Schools have been persistently in the front row of the coronavirus narrative for weeks – controversies about how safe they were to reopen and when, and now a £1bn government catch up on teaching schemeÌýannounced for young people, including a subsidised tutorial scheme for the most disadvantaged. There are genuine dilemmas, but also fears and recrimination –Ìýthe more potent when, what, and how to decide confronts millions of individual families directly.
Much is said, quite rightly, about the danger of a lost generation of school leavers. StatisticsÌýshow more thanÌýthree-quarters of a million 16- to 24-year-olds as not in employment, education or training between January and March. That number could become far worse from exams not taken or grades not given,Ìýapprenticeships not completed,Ìýor inadequate career advice on the back of the pandemic lockdown. We know already from figures just released that over 600,000 more people went off payroll between March and May.
Several generations
It’s not just oneÌýgeneration we risk losing, but several. The impact of coronavirus risks ripplingÌýthrough the skills andÌýeconomic life chances of peopleÌýfrom their late 20s to their late 60s. The stark statistic of a 20 per cent shrinkage in theÌýUK economic output in April, the millions of people still furloughedÌýand the OECD prediction of 11.5 per centÌýfall in UK national incomeÌýby the end of 2020 –ÌýplusÌýthe human tragedy of nearly 50,000 coronavirus deaths –Ìýas Shakespeare says in Macbeth: "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions."
That isÌýpreciselyÌýwhy we need the fightback for jobs and skillsÌýto operate right across the age spectrum –Ìýand why, incidentally, the government’s disgraceful failure so far to come up with aÌýcatch-up package for the FEÌýand sixth-form colleges sector to match the oneÌýgiven to schools is so concerning.
Having been a shadow minister covering these areas for most of the pastÌýdecade and challenging governments over them, I know those weaknesses remain formidable: too many policyÌýswerves and changes in the machinery of government hampering preparation for new jobsÌýand skills for theÌý2020s. There has been too little progress onÌýbasic skills deficits including adult literacy and numeracy, leaving millions of workers still languishing with poor productivity.
There’s also the failure to support adequatelyÌýthe smaller businesses and training providers who deliver nearly 70 per centÌýof all apprenticeships. Even now at the height of the current crisis, the Department for Education (DfE) isÌýexcluding providers with levy-funded apprentices from its coronavirus relief scheme.
As for FE colleges –Ìýgovernment cutsÌýof nearly £3 billion to their budgets have still notÌýbeen fully reversed. The unit of funding in FE for adult learners has not increasedÌýsince 2013 while in higher education, the tripling of tuition fees in 2012Ìýhas left a million fewer adult learners studying in England and a trail of closed adult education departments in many universities. It has also created severe challenges for FE colleges offering HE courses, the Open University, WEA and others.
We need to examine critically the feasibility of the apprenticeship guarantee forÌýall 16- to 24-year-olds, which the prime minister has spoken about recently. Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment of Learning Providers has been quick to point out the guarantee will only be successfulÌýif there is some form of government wage subsidy for the employerÌýto do the skills training, suggesting that it should be at least 50 per centÌýof the appropriate minimum wage for 16- 24-year-olds. This, of course, should coverÌýexisting apprentices at risk as well as new ones taken on.
Andy Westwood, writingÌýin TesÌýrecently,Ìýbelieves any scheme mustÌýguarantee an employer would offer an apprentice a job at the end and be tied into a far larger offer with programmes guaranteeing training and employment to adults as well as young people.
Left-behind places
This is crucial.ÌýIn the eternal tensionÌýbetween demand and supply in the economy, it is not just financial input from the government that matters, but output as well, and most crucially outcome –Ìýespecially in left-behind places where speedy recovery from the pandemic’s seismic shock will be essential.
The shopping lists range from the Association of College’s £3.5 billionÌýpackage to support work facing training programmes in colleges for both adults and young people, through to AELP’s £8.5 billion programmeÌýadding support for SME non-levy-payers, booster support for 16- to18-year-olds and doublingÌýadult education budgets.
These demand not justÌýpragmatic fixes now, but also being linked into a comprehensive skills approach that embodies a central principle of progression in education and skills throughout the 2020s.
ThatÌýprogression mustÌýrecognise, given the ever-accelerating changes of the digital world and automation, reskilling and retraining, that targeting generic skills as well as bespokeÌýones will not be luxuries but necessities,Ìýnot just for employersÌýbut for the future jobsÌýand careers of the people they currently employÌý(remembering that 3.5 million people are already self-employed).
The emphasis on "progression, progression, progression" is, for example, a critical factor in the pipeline for bringing people of all ages into the health and social care sectors, often starting with level 2 apprenticeships. The dramatic decline in level 2s overall, (nearly 40 per centÌýsince the introduction of the apprenticeship levy) risks threateningÌýnot just social mobility, but those very sectors on whom we have depended, above all the NHS, throughout the pandemic.
These issues were central to much of the work of the independent Lifelong Learning Commission I took forward and co-ordinated and whose report and recommendations to the Labour party were published last November.
Its 14 commissioners from the worlds of HE, FE and skills cut through the traditional silos to proposeÌýa universal, publicly funded right to learn through life (underpinned by an entitlement up to fully funded level 3 provisionÌýalongside the equivalent of 6 years publicly funded credits at level 4 and above) as well as developingÌýa right to paid time off to trainÌýand reskill.
Buttressing this would be a national information advice and training careers service for all ages, withÌýmeans-tested maintenance support for adults to access learning. Crucially, the commission proposed embedding progressionÌýinÌýlearning structures able to accredit specific as well as enabling skills, formal and informal training –Ìýmodelled on much of how the Open University operates.
The urgent chorus of calls for action on ministers from the FE and skills sector to act now echoes some of the commission‘s proposals –Ìýincluding entitlements to free provision to level 3, support for adults to do retraining schemes, and bursary schemes for young people in FE.
We also need to look at and learn from, as the commissionÌýsuggested, what is going on already in the other nations of the UK –ÌýScotland’s Learning Accounts,Ìýthe continuation of grant funding in Northern Ireland, and at what the Welsh government hasÌýbeen doing since March working closely with the Welsh TUC and Union Learning Fund to deliver immediate support.
Responses to Covid-19 need to prioritiseÌýexisting unequal skills distributionÌýand geographic cold spots –Ìýsuch as the 27 per centÌýdecline in people accessing higher education in coastal towns since 2011. City and Guilds report ÌýspelledÌýout starkly our weak labour market on the eve of the pandemic.
It is no surprise, therefore, that elected mayors and combined authorities across EnglandÌýare clamouring for extended powers and a strategic role in delivering any economic stimulus forthcoming from now on.
We must give hope to the hundreds of thousands of people who have been affectedÌýby the pandemic and who will need to reskill, retrain, change track and be rejuvenated, personally as well as economically
The proposals and analyses from the Lifelong Learning Commission offer a toolkit now to examine what could be done and a road map to pilot some of those ideas locally. They echo the words Abraham Lincoln put to Congress in 1862: "As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew."
Gordon Marsden was Labour's shadow minister for skills, further and higher education from 2015 toÌý2019
