FURTHER EDUCATION AND THE VENABLES REPORT

HL Deb 11 May 1977 vol 383 cc262-88

Debate resumed.

3.54 p.m.

Lord GARDINER

My Lords, returning to the Venables Report, although Chancellor of the Open University, I have never considered myself an expert on education and I shall therefore not detain your Lordships for long.

Sir Peter Venables is a remarkable man —a former Vice-Chancellor of Aston University, Birmingham, and the first chairman of the original planning committee of the Open University. I have never quite understood how that committee sat down and considered this question: Supposing we had a university where students did not attend in lecture halls, but had long-distance teaching—correspondence courses, set books, local counsellors and tutors and a residential summer school. The degree would be at least as difficult to get as at a conventional university and they would have to pay between £500 and £1,000 for it. How many men and women between 21 and 90 would wish to apply?" Today, the present figures of 50,000 students are within the forecasts of the original Venables Committee.

Now he and another committee have turned their attention to continuing education as a whole, asking themselves, "What would be in the national interest in this field, and what can the Open University do to help?" I think rightly that what they called "continuing education" meant education of all kinds after compulsory school leaving age, this embracing the universities, conventional universities, the Open University, the polytechnics, colleges of further education, classes conducted by local education authorities, the WEA and so on.

I suggest that in the age in which we live continuing education deserves to be met, not only where it is vocational but also where it is not vocational. Owing to the advances of modern knowledge and the speed of change, there are a great many men who had intended to spend their lives in a particular occupation but who are going to have to change that occupation in middle age because of changes in technology. Perhaps even more, there are many whose knowledge was sufficient to qualify them for a professional qualification when they left university but who are now quite out of date unless they bring themselves up to date by further educational courses.

I suppose that any doctor who studied chemistry 20 years ago knows that very few of the number of drugs of which he learnt then exist today, and that he has no knowledge unless he brings himself up to date with the incredible number of new ones. This applies just as much in the field of law as in any other sphere; indeed, the professional organisations themselves conduct courses, quite expensive ones, at least to try to bring the lawyer up to date with his law. Apart from vocational education, I would agree with the right reverend Prelate that there is also a need for further education which is not vocational, and I may cheer him up a little when I say that a new course is shortly starting on the Open University called "Man's Religious Quest", of which I am sure he would approve.

Professor Galbraith recently said, "Democracy is based on education". That, he said, did not mean that everybody should have a degree, but that democracy implied choice and that choice demanded the ability to discriminate. There are many men doing eight-hour shifts in factories who in the course of a day never have to take a decision of any kind at all; but in a democracy education, even if it has to be at a distance, is essential, and this goes on so long as anybody feels that he would better himself as a citizen by further education. At the Open University we have one student who was a miner until he was 65, and for years after he retired he applied himself to 0 and A levels and is now qualified to go to a conventional university, but at 79 he has become a student of the Open University.

If one seeks to ask what it is the wish of the Venables Committee to see—indeed, this applies to the Russell Committee before it—I thought the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, rightly expressed it when he said that what we want is a Government decision; what is lacking is what he called a "strategy" and "machinery" as a whole. This is the main message of both the Russell Committee and of this committee—there is a lack of direction and a lack of organisation—and what the Russell Committee recommended and what the Venables Committee is recommending have very much in common. After all, the main recommendations of the Russell Committee were the institution of a National Council for Adult and Continuing Education, a National Development Council for Adult Education and similar local councils in every local education authority, while the Venables Committee recommends a National Council for Adult and Continuing Education, a National Education Advisory Council and a national network of resource centres. I shall not go into the details, but I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Lee of Asheridge for introducing this debate this afternoon because, apart from anything else, we shall very much hope to learn the decisions of the Government and what are their views.

