Categories: uncategorized
Date: 29 June 2008 14:27:09
UCU have launched a campaign to save A Level lecturer jobs in Huddersfield. The union magazine I recieved yesterday highlighted that the same culling of a FE academic department is happening in Sandwell in the East Midlands aswell. Reading through the magazine bought tears to my eyes. The following may be a long entry, but I ask you to read through it and consider the issues involved.
The UCU magazine article highlights the reason for the cutting of 16 ALevel subjects at Huddersfield is the fact that they cannot meet the new government benchmarks. The new benchmark is 75% for success in all subjects, and success is measured as retention (number of students who started the course completing) multiplied by achievement (i.e. those who get a qualification from it). Therefore, it is possible to have 100% achievement but fail to meet this benchmark as having had awful retention (or a small group where each student has been worth a higher percentage). This new benchmark seems reasonable, until one considers that for some subjects it is a full 20% above the current national benchmark (average) for success. The government has introduced this new benchmark, through the LSC (the main funding body) part way through the year, thus not even allowing for a gradual national improvement.
Additionally, the introduction of this "new benchmark" has been timed to co-incide with the new diplomas the government are introducing. However, when challenged by a member of Huddershield staff at UCU conference the article states that Bill Rammell, the education minister has said "the government has introduced the new benchmarks 'to drive up quality' and it was not the intention to reduce A level provision in FE colleges." Anybody who has worked in the sector and seen how funding has been changed over recent years and how the government is to change funding further in the 2010 - 2011 year knows that at best the ministers reply is misleading and at worst a downright lie.
The government, (through its funding bodies), have introduced a systematic programme of the dismantlement of A Level provision in FE colleges over recent years through the use of minimum group numbers and new funding formulars. Huddersfield and Sandwell have highlighted the issue, but one way or another the reduction in provision has been occuring for several years. If you look across the country there are many "minority subjects" and evening classes which have already been lost and in almost every FE college I know the choice of subjects available is far less than it was 5 years ago. It does not fit in with the governments plans for "new voccationalism" to have A Level departments in FE colleges. Policy shows that they want A Level provision to be through schools and discreet 6th form colleges and for colleges to help develop the new diplomas, which ministers want to make a success.
As I highlighted earlier in the week, this erosion of A Level in FE (the sector in which I teach), is one of the reasons I have made the choice to go back to further study.
So what can we do? Well at this stage I am not sure, beyond the usual writing to MP's and signing petitions. We have been betrayed by the Labour government and we have been betrayed by our union (which I still believe is betraying us). The government have betrayed us because they have claimed to care about Education, Education, Education but have acted to introduce policies which have denied equality of opportunity and funding mechanisms which have forced the hand of institutions. The union have betrayed us because they have seen as clearly as everybody else what is happening but have not mounted a national campaign. Even here they have focused on one college, rather than mounting a campaign to save provision. One, in a cynical moment, may even think that the union is being complicit - sacrificing one area of provision in the hope of saving more.
You may not be thinking this is a big issue, but I want to put it into context. Most, if not all FE colleges have an A Level section. Besides having 16 year olds who just wanted a change from school they have a disproportionately large number of students in their late teens and early twenties who either messed up their AS year first time around and want to make it work this time or who left school and then as they saw their friends go onto uni decided they wanted to do the same themselves. These are the students who A Levels in FE really work for, aswell as students who were perhaps bullied at school and want a different environment to get back into education in. For these students A Levels, rather than the access courses, which are the one year route to uni for older students, or specific voccational courses are the correct option. It is the very nature of this intake though which makes retention "an issue" on these courses and so drags down success rates, particularly at AS.
Getting personal I will, briefly, give my own history to show what type of potential students these changes are destroying the life chances of.
I left school at 17, dropping out of 6th form because it wasn't working for me. However, the next academic year I went back and did an evening class GCSE to get my confidence back. Then over the next two years I did my A Levels at evening class, whilst working full time and got enough to get into university when I decided I might just about be bright enough to go afterall.
That was the springboard to me having the right qualifications to achieve: my BA (Hons), PG Dip, PGCE (Post-Compulsory), MA and now being on my way to study a Master of Letters, (and hopefully PhD) at Durham University in October, (if I can get all the funding sorted). It also gave me the opportunity to build a career as a lecturer in FE, where I have seen a range of students over the last 7 years who have used it as a second chance after A Levels at school didn't work.
However, without the A Level option at the local FE college I wouldn't have been able to do go to uni. I didn't have a clear career path back then & so just did the A Levels which interested me. With the current government policy and cuts such as those being implemented in Huddersfield I would have probably been left with an office job or stacking shelves in a supermarket rather than fulfilling my potential.
So now you see why the tears were falling; I know about the importance of A Levels in FE and know both how hard lecturers in Huddersfield and elsewhere work in difficult circumstances to ensure every learner achieves the best they can. I also know what the life changing effect of going through one of those departments can be. This campaign is not just about fighting to save some jobs, it's about fighting to ensure that our children and perhaps grandchildren have the opportunities we did.