FE - Further Education or Failing Education

It's that time of year again. Back to school again. A slightly difficult time for teachers who have probably just had enough of a break to seriously question their decision to remain in the profession, made even worse when the weather is like this.

It is a good time to think about education in Britain and the direction it is heading in. Gordon Brown has not yet foolishly given the media a soundbite as good as "Education, Education, Education", perhaps realising that it is one of those areas that has the potential to seriously damage positive approval ratings, but it is peskily enough, in the news right now. Apparently Britain's children are brighter than ever or the A-levels are easier than ever or a combination of both. But while A-levels are hogging the lime-light, might I direct your attention to Further Education (FE)- the ugly sister of secondary education. FE gets a lot of bad press, or worse, no press at all. It is forever being changed, its aims and the way it gets its funding constantly tweaked in search of a succesful model. This is as hopeless as forever changing the dressing on a wound that keeps bleeding. You can't blame the bandage for not stopping the blood if the wound has not been treated.

I have worked in FE for over four years now, and I have my reasons for sticking with it, I love my students and I love that I am working with groups that have been traditionally left behind or swept to one side by the educational sector. I truly believe in the importance of lifelong learning and feel that I am making a difference where that difference matters the most. I also believe that FE should not exist, at least not in its present form. Currently, I feel that it is a sign of failure in education in this country, just as the existance of charities is a sign of market failure. Ironically, I have only ever worked in the charity or education sectors as this does not mean that they are not worthy causes.

Further Education is not, as it sounds, somewhere to find courses to further your studies or indulge in recreational learning. It is also increasingly not where adults can go to get back into the educational system or access Higher Education. FE has changed almost beyond recognition in the four years I have worked in it. It is becoming a dumping ground for the children that nobody else knows how or wants to deal with. In London FE colleges Black and Minority Ethnic groups are disproportionately represented, with a vast chunk of those students originating from different countries.

While FE is becoming a useful place to put children that are "difficult to teach", the role that FE has traditionally played in helping adult learners access education has almost entirely been killed off by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). On the one hand phrases like "lifelong learning" and "widening participation" are bandied about in current policy documents but they are fast losing meaning when the funding for anyone over 25 is being cut down to nothing. Life does not seem to begin at 40 afterall, according to the LSC, it ends at 25.

It is widely accepted that one of the reasons that children from lower and working class backgrounds do not pursue degrees is because their parents did not and therefore it isn't considered something that people like them do. I have taught a lot of adults on Access programmes and I always thought that programmes like this would surely have the knockon effect of encouraging the children of my students to also pursue degree courses, inspired by their parent's achievement. It seems completely illogical to me that the government would on the one hand say that children from working class backgrounds should be encouraged to go to University, while at the same time taking away the opportunity for their parents.

Scarily enough the new educational model being promoted by the LSC, in its actions, rather than research findings, is that educational funding should be entirely decided by the business world as they are allocating funding specifically for x amount of learners, aged y for z industry.

I am frightened by the idea of education being for the sake of business rather than for the sake of learning. Analytical skills and the ability to problem solve, whether learned through a vocational course in mechanics or a purely academic course in philosophy, will equip the learner to adapt to any industry that might be important in the future, whereas training up thousands of IT professionals only to discover when they graduate with their diploma in IT that all the jobs have been outsourced to Southeast Asia will not. Let's not forget, the government nor the business world can predict which jobs will be important in the next 3 years let alone 50.

Education must not be reduced to skills, it is demeaning to the people it is supposed to serve. The children of this country should not be treated as future professionoids, programmed to serve the future needs of the business model.

BBC 2006 Article on Adult Education