WEA Education Blog

LSIS on FE and the financial crisis - cool on Leitch?

LSIS, the Learning & Skills Improvement Service has produced a paper: 'The Financial Crisis and FE - stepping up to the challenge'. Download BriefGuidetoFEandthefinancialcrisis here (but note that it is 18 pages long!)

It has a section the Effects on Leitch agenda which has a rather valedictory tone:

"The Leitch agenda is the Government’s flagship policy on skills. It is based on the thesis that increasing the skills attainment of the population will increase productivity, skills attainment being measured by the proportion of the working-age population with qualifications. It also contends that employers and learners should determine the amount of provision in the system – only the courses they choose should receive public funding.

For the past couple of years, the Government has restricted public funding to courses that lead to full qualifications, to meet the Leitch measurements (even though many employers wanted smaller courses that did not lead to qualifications). In the autumn of 2008, the Government relaxed these rules, in an effort to support training and keep people employed during the crisis. Public funding can now be directed towards courses that do not lead to full qualifications.

In January 2009, the House of Commons select committee that oversees skills released a report highly critical of Leitch. It questioned whether there was sufficient evidence to argue that increasing skills really increased productivity, and whether qualifications really did indicate that a person possessed equivalent skills in a real sense. The report also criticised the machinery of government reforms, saying ‘the abolition of the LSC and the establishment of the Skills Funding Agency is likely to lead to considerable further disruption and the reward for this is as yet uncertain’. The report said of Train to Gain that it ‘will only achieve its aim of producing long-term improvements in competitiveness if its brokerage service is more closely tied to helping firms develop more ambitious business plans and more tightly linked to wider economic development and business improvement services’."

RARPA and inspection, whatever next?

Recognising and Recording Progress and Achievement (RARPA) in non-accredited learning developed out of work established by the WEA in the 1990s called 'learning outcomes'. That dealt with the accusation that adult education, without the rigour of external qualifications, could be studied with no evidence of learning.

RARPA is based on a five stage process that covers basic good practice in teaching and learning. In recent years RARPA has become a condition for receiving public funding for non-accredited learning provision (see NIACE toolkit here). There is no doubt that the systematic implementation of the staged process as a standard has improved provision in the WEA. Not least because it helped some tutors develop and others to decide to leave.

However, along the way in wider policy terms it has become both marginalised from developmental discussion as the skills strategy has dominated and, at the same time, highly managerialised and integrated into the regulatory and funding compliance superstructure. It is clear now that the Ofsted is not completely happy with the arrangement. Over a year ago one lead inspector's view when briefing inspectors was reported as: "RARPA: it's not working, is it?"

One aspect of this is that the recording process and the use of that to create data and 'evidence' has become the main driver. Apparently, in a recent study on formative assessment, almost all tutors in non-accredited provision knew what RARPA was but many didn't know the Staged Process. This has two effects: one is it reduces the possibility of great teaching and learning, exchanging the best for the most compliant; second, it places summative assessment on a pedestal thus losing the first four stages and reinforces the State perspective of recent years that qualifications are all!

From this summer, this will be taken to the extreme where LSC funding Adult Safeguarded Learning provision will have to return individual 'achievement' data to the LSC so that comparative judgements can be made on non-accredited learning in inspection.

"Completion of achievement data [for non-accredited provision] will be voluntary from 2008/09 and a requirement from 2009/10." Ofsted guidelines for Adult & Community Learning Inspections.

This is really taking the whole issue of non-accredited learning rapidly in the wrong direction.

The key is in the classroom and the relationship between the tutor and the students as a group and individually. Proper, imaginative teaching and good formative assessment combined with respect and interest in students need to be central. Nothing new in that. The Black Report Download Blackbox exposed this danger in schools years ago:

"Teachers’ feedback to pupils often seems to serve social and managerial functions, often at the expense of the learning functions."

and

"The giving of marks and the grading functions are over-emphasised, while the giving of useful advice and the learning function are under-emphasised."

This month's NIACE events on reporting research into Formative Assessment reinforced the problematic gap that is emerging between issues in the classroom and the industrial harvesting of outcomes to inform inspection and account for funding. In that, good, straightforward teaching practice which includes effective questioning of students, appropriate feedback and self or peer assessment by students were shown to be key techniques to help people progress.

