|
|
Plenary Speeches
|
Theme 1 |
Theme 2 |
Theme 3 |
Theme 4
Q: The question I'd like to ask is of David Sainsbury in regard to the University for Industry, because obviously a main focus is this link to employability and to upgrading skills for work. But do you see a role for the University for Industry in the broader agenda of community-based learning, learning for citizenship and these sort of things? Or do you feel that that should be left as a separate vehicle? A (Lord Sainsbury): I think that's a very key question. I think that probably the University for Industry should be very focused on the issue of competitiveness and employability. It is not a question in any way of saying that the other things are unimportant. It is a way of saying that I think it is part of the brand and what I want people to feel about the University for Industry is that it is very focused on skills for the workplace, for employability and competitiveness in industry. It is in the area of vocational skills that we're weakest in this country, and targeting on this is a key part of the role of the University for Industry. Q (Linsay Jackson): Could I address a question to David Sainsbury as well? You are saying that you are going to work with partners, and you are going to add value. How are you going to ensure that there are standards and they are of a sufficient quality? A (Lord Sainsbury): Again, it is very early to give specific processes for doing that. But we have a brand, the University for Industry, and that will be linked with particular products. We will have to design processes to do this. With that in mind we will have a person on the team that we are putting together with the specific task of looking at quality assurance. On-line Q: We heard from Steve Heppell about doctors on-line, from Jane Drabble about 50,000 adults learning about computing and from David Sainsbury about the University for Industry. How are we going to put all those three together so the focus is actually on lifelong learning and adult learning? A (Kim Howells): And I think that the idea is that we can not only get doctors on-line, not only have students and pupils in schools and colleges access all kinds of information, but the rest of us can also actually get in there and start to learn just what is going on in these extraordinarily closed places. David mentioned just a moment ago how very, very short we are of some very key vocational skills. I think part of the reason for that is because they seem be a mystery to a great many of us. I have been looking at a scheme this morning, for instance, where Manchester University is trying to draw schools in for them to have a taste of what it is like in University. I think addressing the lack of access and removing the confusion from the different roles of education between sectors ought to be our crusade. We have got to break down these barriers. I also think that the priorities that we have now, in terms of what we think are most important things to achieve in education, may well be totally different in 10 years' time. They will be different because of the experience of using these technologies and of trying to turn into practice this rhetoric, that we are all using at the moment, about creating a kind of seamless learning society. A (Stephen Heppell): I hope you have caught from the range of activity in Ultralab at the moment just how wide the learning community is. There are an awful lot of people out there who are just becoming hungry to be part of a learning society. I do sense a genuine change as we cross through the Millennium. One of the focuses of the Dome, of course, is to try and get us all thinking in that sort of direction, but we have not found it easy to differentiate one group from another. We are putting a project together with the DfEE for all the children learning at home, for example, those who have been excluded and suspended or physically impaired or trapped in long term hospital care. As we start to put that project together, we find that they are part already of a learning community whether it is a family, a community, a scout troop, or whatever else. I mean, all these are overlapping sectors in a very interesting sort of way. Not everybody learning on our University for Industry project in their employer's time is doing so for their employer. Some are doing it because they want to move, they want to improve their skills; some people who are learning at home are learning in their own time for their own purposes; some people are learning at home for their employer and for their job and their career. You know, the clarity that we had with geographical proximity is completely gone and what you see is a massive overlap in sectors and the only way that you can really describe it is as a learning community with a great fragmentation. All you can hang on to in all that, is quality. Inequality Q: This audience is full of people like me - middle class professional. My children use the Internet at home, they use it at college. But 10% of homes in this country, and maybe in other European countries, do not even have a telephone. The second thing I would mention is we can have all sorts of variety of TV, and all sorts of potential on it, but if there is only one screen in your house and you want to learn and three people do not then you are in a mess. What are we going to do to make sure that the gap does not widen between professional people like us and people in those sort of circumstances? A (Kim Howells): I think that one of the great hurdles that we have to get over is this inequity in the system. There's no question about it. But I think that it is very important that you realise that there are many, many people attempting to tackle this problem at the moment and they vary from Training and Enterprise Councils, who are doing amazing work in making sure that there is public access to this kind of information - through libraries, local authorities, and even supermarkets like Tesco and Sainsbury's. In addition we have to stop pretending that we can continue into the next century with a school system where schools close at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The best schools and the best colleges and the best universities already see themselves as a great regional resource, and they open themselves up to embrace their community, and wherever I go in this country I preach that message. Now it is going to take different systems of funding to encourage that, and it is going to take a great cultural change in the way in which we teach teachers about the kinds of roles that they could have in the future. The very best teachers at the moment - especially head teachers - are already doing this. I have been in schools and colleges from the very North of England down to Cornwall where they have decided that their mission is to reach out to the community. Inside those colleges and schools and universities, not only is there this enormous professional resource which we have to find ways of accessing and using, but there are rooms, resources, advanced Intranets and networks of computers and PCs. They are hugely under-utilised like the rest of the academic system in this country, and we have to find ways of making sure that we make the most of it. Private industry would never put up with this kind of under-utilisation of capital - both intellectual capital and capital equipment. We have to find ways of using it, and we are that is why we have allocated as the first part of the National Grid for Learning £235 million to train teachers to teach IT. In addition, the £100 million this year will go into equipping schools with computers and information and communications technology. The important thing is to give the confidence to teachers and to drive through this cultural change and if we can do that then I will stop worrying about inequity in the system. But it is a big, big hill to climb. Crusade Q: With all this unanimity about lifelong learning and of the necessity for lifelong learning, what is the result we are aiming for? With these different means, different ways, different technological devices are we seeking to revolutionise education? Are we aiming at that? A (Kim Howells): There have been some heroic efforts in the past I think to use information technology in education, but all too often I am afraid the computers ended up locked up in cupboards, and part of the reason for that was that it was technologically driven. Well, this is not technologically driven. We want to use ICT and use teachers to build better schools and to provide greater access to education to drive up standards. It is as simple as that. I do not know if anybody has spoken to you yet about the surveys that have been carried out in this country, but there are literally millions of adults who cannot read properly, who can not write properly, who can not use numbers properly. This is a crusade to address that absolute scandal because if we do not address it then I am afraid we will not stay in the forefront of industrial nations in this world - it is as simple as that. So it is a revolution in many ways but it is a revolution built around a crusade to drive up standards in education.
|