I believe that it was my noble friend Lady White who introduced the debate on the Russell Report. In reply to questions as to what was the Government's decision, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said for the then Government: It is of course essential to discuss with the representatives of the local education authorities and the other main interests concerned how they view the recommendations of the report. Progress is substantial and will continue to be so. An exchange of views about this rate of growth in relation to the terms of the report and in the context of further education generally is a necessary step, and it is to this end that our preparatory work is now going forward."—(Official Report, 23/5/73; col. 1220.) It is almost exactly four years since that was said. I hope very much that we shall not be told that, after four years, the negotiations are still going on. What, as both the Russell Committee and the Venables Committee thought, is really wanted is will on the part of the Government in the whole field of continuing education, the provision of what the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, called a "strategy"—that is, really deciding whether the recommendations of the Russell Committee and the Venables Committee are right—and, if so, the setting up of what the noble Lord called the "machinery"; that is, the organisation to that end.

4.3 p.m.

Lord RITCHIE-CALDER

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Gardiner asked how one set about looking at the problems of something called a university when one was doing it by remote control. In my tribute to Sir Peter Venables, the chairman of the planning committee, I want to point out what a remarkable job he did. I greatly stress his personal role, but I also want to pay tribute to what the planning committee did in stripping the university system down to its chassis, having a look at it and putting all the upholstery and so on aside in case we needed it. Sir Peter's was a remarkable chairmanship—I think that he is the most remarkable chairman I have ever sat under, and I always said that he wrote the minutes of the meetings in advance. He played a most valuable role in the committee and also during the formative years of the university itself, and he has now produced what I think is a major contribution to all our thinking on continuing education.

As my noble friend Lady Lee has pointed out, the status of the report is that it is still very much a consultative document. It is there to he discussed by all the interested parties, including your Lordships, and it was set up by the Council of the Open University because we had to consider the implications of the objects of our Charter, which laid down that: The objects of the University shall be the advancement and dissemination of learning and knowledge by teaching and research, by a diversity of means such as broadcasting and technological devices appropriate to higher education, by correspondence tuition, residential courses and seminars and in other relevant ways, and shall provide education of University and professional standards for its students and— and this is what we are really talking about here— to promote the educational well-being of the community generally. That is the operative phrase in terms of what we are talking about today, because I will go so far as to say that, in terms of the first part of the objectives—the setting-up of the University and its functions—the Open University has done a remarkable job.

The success of the Open University undergraduate programme has, without question, been spectacular. The courses and teaching techniques are world famous. Wherever I go in the world, in the advanced countries with their sophisticated university systems and in the less developed countries which are seeking to develop higher education, the Open University of Great Britain is recognised as the outstanding educational experiment of the second half of the 20th century. Indeed, it is no longer an experiment. It has acquired a wealth of experience and has evolved techniques both of learning at a distance and of face-to-face tutorials and has produced teaching materials of I he highest quality which can be adapted elsewhere. I say "adapted" intentionally because I feel that everyone will agree that education is something that must come out of the idiom and the felt needs of the various cultures.

In terms of the countries which are now taking advantage of the Open University's facilities, that is certainly true. We said very firmly that the materials that we were producing were only relevant in so far as they had any constancy; that is to say, we were not trying to develop education for the developing countries—they must develop their education themselves—bui that with all our experience and our facilities and the lessons that we had to teach on methods we were making a big contribution. We certainly are.

My noble friend Lady Lee, in her charge to the planning committee, insisted that the acquired experience should be made available to the Third World, and the consultation services of the Open University are now heavily in demand and are certainly helping to fulfil that requirement. I hope that my noble friend will give us credit for having carried out her instructions.

