Categories: uncategorized
Date: 22 June 2007 06:59:36
It's strange that some conversations switch a light on somewhere and then everything makes sense. I had one of those situations yesterday.
I live in the world of Further Education, a strange world of slightly eccentric staff and students who are rediscovering the joy of learning and often being given a second chance to get the right bits of paper which will hopefully take them out of no-whereville. It's a world where the students don't tend to come from comfy homes with mountains of cash behind them (there is the odd one who does), but these students more often come from situations which mean they are juggling a job & / or some kind of caring commitment (be it for a younger sibling, their own children, or aging / ill parents) and a programme of full time study all on a very tight budget. It's a world where in September you often encounter little confidence in the classroom and so have to spend time building this up, not so that people have unrealistic expectations but so they will achieve on the programme at the level to which they are capable. It is a world where dreams mix with desperation quite often.
I love teaching in FE and I believe in FE (although I think over the coming years I may have to move into a school due to the backdoor assult on A Level departments in the sector which the LSE and government have launched over recent years). Yesterday I realised that my connection and belief in the sector didn't come from watching somebody else help others achieve their dreams but rather comes from my own story and the fact that without the existence of FE and academic departments within them I would probably still be working in insurance or stacking shelves in a supermarket. Evening classes gave me my second chance. Also I realised that in many ways I share a similar profile to many of my students (single mum, living in rented accomodation, trying to work full time and complete an academic qualification while trying to have a social life and deal with what the world decides to throw at you), my only difference being that I am doing it on a decent salary now and so I'm not having to form fill and queue for the housing benefit anymore.
What I am really worried about is that this second chance and version of normality is being removed from the very people who need it most, i.e. the lower middle classes who have some income but not enough to spend on luxuries like education (if the classes they need/ want to do are still running at all). I understand the push on skills and believe in the need for this, I understand the need to make colleges give value for money and the role of minimum class sizes in that, I almost understand the arguments for not increasing taxation and encouraging more alternative finance sources into the sector but I have to say I think the Learning and Skills councils and the government have lost sight of what the job of an FE college is for post-19 learners. Small classes of students many of whom aren't poor enough to claim help but are too poor to afford the fees, who are getting their second chance often go onto provide the teachers, nurses and social workers that keep this country going!!!
I wish politicians would look at the learners and listen to their (our) stories.