Bill Rammell, MP:
‘We have listened to the learner’s stories and concerns and we are genuinely
trying to respond to the issues that they have raised and during this exercise I
think three consistent themes have emerged. Firstly, we need to do more to
assist asylum seekers whose cases take much longer than our Home Office targets
or who remain in the UK due to circumstances beyond their control. Secondly, we
need to address the issue of supporting spouses who do not have access to
funding or family benefit documentation; and thirdly, we need to help workers on
very low wages who are not in receipt of the working tax credit.’
Ed Melia, NIACE Press Officer:
That’s Bill Rammell MP speaking a the recent seminar on ‘English for
Speakers of Other Languages’, where he announced changes to proposals. These
changes followed months of activity. From the publication of the NIACE led
inquiry into ESOL, ‘More than a language,’ to the university and college union
lobby of parliament at the end of February, which over 1000 people attended. But
despite the changes announced there is still deep concern, particularly about
fees and asylum seekers rights to ESOL provision. Here is Alan Tuckett, Director
of NIACE :
Alan Tuckett:
‘For anyone is a genuine asylum seeker who arrives with dislocated lives,
some of course having suffered torture or rape, the last thing you need is to be
denied the ability to communicate when you arrive. You are anxious at the role
it puts your children in, you can’t look after their interests in schooling, you
can’t communicate with all of the agencies you need to communicate with and
since significant numbers of people who have suffered the trauma that goes with
asylum problems have mental health problems it exacerbates the issue that you
can’t get help’.
Helen Casey:
‘I am Helen Casey, Executive Director of the National Development Centre for
Adult Literacy and Numeracy. The NRDC research is very clear. Newly arrived
learners learn much more quickly. It is the same for any of us into a new
situation you have got a lot to learn. If you are not given access to the kind
of learning you need you will learn to cope with that situation in other ways
and six months or longer down the line people have found a way to survive
despite their lack of language skills and that becomes ossified quite quickly.
It seems to me a false economy to ask people to wait before they start
learning.’
Ed Melia:
There is general agreement about employers contributing more to the cost of
ESOL provision. But that is coupled with concern about whether this will happen
across the board. Here is Helen Casey again:
Helen Casey:
‘The assumption that employers will pay is really tricky. Some employers
already do. Others don’t and aren’t going to. In other European countries all
employers do because they have to. I am sure that every office in London is
cleaned by someone who doesn’t speak English and hotels up and down the country.
There are huge numbers of staff, part of whose everyday role is in talking to
the public, operating in other languages behind the scenes and being
disenfranchised as part of that process. It is divisive. It creates exclusion
and exclusion has patterns that persist.’
Ed Melia:
Where there is also widespread agreement is that ESOL is too big an issue
for just one government department. Roger Kline is the Head of Equality and
Employment Rights at the University and College Union:
Roger Kline:
‘Well our real concern about ESOL at the moment is that the government has
no joined up thinking. It has decided to change the ground rules and cut the
growth in provision of ESOL without, as far as we can see, any sufficient
consideration of the economic, social, education or indeed political
consequences of so doing so from our point of view it still feels like
re-shuffling deck chairs and doesn’t address the enormous shortfall between what
our economy and society needs from ESOL and the funding that is available for it
and as a result we will now be focussing at least part of our attention on
Gordon Brown because this is not just an issue of the education budget this
should be an issue for the Home Office, for housing, for communities and for the
treasury as a whole. There is a real risk of seeing ESOL provision as a cost
instead as an investment and an opportunity.’
Ed Melia:
And reaching similar conclusions is Irene Austin, the co-chair of the
National Association for Teaching English and Other Community Languages to
Adults.
Irene Austin:
‘Our members are having to make decisions about provision now for next year.
Most of the colleges are having to do their planning and there seems to be a
breakdown of communication between what is said nationally between the
government and the local LSC’s and even the national LSCs. We are also concerned
about the impact on provision from our members point of view because all the
surveys that they are conducting are showing that if fees are having to be
introduced they will only pay for the minimal provision. Bill Rammell is saying
that 50% of learners will be eligible but surveys that we are seeing are showing
that it is only 30-40% that will be eligible so we have provision for 70% and I
think that that will have an impact not only in the breadth and range of
provision but on the profession, on teachers, are teachers going to stay in the
profession, are they going to move on? It has to be a treasury issue. We need a
whole government approach to funding on ESOL it cannot just be one department.’
Ed Melia:
As is evident, this is an issue that isn’t going to be solved over night but
the momentum for a satisfactory outcome continues to grow. Here is Alan Tuckett
again:
Alan Tuckett:
‘There is a range of developments arising from ‘More Than A Language’ as a
report, and we are delighted that the government is taking this seriously. The
first National Advisory Forum on ESOL will meet. That will take forward a number
of initiatives. We have seen monitoring of what is happening on the ground put
in place. The race impact assessment reports will be published. It is certainly
not a campaign with a single focus. It has got a lively future course ahead of
it.’