Beyond the undergraduate programme leading to degrees and beyond the post-experience courses which are available for professional enhancement there is the further commitment—and I quote again from our Charter— to promote the educational well-being of the community generally". That was what the Venables Committee was asked to look at—continuing education. I want to emphasise, as my noble friend Lady Lee has done, that this is not—and I repeat that—a take-over bid by the Open University. The Open University does not presume that it can cater for the diversity of interests which constitute the wide field of continuing education. It has never presumed to do so. I recall the misgivings of the Workers' Educational Association, when I was Vice-President and was at the same time on the planning committee of the Open University. The WEA feared that the imperium of the Open University would displace its courses and expropriate the available funds which, in adult education, have never been big enough. However, your Lordships will see from Table 2 of the Report that the WEA now provides over 9,000 classes for an accumulated enrolment of 167,000 students, so, so far from impairing the work of the extra-mural classes of the universities or the voluntary organisations such as the WEA, we have in fact increased the numbers of students and encouraged people to take up these classes.

What the eight triumphal years of the Open University have proved—and this must be a rebuttal of the Jeremiads about the decadent, non-participating British people—is that there is a vast and still unsatisfied hunger for learning in this country. This is not just vocational or wage-packet learning, but there is a desire for a widening of horizons and a concern to know and better to cope with the complexities of our society. This should mean mobilising all the means in our possession in the continuing education field in which, I would remind your Lordships, Britain has been in the lead for over a century—since the early days of the extra-mural courses at Oxford and elsewhere—as in the development of the voluntary organisations, like the Workers' Educational Association. What is being proposed in the report is a collective, extensive and intensive endeavour.

What the Open University has to offer is its demonstration that people who have been deprived of opportunities in the conventional stream of higher education are, through to the University, in fact eminently capable of using their second chance to acquire degrees. But on the planning committee and on the general council, I have always felt that the degrees were almost the least important of what we were trying to do. I do not denigrate the degrees—on the contrary—but I still think that what we were doing, and what we will continue to do even more so, has been to see that people have opportunities to find the satisfactions of learning, along the road to the degrees, if that is a recognition that they want. And that is what is meant by continuing education, by creating or encouraging the eternal student.

On the Open University we have always recognised that fact, because we had to establish—and we have done—the genuine currency of our degrees. To make our degrees certainly equitable with degrees anywhere, in our undergraduate programme, in that kind of concentration, we have opened up in the post-career courses and in many other fields. But there is a great opportunity for the University itself, not in its degree giving, or indeed in its university sense, but rather in the sense that we are talking about now: that is, what we can contribute to an open college. It is true that we have now these very remarkable resources of materials. We can recycle for other purposes a great deal of what is being produced for higher learning in university courses. One of the points on which I feel very frustrated in these times is that we are not able to do more for, say, the unemployed, for whom we should be doing more. By the "unemployed" I mean the non-worker section of our community, which will go on being non-worker. I am not just talking about the unemployment figures, but the fact that in our society there will be shorter hours, and longer periods of leisure, as well as, regrettably, unemployment. But I think that either we, or somebody else, should be providing the unemployed, the people who are deprived of work, with the opportunities for developing interests which would be valuable and which we hope might introduce them to the university courses themselves. We certainly could do this.

The Venables Report is spelling out the needs and the opportunities—not the expansion of the domain of the Open University—and is offering the unique insights and resources which the Open University has developed in its eight functional years. As a member of the Open University general council, which is still waiting for the reactions and the inputs from all the other interested bodies, I, of course, must keep an open mind. But I, personally, should like to see the National Council for Adult and Continuing Education fulfilling the kind of role which the University Grants Committee has in relation to the conventional universities; namely, seeing that the diversified means of adult education are properly encouraged and safeguarded.

As has been suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, and supported by my noble and learned friend Lord Gardiner, I want to see the strategy developed which will enable us to mobilise the interest and the resources for our continuing education. I also want to see an Educational Advisory Service, which I believe is very necessary when I think of the tens of thousands who apply for admission to the Open University and who, if they cannot get a place—because we are limited to 50,000 students; and we have an application list already for nearly 50,000 again this year, apart from the people going through the university—or cannot afford the costs or meet the exacting demands (and they really are exacting demands) in terms of study-time, might very well be directed into alternative and satisfying courses in other branches of adult education.