We need to get this back into the classroom. We need to see it as part of a process where the student is as important as the subject and the interaction between them, mediated by the tutor is the interesting bit. We don't need to offset reduced cost inspections by introducing statistically unreliable data - and put the cost of that on providers.

Maybe the new White Paper can give some hope. In theory the burgeoning industry of 'simplification', 'bureaucracy reduction' and 'self-regulation' should have prevented this; in fact it seems accelerating the vanillaisation of adult learning. We can't afford an inspection system that is reduced to the equivalent of a chap coming round to read the meter. A new commitment to informal adult learning should place the student at its heart and sweep away the managerialism and survelliance of the regulatory superstructure. Then let that be properly inspected - beyond a quick glance at a web-portal of meaningless achievement stats.

Continuing education at universities under further threat

The position of continuing studies programmes in some English universities is under immediate threat. This is due to the 'ELQ' policy introduced by the government. A statement from Reading University says:

"In September 2007, the Government announced the withdrawal of funding for students who are studying for a Higher Education qualification that is equivalent to, or lower than, a qualification that they have already been awarded (ELQ). This impacts most heavily on the University's School of Continuing Education public programmes, which are predominantly 10 week part-time open courses, and the Certificate in Higher Education."

It's ironic that this news is coming out in Reading and a number of other universities as the government launches its White Paper the 'Learning Revolution' with a commitment to increasing access to learning and open up educational institutions to more people.

Students on Reading's threatened continuing education courses have begun to organise themselves and produced a 'Let's save our brains' website on their campaign. You can visit it here.

'The Learning Revolution' White Paper launched

The long awaited White Paper on Informal Adult learning was published today by the Department of Innovation Universities and Skills. You can read it here 

The DIUS website says:

"Government recognises the profound importance of informal adult learning to people’s lives and our nation’s well-being. Informal learning can help people gain personal satisfaction, development and fulfilment. For the low skilled and with poor experiences of formal education, informal learning can be an important stepping stone to further learning, qualifications and more rewarding work. It can help keep people mentally and physically active and independent into old age. It can also bring people and communities together.

This strategy reaffirms cross-government commitment to informal learning and sets out how the Government will act as an enabler, capacity builder and connector to maximise the potential benefits. "

The WEA gets a couple of mentions and there is an important section recognising the role of the Specialist Designated Institutions - which includes the WEA. On these, the White Paper says:

"The expertise of Specialist Designated Institutions enables them to play a central role in the new informal adult learning vision. SDIs are a diverse group of distinctive institutions, recognised as centres of excellence whose reputation and reach extends beyond their local areas. They are City Lit, Mary Ward Centre, Working Men’s College, Workers’ Educational Association, Marine Society College of the Sea, Morley, Hillcroft, Ruskin, Fircroft and Northern College.

Overall, around 80% of their provision consists of informal adult learning. SDIs are funded directly by the Learning and Skills Council. Going forward we want to explore further the ways in which they will make a significant and demonstrable contribution to local partnerships and deliver the informal adult learning vision in return for public funding. For example, in addition to their own provision, SDIs will contribute to the new vision for informal adult learning by sharing their spaces, their expertise and their resources with other providers, including self-organised learning groups. The range of activity could include: 

• leading the way in the innovative use of technology in learning and sharing content online, potentially through collaborations with technology and media providers

• sharing with others their expertise in cross subsidising between income generating activity and programmes to reach out to disadvantaged groups

• enabling self-organised group leaders to share selected CPD training opportunities

• opening up their spaces for self-organised learning"

The Raymond Williams Foundation

I've written a number of times on Raymond Williams and whether his influence on the WEA has application in the 21st Century. The Raymond Williams Foundation is a new initiative that will be of interest to anyone wanting to explore this further. The Raymond Williams Foundation (RWF) was launched in November 2008, following 20 years as the much smaller Raymond Williams Memorial Fund (RWMF). RWMF helped organise annual WEA Raymond Williams residential courses at the Wedgwood Memorial College. This year's course in May on Keywords will again fill the College.

The RWF has substantial funds and a growing membership committed to adult education, especially WEA social and political education.

For more information on the Foundation click here  

 

Does membership matter?

The WEA is a membership organisation. Since last September, our new scheme has brought us over 20,000 members. We see membership as key to democracy in the WEA and that democracy (in all ways) is vital to education. But it isn't easy. Does our membership reflect our students or our provision? Is it well distributed across the country? Does it deliver the WEA's mission locally?

