Chapter 4: What Happens at Present 4.1 In planning for the future, it would be wrong to give the impression that no progress has been made in recent years. Indeed, any new strategy must build on the best of the initiatives government and others have taken, thus benefiting from past experience and progress. 4.2 At the centre of the Government's Lifelong Learning Strategy is a commitment to widen participation and achievement in learning. This means ensuring that many more people get the basic skills necessary for pursuing other educational opportunities. Various government initiatives are relevant, including: expansion in FE and HE education; the Adult and Community Learning Fund; the Union Learning Fund; Community Access to Lifelong Learning (funded under the National Lottery New Opportunities Fund). 4.3 There are many examples of good practice developed over the past 20 years that will help in future, including some excellent basic skills teaching and learning. A number of initiatives can be built on: there have been successful promotion campaigns, including examples of successful outreach programmes, aimed to motivate adults; support for students with basic skills needs has been successfully established in many FE Colleges; the New Deals offer new scope for young people and adults to improve basic skills; there are good models of informal and community-based opportunities to learn, and more will be developed through the Adult and Community Learning Fund; many colleges and adult programmes work with local community organisations to develop new locations and new spurs to basic skills learning; family literacy programmes have drawn in large numbers of adults not previously attracted to learning and, as importantly, have forged an 'inter-generational' link between adult learning and literacy acquisition by children; the Basic Skills Agency Quality Mark, which lays down minimum quality standards for basic skills providers, has been achieved by over 750 programmes; whereas previously no qualifications for staff teaching in adult basic skills existed, some systems of initial training have now been established. 4.4 All this, together with evidence from many individuals and organisations, has convinced us that, however tough the challenge in raising standards, it can be met. 4.5 However, the scale of present provision is too limited and often patchy, due to: the absence of a clear national strategy; poor targeting of some groups of learners and lack of knowledge of the opportunities that do exist; a 'tip of the iceberg' scale of provision; inadequately trained staff; variable quality of programmes; inadequate links between quality and effectiveness of what is provided and its funding; incoherent inspection arrangements; too little diversity of opportunity; poor evaluation of some initiatives. No clear national strategy 4.6 Much of the present state of affairs is due to decades with inadequate national awareness of what is at stake and without a coherent strategy. If we are to help people to improve their literacy and numeracy, what is needed above all is a clear national strategy based on targeted aims and objectives. 4.7 There are at present no clearly defined standards for what teachers should teach and what learners should learn. In practice this means that there is no core curriculum for teaching basic skills, no clear national quality standards, and no clear idea of what learners should be aiming to achieve. 4.8 The Prison Education Service however, is a good example of how an effective strategy can work. The Service has taken action to improve the quality of provision by: requiring that all providers hold the Basic Skills Agency Quality Mark; introducing a new core curriculum; ensuring that all prisons have plans to assess how prisoners with basic skills needs will be supported in the workplace; providing training to civilian instructors and prison officers to support these needs; setting challenging targets for improvement in basic skills. Poor targeting and lack of knowledge of the opportunities that exist 4.9 Although adults with basic skills problems are not a single homogenous group, all too often they have been treated in this way. Targeting has been crude, and in trying to encourage participation, too little effort has been made to identify the nature of the group concerned. Perhaps as a result, some groups are under-represented, particularly those with the most severe difficulties. 4.10 At present, the vast majority of people with literacy and numeracy problems are not in programmes. Some of this is due to lack of knowledge of what might be at stake, and how much they might gain from improvement. This is borne out in the testimonies from people who ultimately did join programmes. 4.11 For many others, doing something about basic skills is not a priority. There is a widespread culture of low expectations, a memory of unhappy school years, leading to little enthusiasm for "going back into the classroom", not to mention the stigma associated with admitting basic inabilities. Changing this complex culture will not be easy, but must be the aim. 4.12 Equally, knowledge of where good - or any - programmes are available is often too hard to come by. Research by City University suggested that many people with the problems we are discussing did not know that help was available. . 'Tip of the iceberg' scale of provision 4.13 At the moment, what is happening is too small-scale. We have been struck, indeed shocked, by the patchiness - almost a random patchiness - of what is available. Whether provision exists in an area depends too much on whether a major education provider, such as a college, TEC or an LEA adult education service, thinks it important. Often this comes down to whether the head of the institution is keen. In one area there might be extensive, well-resourced, provision with thousands of learners, whilst in a neighbouring area there might be little or no provision. And even where provision does exist, it is often regarded as marginal, a "Cinderella" service. What exists is too often on the margins of other education and training provision. Overall, there just isn't enough available provision.This cannot continue. 