Post-18 Education and Funding Review — House of Lords, 2019-07-02
Topic: Education
Michael John Storey (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I too welcome this timely debate and thank the huge number of organisations that sent us briefings. It shows the importance of the work we are talking about. We all welcomed the Government setting up the Augar review and there was excited anticipation and expectation. Here at last was an opportunity to put right the inequalities in our post-18 education system. I am afraid, however, that the editorial in the Guardian summed up my feelings about the published review. It said that the proposed rebalancing of the post-18 system meant, "that FE colleges are no longer quite such poor relations" Further education, for so long the Cinderella of the education system, may look just a little bit better dressed, but is still very far from being invited to the ball. The media headlines were not about the rebalancing of vocational education but all about the impact on our universities. I do not think it was a helpful message from the spokespersons of the wealthiest universities that, should their income suffer, one of the likely cuts they would have make was to their outreach activities. Their budgets for increasing diversity and encouraging disadvantaged students would be the first to be cut. This was not a particularly helpful or thoughtful comment on the review Of course, the real beneficiaries of the proposed cut in fees will not be those who take out huge loans: they will be paying even more back over the longer repayment period. The beneficiaries will be those better-off students who do not need to take out a loan: they will benefit from a cut of £7,500 over a first degree course Both broadcast and print media paid scant attention to what was said about England’s 200 further education colleges, which are the backbone of our vocational training provision. Our further education colleges represent the essential engine to meet our growing skills gap Just 37% of men and 34% of women undertake post-secondary, non-tertiary education in the UK, which compares badly with the 49% of men and 44% of women across the industrialised nations of the OECD. I understand that £8 billion of government funding was received last year by universities to support 1.2 million students. That was more than three times the £2.3 billion allocated to 2.2 million full-time and part-time students aged over 18 in further education. While the proportion of students attending university has risen over the past decade, the number in all forms of further education has declined. In this country, we have a very elitist view of education in that schools and parents judge their pupils’ success by how many go to university. Last year, I visited an academy in a very poor part of London. As I went in through the door, the banner across the front portal read, "We Want All Our Children to Experience a University Education". But actually, a vocational education or apprenticeship might be better for many young people. Further education is often seen as for other people’s children For many young people, particularly those whose parents did not go to university, their choices at 16 depend on the advice they receive at school. With schools incentivised to direct their students into the school sixth form and then to university, many students are not even told about the vocational options or apprenticeship routes open to them. Only this week, I was talking to a colleague who became the education officer in a local authority 40 years ago. He told me that he always made a point of looking behind the door of the head teacher’s office when he visited a secondary school to see whether there was an unopened box of FE college prospectuses. Is that still the case? I hope not At an event hosted by the APPG on Apprenticeships, every one of the seven apprentices invited to meet the group explained that they had been forced to do their own research into starting an apprenticeship. Not one of their schools had offered them any information or guidance. Following the addition of the "Baker clause" to the Technical and Further Education Bill, the Government reminded every school that, since 2 January 2018: "Every school must ensure that there is an opportunity for a range of education and training providers to access all pupils in year 8 to year 13 for the purpose of informing them about approved technical education qualifications or apprenticeships. Every school must publish a policy statement setting out their arrangements for provider access and ensure that it is followed" I struggled to find the necessary policy statement on the school websites that I looked at, even though a model statement is set out in the guidance. Buried on one school’s site was a link from the heading "Not going to uni", but the link was broken. Does the Minister know how many schools are meeting this statutory requirement Much of the report is good, and I will accentuate the positives in the 216-page review. It is encouraging to read that, "there is a ‘powerful case’ for change in the FE sector … which in recent years has had its ability to innovate and plan for the long term ‘severely restricted’ by the funding regime" The report makes some very sound proposals. We support the proposal for a national network of colleges but have to consider the impact on students in rural areas. We very much welcome the £1 billion capital investment fund. We support the proposal that all adults should be able to study for their first level 2 and level 3 qualifications free of charge. We agree that there is no case to set a lower base rate for 18 year-olds in college compared to that for 16 and 17 year-olds. We agree that level 6 apprenticeships should be available only to those who have not undertaken a public-supported degree For me, as vice-president of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Teaching Profession, the most important recommendation is on the further education workforce. With average salaries being £7,000 less than in secondary schools, it is little wonder that FE colleges struggle to recruit staff. Can the Minister assure us that the 23% contribution to teachers’ pensions, which is hurtling towards colleges, will be funded by the Government In many of the technical areas that further education students need to study, salaries in the private sector are twice that of an FE lecturer. In terms of lifelong learning, we must ensure that our workforce is able to access the education that the changing patterns of employment will require. More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle was able to say with confidence: "Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man" Rousseau said much the same thing, with equal confidence, 300 years ago. How times have changed—and at a much faster rate than ever. For those who missed out earlier in their education, or those who need to retrain for a new career, lifelong learning is an absolute must. We must pay tribute to the Augar review for emphasising this All of us in our political careers regret things that we have been forced to do or see happen. For me—I hold up my hands—it was the coalition deciding to end maintenance grants. That was a real loss to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Now I am pleased that reinstating them has been suggested in the review. I very much hope that it will happen Finally, it is interesting to note that Mr Johnson and Mr Hunt have both announced spending plans as part of their leadership campaigns that even their own Chancellor thinks are in cloud-cuckoo-land. I have, to date, heard neither pledge to meet the cost of the Augar review. There is, of course, still plenty of time for each of them to agree to implement this review—at least one of the positive legacies that Mrs May craves.