practitioners and Learners
On Tuesday 16 December 2003 NIACE launched a brand new website , www.niace.org.uk/bpln, which will be of interest to black learners and practitioners, practitioners generally who work with black adults and anyone who is interested in challenging racism and promoting cultural diversity.
The site has been developed through support from the Local Government Association (LGA) and is a partnership initiative between the Black Practitioners and Learners Network (BPLN) and NIACE.
It will be a place to find out about major developments in the field of adult education, engage in debate and discussion with like-minded people, peruse news and features items and find out about best practice.
The site aims to:
 | Inform. |
| Support in the further development of skills, knowledge and good practice. |
| Encourage debate and discussion. |
| be Interactive, dynamic and responsive (through the community forums). |
| Share information. |
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Pre-Budget boost for skills training
The Government’s drive to improve the skills of workers without qualifications has been given a multi-million pound boost in Chancellor Gordon Brown’s Pre-Budget report. He outlined further investment in the successful Employer Training Pilot programme – which gives money to employers to provide time off for workers to take up free or subsidised tuition to improve basic skills – extending the scheme to give free training to low-skilled workers in 12 current pilot areas for a further year and expanding it to operate in six new areas.
Over 2004/5 and 2005/6, an additional £190 million will be channelled into the scheme. The Pre-Budget Report also announced a raft of measures to help children and their families, including a billion pound increase in child tax benefits; a commitment to establishing 1,000 Children’s Centres – providing integrated education, health and support services for children and their families – by 2008; the establishment of nursery and school-parent links in 500 communities; and new reforms to encourage employers to support their employees’ childcare costs with tax exemptions of up to £50 per week spent on registered or approved childcare.
Education Secretary Charles Clarke said that the new commitments underlined the Government’s belief that ‘high quality, lifelong and easily accessible education from cradle to grave is fundamental to fulfilling personal achievement and delivering national prosperity.
Employer Training Pilots are reaching the employers and employees that traditional training programmes have never reached. Higher skills levels benefit the employee with improved pay and prospects, the employer with a more efficient workforce, and the economy as a whole with improved productivity.’ TUC General secretary Brendan Barber said the Chancellor’s Report represented ‘a real agenda for the workplace’. ‘It’s good news that the Employer Training Pilots are to become a reality for firms and workers across a third of England. By giving training incentives to both employers and workers, we can begin to tackle the low skills crisis holding back the UK economy.’
However, Patrick Grattan, Chief Executive of the Third Age Employment Network, said that the Chancellor had again focused on 16-24 year olds to the exclusion of older workers. Digby Jones, the CBI Director General, said that employers wanted assurances that the Government was not considering a statutory right to paid time off for training, ‘which would do more harm then good’. Source: Adults Learning
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Students happy with teaching
Research has confirmed very high levels of satisfaction among post-16 learners. The National Learner Satisfaction Survey, commissioned by the Learning and Skills Council, is the largest ever undertaken in England, and reveals that 90 per cent of students are satisfied overall with their learning experience, while 89 per cent express satisfaction with the quality of teaching and learning.
Around 75 per cent of learners who previously had negative attitudes to education say it now gives them ‘a buzz’. The report also sets out priority areas for action, including ensuring that advice on courses is useful and that learners get their first choice of provider wherever possible.
LSC Chairman Bryan Sanderson commented: ‘Everyone involved can be justifiably proud. This is a real accolade to the “front-line” staff in the sector, and I know they will all rise to the challenges set out in the priority areas.’ John Brennan, Association of Colleges Chief Executive, said that while ‘colleges will not be complacent about quality, this survey shows authoritatively that colleges already amply meet their customers’ expectations’. Source: Adults Learning
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Vital Link for adult learners
The Vital Link, an ambitious programme bringing together the library and adult basic skills sector, has relaunched with three-year government funding. Led by the Reading Agency in partnership with the National Literacy Trust and the National Reading Campaign, it will build on the pilot phase of the Vital Link, which promoted reading for pleasure as a way of motivating existing students and recruiting new learners through libraries.
The new programme, which will seek to build libraries’ capacity to support adult basic skills learners, forms part of Framework for the Future, the Government’s 10-year strategy for the public library service, which is being implemented by Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries. Susan Pember, Director of the DfES Adult Basic Skills Strategy Unit, welcomed the news, adding that ‘libraries have enormous potential to support the Skills for Life strategy’. Source: Adults Learning
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IT handbook for farmers launched
A new handbook aimed at farmers who want to learn to use the computer but cannot get to training courses has been launched by the Pentalk Network. The IT Handbook for Cumbrian Farmers, which will be issued free to farmers, also targets new farmer trainees attending their first Pentalk courses, farmers who are already on Pentalk courses and want to brush up on their skills and those who are already taking delivery of their first computer. The handbook includes a CD-rom and floppy disc and covers word processing, email and spreadsheets, among other things. Pentalk organiser Ann Risman said that ‘there are still at least 1,000 farms in Cumbria who have not moved into the computer age and need to do so as a matter of growing urgency’. Source: Adults Learning
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