I realise that we shall be told that this is scarcely the time to be proposing extensions of our educational services. But, my Lords, this investment in human resources is a real investment. This is the "Fulfilment State" beyond the Welfare State. When material necessities are met there is still the need to release the human personality and to enrich the country with the innate qualities of our people. These qualities, as the Open University has demonstrated beyond a peradventure, are abundant.

We hear moanings about the lack of initiative, the decline of British creativity, the lack of adaptability to change. These are exaggerated complaints and charges but, my Lords, if we want to generate a new national impulse it must be through educational facilities. If we want to avoid the dangers which are ahead of us, we have to educate our people. As H. G. Wells said: The race is between education and catastrophe. I would say to the Government and to local authorities, in their efforts to economise, that they should not regard grants to continued education as indulgencies, but as an investment which will pay handsome dividends and will equip this country for the challenges of the last quarter of this century, for the technological changes which will be sterile, frustrating and positively dangerous unless we stimulate the imagination, the ingenuity, the cultural satisfactions and the judgments which will make those changes meaningful. That is what the Venables Report asks us to consider.

4.17 p.m.

Lord ANNAN

My Lords, I apologise for not having my name on the list of speakers, but I was not certain that I could be present this afternoon. However I have given the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, warning that I intended to speak, assuming that he was willing to allow me to do so. There are only two points that I want to make. I have always entirely agreed with the noble Baroness about the Open University. The only thing I have disagreed with her about concerns the financing of it. I believe that in the generosity of her heart she has always believed that the Open University could be expanded without cutting anything else, but I have taken a more pessimistic view. I think that probably something has to be cut in education in order to allow the Open University to expand.

Why do I give the Open University this priority? The answer is very simple: I am so old-fashioned and conservative in my views that I believe in examinations. I think that the great thing about the Open University is the way in which it tests whether the people who go in for the courses actually understand what they are being taught—and they have to give proof of this. The noble Baroness will remember that that was a grand old principle in the WEA. I recall that when I was a WEA tutor there was an insistence upon written work. Of course there were no examinations, but written work was insisted upon, and until one actually puts something down on paper one never knows whether or not one has understood the matter in hand. Very often I find that until I have written something I do not realise what nonsense it is. This is the way in which one educates people, and this is one of the things for which the Open University is to be applauded.

Now there are other forms of extramural studies; and of course I noted the point of the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, that the Open University should expand without affecting these other forms of extra-mural study. Yet I ask myself whether we should not have some retrenchment. The other day I tried to find out how much was spent in the University of London on extra-mural studies. The accounts of the University of London are arranged in such a way that it is impossible for anybody who is not actually concerned with the arrangement of those accounts to understand them. This is a very fine principle in all educational establishments, and keeps a lot of prying eyes out of the way. But when I did get to the bottom of it I found—and I think this is true—that £900,000 is being spent by the University of London on these extra-mural studies. Is it right that such a sum should still be being spent? Of course it was right that the equivalent of that sum, the fall in the value of money having been taken account of, should have been spent in the 1920s and the 1930s, but I ask myself: should such an effort as that really be necessary?

What I should like, of course, is for the noble Baroness and I to have a deal on this. I would say to her, "Look here—you can take half a million for the Open University if you let me keep £450,000 for the things which are being cut in the University of London at the moment". Of course, it is not as simple as that because in fact that £900,000 represents the salaries of the staff in the extra-mural department, and one cannot throw people on the scrap-heap. I am not suggesting for one moment that that should be done, though I should very much like to see transfers to areas which need them from areas in which I think there is less need. You can never plead a case that there is no need where education is concerned. Almost any extra-mural activity is worth while in some sense, but there are some which I think are more worth while than others.