4.14 The situation is illustrated by the availability of basic skills support in FE Colleges. The fact is that as many as 1 in 3 students in such colleges has poor literacy and as many as 50% poor numeracy, which may cause them problems in their general course work. This may explain why - according to a survey undertaken by the Audit Commission and HMI in 1993 - typically between 30% and 40% of students starting on a course do not achieve the qualifications they set out for. Providing support for basic skills in colleges undoubtedly improves this situation, increasing retention and achievement and reducing drop-out. The Basic Skills Agency found in 1997 that 3 in 4 students who needed and received support completed their courses or first year successfully, compared with only half of those who needed support but did not get it. Yet many students in colleges - varying considerably from college to college - who require support with basic skills are never offered it. 4.15 This randomness of provision also affects programmes for the unemployed. The New Deals have provided the best opportunity in years for unemployed adults who need help to improve their basic skills. However, the extent to which adults are able to get support differs greatly, depending on how aware different Employment Service Personal Advisors are of these particular needs, and on the priority they give to them. Not all staff are properly trained 4.16 The quality of teaching is crucial. We are aware of the many skilled and dedicated teachers working in this area, but specific training for teachers is nowhere near universal. This cannot continue. For example, the FEFC's recent report on Programme Area 10 states that: "Unlike staff in other programme areas, basic education staff frequently have no relevant qualification for the area in which they teach. Some teachers lack general teaching qualifications and others lack specialist qualifications, for example, qualifications in teaching basic skills and ESOL". 4.17 Though the take-up of initial training, particularly among volunteers, has been high, the development of higher level skills is uncoordinated. For example, the main in-service qualification for basic skills teachers is the City & Guilds Certificate in Teaching Basic Skills 9285. There is however little consistency of approach in the delivery of training for the certificate, and take-up is poor. While some 200 centres are now registered to deliver the award, and over 13,000 part-time and full-time paid teachers are involved in basic skills programmes nationally, only about 2,000 staff have this more demanding qualification. 4.18 Much of the reason for the current lack of training is the balance of full-time and part-time teachers. Less than 1 in 10 is full-time and more than 1 in 3 are employed for less than 6 hours a week. This necessarily restricts the amount of continuous professional training that teachers are able or willing to go for. 4.19 The fact that basic skills teaching remains an area where there are few career opportunities or opportunities for professional development means that it still largely remains an unattractive career path. This is not to say that people don't want to teach basic skills. But it does make it more difficult to recruit new teachers. 4.20 In essence the best-trained teachers in our education system are teaching enthusiastic young children at Key Stage 1. Those with least opportunities for professional development, and with most job insecurity, are teaching adults who have often failed at school and need intensive help. Quality of provision is variable and there is a poor link between quality and funding 4.21 There is at present too little incentive for the least good providers to improve what they do. In short, there is too weak a link between the quality and effectiveness of what is provided and its funding. A college, adult education service or training provider, which makes available high quality and effective basic skills teaching for adults, gets funded in the same way as a neighbouring equivalent, content with poor quality and ineffective provision. 4.22 Many individuals and organisations have complained that project-based regeneration funding for basic skills sometimes constrains essential outreach work, and encourages over-simple outputs. There is said to be a 'bidding culture', with progress depending on competitive bidding for small sums to be spent over a short period. We share the concern that time and energy can be wasted in bidding for short-term funding from several different organisations with different funding criteria. Such confusion is discouraging. 4.23 The existing FEFC funding mechanism also has weaknesses. For example it can fail to take account of the way a college serving a widespread and partly rural area needs to operate if it is to meet the needs of its diverse community. Some programmes inevitably cost more than others, not because they are inefficient, but because outreach and out-centre provision is more costly. The present funding mechanism requires change. 4.24 Opportunities to achieve a guaranteed baseline of quality in programmes have not always been taken on by funders. The Basic Skills Agency Quality Mark sets out minimum quality standards for basic skills programmes, and is now held by more than 750 basic skills programmes for adults in England. However, the award is voluntary and funding does not relate to it. The exception is in prison basic skills programmes, where all providers must hold the Quality Mark. 4.25 The FEFC has recognised that some basic skills courses suffer from insufficient arrangements for Quality Assurance. For example, when weaknesses are identified through inspection, institutions seldom produce action plans for improvement . The FEFC's new Quality Initiative is likely to lead to improvement in Quality Assurance mechanisms, but more must be done to guarantee high quality all round. Inspection arrangements lack coherence 4.26 Chances for a common national quality framework are weakened by the involvement of three separate Inspection Agencies (FEFC, OFSTED and the Training Standards Council (TSC)) each using different approaches. Though some joint work has been undertaken to harmonise methods and, though all Inspectorates see the need for a common approach, this has not yet been achieved. 