1 February 2007

Gordon Brown was out demonstrating his recent passion for education again this week. It came in a speech to a gathering of Government leaders at the Scottish Parliament when he formally sanctioned Labour’s interest in raising the learning leaving age. “The coming generation” he said, should have the chance not just to start education at 3, but to continue in education or training until 18, with second and, if necessary, third chances to follow.”

It’s often said that in this country we don’t like teenagers very much and forcing them to stay on for extra classes until they are 18 seems proof of this but of course it’s not quite like that. This is about ensuring that no young person leaves the education system without taking up opportunities for further education or training, not all of which will necessarily be in school classrooms. It’s what Gordon Brown called the “roadmap to life long learning” starting with the building of a platform at 16 – 18. He went on to argue that “if every young person after 16 had some part time or full time schooling, college or work based training, there would be over a quarter of a million young people training for qualifications.”

It’s a powerful argument in the context of needing to raise skill levels but there’s a strong social dimension in here as well. The main body of this quarter of a million of young people is the noted NEET group, a group that the Government has had in its sights for some time and part of a much wider problem of disengagement by young people from the standard forms of society. Figures on the size of the NEET group are notoriously difficult to gather but the LSC’s 2006 Progress Report showed that against a targeted 2% reduction by 2010, the current trend for 16 – 18 year olds not in education, employment or training was actually up 1% over the previous year. This implies some 267,000 16 and 17 year olds currently in the NEET category.

This is therefore an important policy area and the Chancellor offered a mixture of carrot and stick amongst his six proposals. Not all were new but their bringing together with the Chancellor’s blessing suggest where the forthcoming Green Paper on this matter might be heading.

The carrots were twofold. Firstly a possible extension of Education Maintenance Allowances currently being paid to some 480,000 16 – 18 year olds to help and encourage them to stay on in learning. A national evaluation of the scheme is due but by accounts it has had some success. Typically a learner gets £30 a week paid directly into their account if they come from a situation where the family income is less than £20,817 pa and this works on a sliding scale up to an income of £30,810. The funding constitutes part of an agreement to take a full time course at school or college including Entry to Employment or a Programme Led Apprenticeship. The aim is help more young people reach the Level 2 threshold and the Chancellor sees the scheme as a powerful weapon in raising the learning leaving age. The second carrot was in similar vein and was the proposal to widen Train to Gain to include some 16 – 18 year olds. As part of this the Chancellor called for “forward looking employers to join us in partnerships to ensure access for 16 and 17 year olds to work place training” with the effect that the Train to Gain programme would treble to 350,000 learners a year by 2011.

Gordon Brown was understandably cagey about committing himself too far on funding commitments, the whole funding pot is due to be considered under the Comprehensive Spending Review and further signals will no doubt emerge in the forthcoming Green Paper and Budget 2007 but the EMA and Train to Gain proposals add further dimensions to the current consultation on demand led funding. Two spring to mind. One is that these proposals seem to pull 16 – 19 funding further away from that of mainstream 14 – 19 funding and thereby add to the debate as to where such funding should be managed, through Local Authorities, the LSC or ? And the other is are we moving towards a learner account model for 16 – 19 year olds; one that perhaps brings together a range of benefits such as EMAs, tops it up with state subsidies and offers it as a form of young person’s learner account? It’s what demand led is all about and interestingly makes the funding driver less age related and more programme related.

If those were the carrots, the stick was to parallel the welfare to work proposals for adults and put in an element of compulsion for those who in the Chancellor’s words have “fallen through the net.” What he proposed was piloting “work focused programmes designed to motivate about 5,000 young people most at risk of dropping out” and to include alongside the greater opportunities for training “tougher obligations including compulsion.” There already are a number of ‘return to learn’ campaigns, many of which are targeted at youngsters as GCSE results come out and 14 – 19 Diplomas have been pitched in as part of this but of course the trick is to catch them before they fall through the net. Many start to disengage before age 14 and while the proposed more ‘relevant’ Key Stage 3 curriculum may help, this is surely an area in which the support of the integrated services under Every Child Matters should play a key role.

Elsewhere in the speech, Gordon Brown confirmed his commitment to the Leitch ambition of doubling apprenticeship numbers in the UK and an interest in opening up new routes into apprenticeships but the other aspect of the speech that provoked interest was his indication that FE would bear the brunt of helping these disengaged young people. Colleges have always felt themselves to be a bit of a support service for young people and the stories of them patching up and putting back on the straight and narrow have been legion. The problem is that in a demand led system such people are not only often at the back of the queue but out of sight as well. Colleges will need a performance and funding system that recognises you often have to spend time going out and ‘engage’ such young people, they can’t always be measured in terms of outcomes and exam results or demand led funding.

They may not like it but disengaged young people are very much in politicians’ sights at present.

© Edexcel Policy Watch 2007. Steve Besley is General Manger of Education Policy at Edexcel. Policy watch is a service intended to help busy people understand developments in the world of education. Visit Edexcel at www.edexcel.org.uk