[EDLING:1985] EducationGuardian.co.uk: Too expensive in any language

Tue Oct 24 18:29:25 UTC 2006

Francis Hult spotted this on the EducationGuardian.co.uk site and thought you should see it.

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Note from Francis Hult:

Demand for free English classes is too high - so now asylum seekers and others will have to pay to learn 

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To see this story with its related links on the EducationGuardian.co.uk site, go to http://education.guardian.co.uk

Too expensive in any language
Demand for free English classes is too high - so now asylum seekers and others will have to pay to learn
Peter Kingston
Tuesday October 24 2006
The Guardian

When is a basic skill not a basic skill? The answer, paradoxically, seems to be when too many people want it.

Five years after declaring that English for adults unable to speak it would be taught for nothing because it was such an essential requirement, the government has revised its stance.

Esol (English for speakers of other languages), as all teaching of English as a foreign language has become known in recent years, "will no longer attract automatic fee remission", the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) has announced. From next year, only the unemployed and people receiving income-based benefits will have their fees waived if they want to learn English.

Adult asylum seekers who are awaiting the outcome of applications to stay in Britain will not qualify for free Esol, or indeed subsidised further education of any kind. "Only those who are granted refugee status, humanitarian protection or discretionary leave by the government will be eligible," says the LSC. Asylum seekers aged under 18 will still be able to get free Esol and further education.

People coming into the country to take up jobs will no longer get English lessons for nothing, the LSC adds in its annual statement of priorities for the coming year: "We will also expect employers who have recruited workers from outside the UK to bear the full cost of any necessary English-language training."

The focus on asylum seekers is the Department for Education and Skills' contribution to imminent similar initiatives from other government departments. A series of cross-government measures on migrants is expected to be announced soon.

Effect on integration

The Esol measures, which come into effect in 2007-08, were immediately denounced by the Refugee Council, which works with asylum seekers and refugees. "In the light of the current debate around integration, and, in particular, the prime minister's comments about the importance of learning English, it seems utterly contradictory to cut funding for English classes," says Anna Reisenberger, the council's acting chief executive.

"How is it going to be possible to promote social inclusion, which the Learning and Skills Council states is a priority, when people are unable to talk to each other, and newly arrived asylum seekers find it a struggle just to go into local shops and buy a pint of milk?"

The lecturers' union, UCU, was similarly scathing. "It is impossible to see how making English language learning through Esol courses more expensive assists the government's stated objective of promoting greater integration," says Paul Mackney, UCU's joint general secretary. All Esol courses up to level 1 ought to be free for everyone, regardless of their income, he adds, and asylum seekers kept waiting for longer than six weeks for their applications to be processed should get free Esol. "New workers arriving in Britain to fill our skill gaps should be helped with their language needs as swiftly as possible for everybody's benefit."

Colleges might have been expected to join the chorus of disapproval, but some, at least, have offered a more measured response. For one thing, the government appears not to have modelled the effects of its proposals.

"If everybody had to pay fees for us, that would mean anything between £1m and £1.2m in lost fee remission," says Paul Head, principal of the College of North East London, which has 2,300 part-time and 400 full-time Esol students. "[But] the reality is going to be anything between that and zero, because we don't know what students' status is." While Esol was free to all, there was no need for the college to check eligibility or discover whether learners were unemployed or on income-linked benefits.

The overall amount of money the government is putting into adult education drops by 5% next year. 2007/08 is going to be the most painful year in recent times for many colleges, and local LSCs around the country have already warned that they will not be able to satisfy funding priorities. There will simply not be enough money, for example, to honour the government's pledge to support all 16- to 18-year-olds who want education and training.

"We agree it is right that those who can pay should pay for training - we support the policy to end automatic fee remission," says John Brennan, chief executive of the Association of Colleges. "Colleges will meet this latest set of funding changes with typical responsiveness, and welcome the opportunity to divert funding to other priorities, but stop-go policies from the government do not encourage the stability that colleges need to best serve their learners and communities."

Those who can pay, must

The LSC makes no bones about the reasons for the decision. "Esol provision and funding have expanded well beyond the expectations in the original Skills for Life strategy, but demand has risen even faster," says its priorities statement. "Given the scale of demand and the pressure on resources, we must focus public investment on provision for those most at risk of disadvantage; and we should not support large-scale demand from those who can pay for their language learning."

The demand for Esol has distorted Labour's basic skills policy. Since 2001, it has swallowed £1bn of the Skills for Life budget. "Esol has eaten up more than half the budget for Skills for Life and produces far fewer qualifications than literacy and numeracy," explains Peter Lavender, director of research at Niace, the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education. Furthermore, most of the Esol teaching funded through Skills for Life has not led directly to qualifications that count towards the government's targets for the programme.

In Lavender's and Niace's view, demand for Esol has become one of the biggest challenges confronting the learning and skills sector in England. The labour market is using more and more migrant workers, and demand for English is being fuelled by workers from Eastern European countries. The Immigration, Nationality and Asylum Act 2002 introduced a citizenship test with a language component for people wishing to settle in the UK. More recently, the Home Office has confirmed that candidates for citizenship have to be able to show that their spoken English is at least at entry level 3.

The offer of free Esol courses dealt a predictable blow to many existing "English as a foreign language" (EFL) courses. Who was going to carry on paying for au pairs to polish up their English when there were cheaper alternatives?

Two recent reports, one by Niace, the other by KPMG, have floated the notion that individuals who have the means ought to pay for their own Esol courses. The drive for employers to pay the full cost of English-language tuition for their staff actually came, says Lavender, from employers in the sector skills councils. "They felt it was outrageous that employment agencies were recruiting people in large numbers from outside the UK, particularly in Eastern Europe, telling them not only would they get jobs, but they'd be taught English free."

Of course, the ability to speak English does not cease to become an essential skill. It is patently a more fundamental skill than being able to read and write, which is why Labour decreed that Esol should be part of its Skills for Life programme in the first place.

Public demand makes clear which are the more critical basic skills. The adult literacy and numeracy components of Skills for Life have proved hard to give away. Many people who need a great deal of help with reading and writing, or with basic calculations, are reluctant to volunteer for help, even if it is free. Esol, on the other hand, has flown off the shelf.

An announcement on the website for Kingston College in Surrey makes this all too clear. "The Esol Skills for Life programme is for adults, aged 19 years and over, who wish to make their home in this country, e.g. settled immigrant communities, refugees, asylum seekers, migrant workers. This course is free for these students."

Immediately below this is a stark apology in capital letters: "SORRY, THE WAITING LIST FOR THIS COURSE IS CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE."

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