Post-18 Education and Funding Review — House of Lords, 2019-07-02
Topic: Education
Michael Bichard (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett—which is just as well because I have spent quite a lot of time doing just that. There is a danger that we in the wider world and the educational establishment in particular will spend so much time debating the detailed recommendations in this review, not least the fees issue, that we miss the opportunity to promulgate and win ownership of the main message. That, of course, is that lifelong learning is a massively important subject which holds the key to tackling the big issues that will define our post-Brexit future It is the key to addressing our productivity deficit. It should be a cause of national shame that it now takes a British worker five days to produce what a German worker can produce in four. It is the key to addressing the lack of social mobility that blights our society and denies us access to so much talent that we have never needed more. It is the key to delivering the skills we must have if we are going to solve the health, social care and housing crises we face. And it is the key to ensuring that people are able to adapt to a rapidly changing world and to work effectively well beyond the traditional retirement age Given that all that is true, we might well ask ourselves —as, to be fair, the review does—why lifelong learning has been so neglected as to allow a fall in the number of level 2 adult learners from 550,000 to 160,000 in just five years; a 67% drop in those enrolling in the so-called other undergraduate courses, such as foundation degrees, certificates and diplomas; and a catastrophic 53% fall in the number of part-time HE students. It is no wonder that we have a productivity and skills crisis The question, of course, is whether Augar provides the answer. Inevitably, the answer to that is yes—with significant caveats—and no. It makes a powerful case for making lifelong learning a priority again. It recommends reintroducing maintenance grants, following the lead, let us not forget, provided by the Diamond review in Wales, which I hope the Government will also reflect on. And, as many noble Lords have said, it provides a rhetorical boost for further education. But the funds for that need to be found. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, is absolutely right—this is not an aside—that it is deeply distressing that neither of the leadership candidates has committed funds or even mentioned the subject of lifelong learning, as far as I am aware There are positive things in the review, but also some things that are more troubling. I will mention just four. The first is that it places a disproportionate emphasis on graduate salaries as a proxy for the value of studying a course. That could distort future policy decisions on teaching grants in a very dangerous way. It could also be to the serious disadvantage of creative arts institutions—I declare an interest, having been a vice-chancellor of one for seven years. These institutions are central to the success of the creative industries, which in turn make an important but sometimes unrecognised contribution to the UK’s economic prosperity—something that Augar seems not to recognise or fully understand. That oversight is exacerbated by the review’s failure to acknowledge the structural deficit in funding that already exists for creative arts subjects. At the University of London, a recent independent review by KPMG showed that the cost of delivering undergraduate provision stood at £11,200, significantly above any tuition fee cap The second thing that worries me is the proposal to adjust the HE fees regime. This seems to me to be fundamentally flawed. The reduction in the headline figure, from £9,250 to £7,500, is in my judgment insufficient to change the mindset of prospective students, not least when the term for repayment is extended from 30 years to 40 years, the income threshold at which loans are repaid is reduced from £25,000 to £23,000 and the interest charges, post graduation, remain at 6%. Not recommending the CPI measure of inflation for revaluing student loans is indefensible: any of us who were present at the debate yesterday of the Economic Affairs Select Committee report will have heard very strong arguments as to why that is so. Taken together, these fee proposals are regressive, with the well-off paying less—something like £25,000 less during their life—while those on middle and lower earnings will pay some £12,000 more, according to the DfE. Given that the review recommends that the Government make good the loss of income to institutions as a result of these fee changes, and given that the fee changes are not going to benefit students in any great respect, this seems to be a flawed set of proposals My third concern is that the review does not do enough to tackle the issue of affordability for mature and part-time students, which has been a major factor in the massive decline in part-time study. The lifelong learning allowance seeks to address this, but if I read page 42 of the review correctly—the Minister will correct me if I have not—it applies only to new cohorts of school leavers and excludes anyone who already has a degree. That will limit the support available to retrain the current workforce at level 4 and above Some of our competitors have been more radical. In launching the Singapore SkillsFuture programme, referred to in the Augar review, Singapore’s deputy Prime Minister spoke of the global economy demanding nimble workers and the constant acquisition of new knowledge and skills. He said: "We must become a meritocracy of skills, not a hierarchy of grades earned early in life" To help achieve that, every Singapore citizen now receives an initial credit of $500 towards the cost of skills training, while for Singaporeans over 40, up to 90% of the training costs of a Government-approved scheme is subsidised. Well, the majority of our workforce will shortly be over 45, and 40% of workers in the UK over 50 have received no formal training since leaving school. From those statistics, we may conclude that this is the moment for the UK to take a similarly bold approach. I assume that Augar felt that the cost of that would be prohibitive. I would rather that we saw it as an investment rather than a current cost My final concern is the failure to offer maintenance loans to students who study part time and via distance learning. I find this incomprehensible. As the Open University has pointed out, many of these students have no option but to study via distance learning, because of work or caring responsibilities, and they should not be penalised in this way. Indeed, they should be encouraged and incentivised. In Wales, that policy has been reversed, which has had a very significant and almost immediate impact—a 35% increase in part-time undergraduate students So the review is right to assert again the importance of lifelong learning, but any future strategy needs funds and political commitment. It needs to be progressive, not regressive, and it needs to tackle the issue of affordability and to encourage flexible distance learning. I hope that the Government will look carefully at all the Augar recommendations and consider them in that context.