The learning lottery

John Cassels introduces today's National Commission on Education report on progress towards the knowledge society. In a "learning society" not only will individuals of all ages be encouraged to learn but employers, communities and society itself will see learning as essential to their own well-being, according to the National Commission on Education.

The commission set the goals for further and higher education and for training in its report, Learning to Succeed, published in November 1993. It has now prepared a short follow-up report entitled Learning to Succeed: After Sixteen in the light of subsequent progress in England and Wales towards the "learning society".

The report notes that participation of 16 to 18-year-olds in education has recently surged fairly strongly, but warns against euphoria. Only between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of 16 to 18-year-olds complete two years of post-compulsory education successfully, it says. At the other end of the scale, according to a recent report by the National Association for the Care and Resettlement on Young offenders, 76,000 16 and 17-year-olds were then unemployed, many of them in no contact with any agency that might help them to get work or training.

The commission concludes that there is "still a difficult, intractable but very important problem to be solved, that of persuading those who get least out of their compulsory years of education to go on learning afterwards, and that that minority amounts to perhaps a quarter to a third of each generation of young people". Participation by adults in FE has grown by more than a half in the past decade.

In higher education, growth has been even more rapid; the participation rate of young entrants has risen from 13 per cent in 1980 to 31 per cent in 1993. Moreover, there are now more mature learners than young entrants in higher education. These are important gains. In training also, attitudes are more positive but this has mostly benefitted those who already get most training. Its value for others is much less recognised, for example where unemployed people, those with special needs and older people are concerned. The report argues that the national targets for education and training should have relevance to as many people as possible. It proposes targets for achievement by the year 2000 which include the following:

* by age 11, 90 per cent of pupils will achieve at least a national foundation standard in English and mathematics;

* by age 21, 65 per cent of young people will achieve two A levels or the vocational equivalent, and a further 25 per cent a GNVQ or NVQ at level 2;

* more than 90 per cent of adults of working age will possess a defined level of competence in the use of English and mathematics;

* each year 10 per cent of adults of working age will achieve nationally recognised qualifications.

The report examines five areas with important problems or opportunities. It argues that there should be a new framework for foundation learning. The system now being developed provides three separate routes:

* a general education track leading to GCSEs and A and AS levels;

* a vocational education track leading to GNVQs;

* a work-based track leading to NVQs.

The need for change is driven by the requirements of students. A single national framework of qualifications within which students can advance step by step, earning credits as they progress, is the best way of enabling and encouraging students to work in accordance with their own choices and capabilities towards qualifications of high quality. The evidence is that the existing qualifications have strengths but also shortcomings. For example the narrowness of A levels has led to a fall of 40 per cent over the past decade in the number of students choosing to study science and mathematics at A level.

The commission proposes a General Education Diploma "conceived of as a high-quality national award to which all young people can aspire. It can be developed out of the best of the existing examinations, and awarded at two levels: Ordinary level, normally taken at 16, and Advanced level normally taken at 18, but both without any fixed age limits".

The diploma would cover a comprehensive range of academic, technical, practical and vocational studies as well as promoting the acquisition of "core" skills. It would be a credit-based award, with a modular structure, allowing step-by-step progress.

There is a strong groundswell of opinion in favour of a single qualifications framework. Scotland is already pressing ahead with the introduction of its own unified system, which will be fully operative from 1997. As a first step the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority and the National Council for Vocational Qualifications should be required or enabled to carry out an inquiry and make recommendations with a timetable for implementation.

The report examines how quality can be assured in the new diploma, and argues that a body created by merging SCAA and NCVQ should among other things accredit institutions preparing students for the diploma. The report next deals with problems of governance. There is a vacuum in the management of provision for 16 to 18-year-olds.

Once controlled exclusively by the l.e.as (under the authority of the Secretary of State), this now involves several funding bodies and there is no decisive voice locally. Does this lead to healthy competition or to waste and poor quality? It is impossible to tell from first principles. Under present arrangements the Department for Education must keep a sharp eye on both quality and costs and intervene when necessary.

To provide local oversight, there should be a move to clearly defined and delimited powers for l.e.as in relation to all publicly-funded schools in their areas. That would still leave control divided between l.e.as and the Further Education Funding Council. "We can foresee advantages to moving in time to geographically based entities which embrace universities, colleges and schools and so encourage a continuum in thinking and in provision," the report says.

These should be headed by "democratically accountable elected bodies" at regional or sub-regional level. On education and careers counselling, the report says that the need for high-quality educational and careers guidance is growing. Recent findings by FEFC and HM Inspectorate underline how the quality of guidance may be affected because of institutional pressures on the people giving the guidance. Counselling is a difficult profession. It is crucial that it should always be directed to the interests of the people counselled.

The commission reasserts this by its recommendation that there should be Community Education and Training Advice Centres whose governing bodies are able to guarantee not only high quality but freedom from institutional bias. The report calls for the development of learning networks in which universities, colleges and schools work together to improve provision. Life-long learning requires educational opportunity and progression routes both locally and within regions.

Further education is a particular source of strength because colleges have always had strong ties with their communities. Universities now have the opportunity and responsibility to lead. Traditionally, the prestige of universities has depended on research. But the report points out: "A university giving the lead to a collaborative alliance of education and training institutions in its own area and providing a focus for innovation and programme development would be contributing quite as much to the well-being of the country as one engaged in research of international repute."

The report finally turns to the question of support for students. It shows that at present financial support is overwhelmingly weighted towards full-time students in higher education: the cost of mandatory awards to them, together with the student loans they receive, exceeds Pounds 3 billion a year. By contrast in higher and further education discretionary awards total only Pounds 230 million a year; and the value of career development loans is Pounds 40 million a year.

This imbalance is quite unjustified and, despite its higher cost, does not work well even in higher education. The commission argued strongly in Learning to Succeed for change in the funding of full-time higher education students. It put forward a scheme whereby students would be required to make an annual flat-rate contribution towards the cost of their courses and would also have the right to a maintenance allowance "set at a level which permits a reasonable standard of living" if required.

Both would be available on a deferred payment basis and repayment would be linked to capacity to pay. The report argues for action. For adults generally, support is meagre. Expenditure on discretionary awards has been decreasing and the value of individual awards has declined by a quarter since 1990.

The Employment Department is supporting career development loans for students who want to follow a job-related course. The loans are repayable over five years at commercial rates, and are therefore much more expensive than the loans available to full-time higher education students.

All students eligible for loans should receive them on terms no less favourable than those available in higher education. The Competitiveness White Paper saw some attractions in "voluntary individual training accounts". The Commission on Social Justice saw the idea extending also to education. The report favours developing individual learning accounts on lines proposed by Sir Geoffrey Holland (originally for training only). Individuals would be entitled by law to ask their employers to open a learning account in their name, and both employer and employee would then contribute matching amounts regularly.

Employees would be able to draw on their accounts to fund further education and training as they may decide. Finally, the report discusses support for 16 to 18-year-olds, who constitute a special case in that responsibility for their support legally falls on their parents. Full-time education can put a heavy burden on less well-off families. Discretionary payments are available, but the arrangements differ depending on whether the person is in school or college.

Given the pressures on their funding, criteria for eligibility and the size of local authority awards vary greatly. The report criticises such reliance on luck and recommends that a new means-tested scheme, locally administered but on nationally-decided terms, should be introduced to replace existing arrangements.

Sir John Cassels is director of the National Commission on Education. He is among speakers at a conference sponsored by the THES in London today.