4.27 Part of the weakness also stems from the existing inspection grading system, which can be subject to anomalies. For example, the Training Standards Council, which is responsible for the inspection of training programmes for unemployed adults, has stated its concern that, on the 5-point scale used by the three inspection organisations, all the organisations inspected by the TSC had been assessed at Grade 3 or better. Yet the overall conclusion was that there were serious weaknesses in: 'screening and initial assessment; some poor quality training sessions; inappropriately qualified staff; poor links between basic skills provision and vocational programmes; insufficient and inappropriate learning materials and learning is assessment driven'. Evidence from the Training Standards Council Not enough coherence in diversity of opportunity 4.28 We were struck by the limited choice of provision available to adults who wish to improve their basic skills. This applies both to the type and the intensity of existing programmes. In terms of intensity, nearly all learners are in part-time programmes, and 70% attend for between 2-4 hours per week (an average of 90 hours per year). 4.29 The limited amount of direct teaching time available on most courses means that progress for learners is inevitably slow. Of course, some of them do not want to attend for more than a few hours a week, and others are prohibited from doing more by pressures of time and responsibility. This is a serious limitation. Evidence both from this country and the USA shows that such limited teaching means that a learner would need many years to get to the 'threshold' basic skills level. In the USA, the research shows that between 550-600 hours of instruction are needed to become fully literate and numerate. At the rate we provide currently, it would take many years for most learners to achieve such progress. 4.30 Also, despite the development of pilot programmes in new areas, and evidence from the Basic Skills Agency of effective styles of provision, diversity in the type of provision available is still limited. 4.31 FE Colleges and literacy and numeracy courses account for the greatest percentage of learners, but development of other routes for provision is quite slow. As a result, present provision is not sufficiently varied to respond to the varying motivations and needs of adults. We are particularly concerned about the inadequate scale of community and workplace provision. 4.32 Community-based programmes can reach out to individuals and groups not attracted to more traditional programmes. They can avoid the stigma associated with formal educational institutions. However, only a small proportion of basic skills learners are able to access community-based provision. This is largely due to the lack of a specific funding source. The formal funding system, with its emphasis on colleges, has not been flexible enough to allow community organisations and groups to get involved in a way that suits their clients. Often they have had to fall back on short-term funding, such as the Single Regeneration Budget, the European Social Fund or Charitable Trusts, which help an organisation to get started, but have rarely led to sustainable development. 4.33 It is surprising, indeed discouraging, to find that few employers are involved in basic skills work and that, on the whole, there is so little provision at the workplace. This is surprising given the well-researched link between good basic skills, employability and company performance. The latest Skills Needs in Britain survey suggests that 1 in 5 employers are now providing training opportunities, some of which hopefully cover basic skills. But few offer the quantity or quality of support necessary to lead to significant improvements in individual skills levels or in the ability of employees to improve their job effectiveness. Well-known schemes exist, mostly in large companies like Ford and Nissan. However, thus far, even in large companies and even where there are other training involvements, basic skills receive a sadly low priority. 4.34 The Basic Skills at Work project increased basic skills training in the workplace and made TECs more aware of basic skills needs. Unfortunately, in spite of positive results, funding was not available to continue the programme, and to replicate the successful models elsewhere. The continuation of programmes was left to the commitment of individual TECs, colleges and companies and although some institutions have developed sustainable programmes, such as the excellent programme at Telford College of Arts and Technology, further development has been stunted by lack of funding and support in companies and educational institutions. 4.35 This has also happened in the United States and Canada. In both, continued provision of basic skills programmes has depended on Federal, State or Provincial support. In general, when that support diminished, so did the number and scope of workplace programmes. Initiatives have not been evaluated effectively enough 4.36 There have been various short-term initiatives and measures. But often in the past, good initiatives have not been built on, and sometimes have even been abandoned. So, whilst successful work was being undertaken to develop workplace programmes with employers, for example, Workbase, the Basic Skills at Work initiative and the work of the Industrial Language Training Unit, none resulted in long-term action. There are other examples of how community groups and voluntary organisations can help those with literacy and numeracy needs, but again many projects have not been turned into long-term, sustainable action. 4.37 The current context for basic skills is positive. The Government has introduced a number of initiatives aimed at motivating new learners, widening participation, and providing more opportunities for those with poor basic skills to improve their lot. The commitment to tackle social exclusion is also helpful. 4.38 In sum, it is clear that much good practice does exist, for example in support for students in colleges, and in the work of providers and community groups. However, the scale of the problem is so great that this alone is not enough. Adults with poor basic skills remain largely unmotivated, the choice of provision is too limited to meet the needs of learners, and the availability and quality of provision is too variable. More must be done. The remainder of our report will suggest the way forward.

Back

Home

Next