The WEA should have its funding confirmed shortly for 2008-09. This could be 100% but with no inflation. This is better news than many colleges and other providers are likely to receive as the funding for 'adult responsive' provision declines in return for very significant increases for employer led provision. So, good news?
Yes, for next year, but the funding is conditional on a review of the Specialist Designated Institutions (SDIs) to consider their role and why their funding position is different to others in FE. Beyond that there is no certainty.
A quick reminder - there are 10 SDIs funded by the LSC:
The WEA
Four London Colleges:
and four Residential Colleges:
in addition there is the Marine Society College of the Sea
Many of these are excellent providers and share a number of things in common although they are very different in size, location and delivery. Most clearly they have fairly common missions and only work in education with adults. Fircroft residential college in Birmingham has just received an exceptional Ofsted Inspection report. That, and the success of other SDIs is something we should admire and see what we can apply in the WEA. You can read it here: Download fircroft_ofsted_inspection_report.pdf
The nine land based English SDIs have been working more closely together for about a year on a number of issues including peer review and putting the case to government for their type of adult education. Nevertheless, they are all aware that the current climate for adult education is not good and the funding for next year is good news for us within a bleak picture in terms of the system of adult education that once existed.
Because of that the review of the SDIs is vital, not to protect these 10 but to see whether there is any common ground left around democratic adult education that has resonance with policy makers.
The consultation on the future of 'Informal Adult Learning' shows an understanding in some areas of government of a world beyond Leitch, but a danger that the definitions of learning could be spread so widely that watching 'Life in Cold Blood' could be re-cast as education instead of good documentary television. The opportunities for the State to associated itself with any cheap learning are evident in a public sector budget climate which was hungover from the excesses of the last few years even before the banking institutions and their regulators had their current little 'blip'.
The LSC will lead this review and is developing a number of 'hypotheses' on what it believes SDIs offer that will be 'tested' through the data we return in our 'Individualised Learner Record' (ILR). They haven't shared these hypotheses with us but, if and when they do, we'll need to work together within the WEA and across the SDIs and other allies to take responsibility for the case for serious adult education, irrespective of the provider. Surely none of us wants the SDIs to become a protected species as the surrounding world of adult learning disappears.
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