Matthew Taylor, the Chief Executive of the RSA, has written on this issue in his blog (click here) and this shows the WEA is not alone in seeing this as an important and tricky issue.  

It has to be a key issue for the WEA. We know the level of concern about the loss of individual choice and influence in adult education and the disappearance of community learning opportunities. We need our members to feel confident about acting on this in all parts of the country. Some of them fear the WEA is 'captured' by the government and its funding policies, others are weary of the bureaucracy required to put on provision that is planned and organised by volunteers in partnership with tutors and staff. Equally, as Matthew Taylor says, how can we have a democratic membership without 'activist capture, cumbersome governance and stuffy inward looking cultures'?

We need to find a way that allows people to align themselves through membership to the WEA's commitment to adult education and addressing disadvantage. That needs to be something that can help them help the WEA make a difference to people's lives in many localities and communities and to continue to enjoy opportunities for serious informal education themselves. It isn't going to be easy but a refreshed membership cohort, the communication opportunities of the age and a determination around the WEA's reason to exist must be key to this work.

Successful CALL Lobby of Parliament

The CALL (Campaigning Alliance for Lifelong Learning) lobby of Parliament was very successful today. There were hundreds of people involved including a very large range of students and a big WEA element.

 It’s been years since I’ve been on a Parliamentary Lobby. It is a fascinating experience and it is quite encouraging that there is still a system where, when enough people are concerned about something, they can raise these issues collectively within Parliament itself. After the lobby we all piled into a Committee Room in the Commons and heard (thankfully) brief speeches from a range of people including Trade Unions, the Women’s Institute, the Muslim Council and various others. An NUS speaker talked of a ‘broken and distorted’ system that is out of our hands and damaged by ‘bureaucratic tinkering’. She called for a ‘curriculum based on learning rather than qualifying’.

Richard Bolsin, the WEA General Secretary, was joint chair of the meeting. Unfortunately, two of the main CALL organisers, Ann Walker from the WEA and Paul Mackney (the CALL campaign coordinator) were unwell and couldn’t attend.

Towards the end a number of MPs spoke including David Blunkett who quoted his own foreword to the 1999 White Paper ‘The Learning Age':

“Learning enables people to play a full part in their community and strengthens the family, the neighbourhood and consequently the nation. It helps us fulfil our potential and opens doors to a love of music, art and literature. That is why we value learning for its own sake and are encouraging adults to enter and re-enter learning at every point of their lives as parents, at work and as citizens.”

Gordon Marsden, who is sponsoring the Early Day Motion, strongly welcomed the campaign and hoped that it would help adults to “learn more, enthuse more and communicate with each other” to overcome the ‘atomisation’ of the modern age. As reported in a previous post, the Shadow Skills Minister, David Willetts also endorsed informal adult learning, saying: “We mustn’t have a funding structure that restricts opportunities to people solely for a defined range of paper qualifications." He said he ‘completely agreed’ with David Blunkett’s quotation from the foreword to The Learning Age.

John Denham, the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, joined the meeting and spoke for 10 minutes before taking questions. It’s always difficult for ministers in these situations coming into a meeting that’s well underway, speaking when they haven’t heard the debate so far and accompanied by their little entourage of young staff furiously scanning the audience for policy clues. Had he been there for all the discussions he would have heard many valuable contributions that were well received. Of course, had he been there the dynamic would have been different. So, unfortunately he hadn’t heard about the difference ESOL makes to people and communities and the practical problems currently faced with this provision or in part-time adult learning overall in FE and HE. He hadn’t heard about the impact of rising fees on people with modest incomes or the difficultly for adults in taking on full or long courses.

In his speech he promised the imminent White Paper would be a “renewed birth to informal learning”. However, he then repeated his frequently used comment that ‘holiday Spanish’ was something that could no longer be a priority for public funding. This provoked a couple of angry questions from some in the audience who felt it overlooked the issues being discussed and the balance of funding for adult education compared to other government priorities. It was clear that the Secretary of State wasn't pleased with this exchange and was not very happy as he left the meeting - although he had been very positive about CALL at the start of his speech. A pity really as several speakers had been positive about his efforts before he arrived. Nevertheless, he must have seen the strength of feeling there is on the CALL campaign issues – even if he felt uncomfortable about how some people expressed it. Perhaps now one of his aides will suggest that the ‘holiday Spanish’ jibe be rested.

