Margaret Hodge
Further education
I start by apologising to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), the Chair of the Select Committee on Education and Skills. He had been intending to open this afternoon's debate and was thwarted, but I can promise him that there will be endless future occasions when we can discuss these issues, which I know are hugely important to him and to other Members.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to spend time on the Floor, albeit on the Westminster Hall Floor, talking about a part of the education and training service that is always grossly undervalued, and which is all too often neglected and ignored, as I am sure many other Members will agree. We in the Labour party have always recognised the importance of the further education sector, so it gives me enormous pride, huge satisfaction and a sense of humble honour to be here today as a Minister with overall responsibility for lifelong learning to set out our ambitions and well-funded plans for investment and reform in the sector.
I pay tribute to my many colleagues who have supported the development of the programme that we have announced this week. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has always had lifelong learning at the centre of his concerns, and he made the start in ensuring that we put the FE sector back in its rightful place. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Estelle Morris) worked closely with us to develop the strategy that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills announced earlier this week at a conference of the Association of Colleges. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley felt passionately about FE and wanted to be part of the programme that we were putting together for its future.
I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), who cannot be with us today but has worked closely with me to ensure that we can put forward a firm set of proposals that are radical but give us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to progress in this important sector.
I first state why FE is so important to this Labour Government. In crude terms, more than 4 million students learn in their local FE colleges each year - a large number of people dependent on the services provided by more than 400 colleges. It often comes as a surprise to people to learn that more than half of 16 to 19-year-olds receive their full-time education in the FE sector. We hear much about school sixth forms, and they make a valuable contribution, but the FE sector actually educates more 16 to 19-year-olds than the school sector. FE is also the sector that provides much of the vocational education and training to adults seeking work, where its role is crucial.
FE is a growing and very important provider of higher education. About 11 per cent. of our current HE students receive that education in an FE setting and over time, as we expand to reach our 50 per cent. target, with the focus very much on increasing the number of people undertaking vocational HE courses, the FE sector will play a growing role in higher education.
FE is the key part of the education framework that responds to employer demands for the development of skills in the work force. FE is the main provider of basic literacy and numeracy education for those who seek to acquire such basic skills during their adult years. FE provides that crucial second chance opportunity to all those learners who were failed by the system during their school years. FE provides the opportunity to extend one's horizons and enrich one's life by engaging in the joy of learning things one has never learned before, and probably did so for us all. That is why FE is so important.
FE is central to what the Government are about because it supports our twin objectives of ensuring that we promote economic prosperity and pursue social inclusion. FE helps us create the better skills base that is so important in driving our productivity agenda. Much of that enhanced skills base will, during the coming period, be delivered through FE in programmes like the modern apprenticeships programme, on which we hope to make further announcements in the not-too-distant future. The level 2 targets that we have set for adults will also largely be delivered by those working in FE, and those receiving their education and training in that sector. That is the way in which the skills base is built.
Anyone who spends time in any FE college will see the commitment in the sector towards promoting social inclusion and opportunity for all in our society. One needs only to consider the statistic that I often use - 27 per cent. of students in FE come from 15 per cent. of the most deprived and disadvantaged wards in the country - to see how the work of the colleges is focused on those in greatest need. If I refer back to my previous ministerial position, when I had responsibility for people with disabilities, I can say that the provision of many education and training services for people with disabilities was most often provided by the FE sector throughout their lives. That was often supported by the voluntary sector, but FE plays a critical role in ensuring that there really is equality in education and training for those with disabilities. FE is central because it helps us meet those intertwined objectives of inclusion and prosperity.
FE has a good record. All too often there are criticisms, but I want to praise the record that it has established. More than any other part of the education sector, FE has responded well to our widening participation agenda. If we consider any statistic relating to the sort of progression achieved by people who have not been able in the past to stay in education or training and translate that into concrete achievements, we can see how well the sector has worked with disadvantaged people. The achievement rates in FE were up by 5 per cent. last year, which is something that we should celebrate, and the number of colleges that were achieving below 60 per cent. in achievement rates fell from 36 per cent. to 14 per cent. between 1997-98 and 1999-2000. Even at the bottom of the sector there has been a steady improvement in the quality of colleges that were not previously achieving as well as we would have hoped.
I am proud to have been able to announce our first seven beacon colleges in our new programme for celebrating excellence through the awarding of learning and skills beacon status. We now have about 137 colleges that have centres of vocational excellence, which is another way in which we are developing a vocational capability to respond to the local and regional skills agenda, which is the important role that FE fulfils in so many local and regional communities.
It is a good record, but equally, as I said, there are issues that we need to address. That is why we set about thinking about how we could invest in and reform the sector. I want to touch on one or two of those issues.
Although quality is superb in some instances, it is still all too variable between and within colleges. All of us in the Department were concerned about that as the first tranche of inspections emerged under the new inspection regime that we established two or three years ago. It is fair to say that everyone greeted the birth of that regime with some suspicion, but I am pleased to say that it has bedded down and is now respected by all those in the sector. In their joint inspections, the adult learning inspectorate and Ofsted found that 15 per cent. of colleges were inadequate and required full re-inspection, 44 per cent. had some unsatisfactory provision and required some re-inspection, and 20 per cent. suffered from poor leadership. Despite the fact that the findings on work-based learning were even more worrying, that is not a good enough record if FE is to fulfil the role that we want of it.
At the end of October this year, the Learning and Skills Council found that 82 colleges were still in a financially weak position. A recent survey by the Confederation of British Industry showed that only 38 per cent. of members surveyed rated their local colleges as good or excellent providers of training and education. If FE is to play a role in raising skills and productivity levels among our work force, it must be well regarded by employers.