On the way home I checked and the WEA taught 14 Holiday Spanish courses in 2007-08 with 141 students enrolled. Three of these courses were targeted for adults with mental health difficulties. Overall, holiday Spanish made up only 0.14% of WEA provision that year.

The new White Paper may tell, I suppose. At the end of the meeting, after John Denham had left, Bob Fryer argued that, before publication, the Secretary of State would be best to test the content of that document against the celebrated Blunkett foreword of over a decade ago.

Conservatives challenge to 'paper qualifications'

Today has seen a bit of a media onslaught from David Willetts, the Shadow Skills Secretary, around the falling numbers of adults in education. This is an interesting development of the Opposition's policy over recent months and comes less than two weeks before the CALL Lobby of Parliament (see previous blog entry).

You can see his 3 minute interview with the BBC, click here - just count the times he refers (with little enthusiasm) to 'paper qualifications'. 

Are his points fair? From the experience in my family and others I know, I think the comments he makes on adults with learning difficulties is hard to refute. On falling ICT classes, I've looked at the WEA's figures. In 2005-06 we ran 1,511 non-accredited short ICT classes. Last year we ran 1,056 - a fall of 30% over three years.

It does seem possible, leaving aside the views of the different political parties, that the certainties of 'Full Qualifications' as a central element in Leitch is under challenge because of the fall in adult participation. This is now being combined with concerns to find flexible ways to use education and training to respond to the impact of the recession on individuals.

However, David Willetts didn't leave it there. He also said:
"Learning also brings health and community benefits that can reduce the pressure on public spending in other areas."

We'll have to see how this debate develops.

CALL and the Lobby of Parliament

The Campaigning Alliance for Lifelong Learning (CALL) is lobbying Parliament on 25th February. Across the country the WEA is organising around this event and involved in local discussions on the campaign.

Ann Walker, the WEA's Regional Director for Yorkshire Humber, has a leading role for the WEA in CALL. She has prepared a powerpoint presentation which you can get here to make the case for adult learning. It also includes details of the lobby and how you can contact your MP around Early Day Motion 533 supporting the campaign.

Tutors and Students meet as equals

Raymond William's famous open letter to WEA tutors back in 1961 is appended to the WEA's tutor handbook. You can read it here (Download Raymond Williams an open letter to WEA tutors). One paragraph in the letter refers to:

"the claim that, in the WEA, tutors and students meet as equals. Of course the tutor knows his own discipline better, and wants to help the students to learn it, but he may not know how his dis­cipline looks to people outside it, may not know the gaps between academic thinking and actual experience among many people; he may not know when, in the pressure of experience, a new discipline has to be created."

That expression - 'in the WEA, tutors and students meet as equals' - seems as important now as ever to me. If we respect adults and their voluntary interest in learning then that equality must be central in our work. What does it mean in the 21st Century WEA?

I was interested to read research summary called 'Inside the Black Box' (click here to read it). This publication, from 2001 by Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam from King's College London School of Education, looks hard at what formative assessment means in school teaching. It is also centred on fairness and the importance of the relationship between teacher and pupils. It says:

“In this paper, the term ‘assessment’ refers to all those activities undertaken by teachers, and by their students in assessing themselves, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged. Such assessment becomes ‘formative assessment’ when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to meet the needs.”

The report sees the managerial role of assessments as presenting difficulties:

“• Teachers’ feedback to pupils often seems to serve social and managerial functions, often at the expense of the learning functions.

• Teachers are often able to predict pupils' results on external tests—because their own tests imitate them—but at the same time they know too little about their pupils’ learning needs.

• The collection of marks to fill up records is given greater priority than the analysis of pupils’ work to discern learning needs; furthermore, some teachers pay no attention to the assessment records of previous teachers of their pupils.”

This (eight years ago) is an important caution around the purpose of learning and assessment and still seems as problematic as ever. We can see it in qualifications and in assessing non-accredited courses.

We spend a lot of time in the WEA monitoring our provision to be sure we don't exclude adults from our courses. We have good evidence of equality of opportunity and fairness in terms of who participates in our provision, but what about fairness in our relations between tutors and students? That can't be considered through management or monitoring. It has to be explored by tutors individually and, perhaps better, together.

I will be writing to the WEA Tutor Network to see if we can set up a 'Meet as Equals' project to learn how tutors make real this commitment in their teaching now. I think we have a lot to learn from each other and hope as many colleagues will want to get involved in this over the next few months.