There is another reason why I think it is important that the Open University should get some extra financial support, and it is this. The new studio at Milton Keynes is likely to be open very soon, and somehow we must find funds for the numerous television programmes which are going to come out of that studio. I understand from the vice-chancellor that a great deal of the new courses which the Open University hope to offer are in fact dependent upon extra television facilities. I do not want to anticipate the debate which we are to have next week on the report of the Committee on the Future of Broadcasting, but because it may not get a very prominent mention (shall I say?) in the debate on Thursday of next week I should like to draw attention to the fact that we say that one of the areas in which you can expand the television output of the Open University is through having it on a fourth channel, and that unless you keep that fourth channel, or a part of it, at any rate, for such programmes you are in danger of denying the Open University their chance to expand their activities. I hope that that point will be borne in mind; and with that I should like to thank the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene, and conclude by saying how much I hope we shall be able to go ahead on the Venables principles, bearing in mind, however, that we may have to retrench in one area in order that the Open University gets the go-ahead.

4.24 p.m.

Lord SANDFORD

My Lords, I should like to start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Lee, on her success in the ballot, giving her another opportunity to put the Parliamentary spotlight, as it were, on her favourite tele-teaching institution once again, and giving us an opportunity to debate this very interesting report on the role that the Open University should play in continuing education. It was helpful to have their definition at the outset, on page 6, of what it was that they were talking about. They exclude (I think properly) education of the 16- and 17-year-olds, and do not regard their present undergraduate programme as forming any part of this. What they choose is to focus attention on education for adults, which is normally resumed after a break or an interruption. That, I think we would all agree, is the right area on which they should concentrate.

My own view is that we can welcome the proposals in this report for a number of reasons, and I welcome them mainly for one which is almost as old-fashioned as that of the noble Lord, Lord Annan; namely, that the Open University gives us extremely good value for money. I say that because I believe that, by the Open University expanding its contribution from degree work into this field of continuing education, and giving very proper priority, as they say, "to the early stages"—by which I take it they mean quite elementary things like courses on improving your home; that comes from Appendix VII on page 104—more adults, more parents, more householders, more citizens, more neighbours, more workers, employees, technicians, professionals and businessmen of all kinds will be introduced and gain access to more education, training and enlightenment in the areas in which they need it, with the least dislocation, inconvenience and cost to themselves, their friends, their families and their firms.

It seems to me that that hope will certainly be fulfilled if the Open University stick firmly to the economic academic principles which they have followed from the beginning, by which I mean concentrating their tele-teaching expertise—teaching at a distance—on the subject, on the courses and on the methods in which they have such overwhelming advantages over the institutions which must continue, and will continue, conventional methods of face-to-face tutorials, lectures and classroom teaching.

Nevertheless, on page 14 of the report —and the noble Baroness spent some time on this—the Venables Committee mentioned, and mentioned with very proper candour, the sense of threat which some of their correspondents—in fact, many of their correspondents—have expressed in responding to this report and in giving evidence to the committee. Personally, I think "threat" is the wrong word, but I think that the Open University's proposals, which I want to support, pose a challenge—and it is a very proper challenge—to all other institutions working in the broad field of continuing education, to adjust their outlook, to adjust their programmes and to adjust their provision (I think this is what the noble Lord, Lord Annan, has just been saying to us) in ways which acknowledge and, as time goes on, accept more and more the existence of the Open University and the very great direct contribution that its courses can make in this field, and in some cases will make to the exclusion of courses hitherto put on locally and put across by conventional means. I think that has to be faced, and we shall not be getting value for money unless we accept it.

However, I very much agree that the proposals also constitute a most interesting and worthwhile offer to other institutions to allow the Open University to export its expertise to them, and that is something which is set out very fully at paragraph 67—this expertise in tele-teaching, so that other regional and local institutions, with other regional and local broadcasting media, can adapt their own resources and their own efforts to meet the needs of their own local clients with the help of the systems which the Open University has pioneered.

Here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, who I think has left us. Why limit this expansion to the regions of this country, of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? Because, with adaptation, the pioneering work of the Open University can be carried out into the rest of Europe with language adjustments; all over the Commonwealth with adjustments for local climate, and so on: and certainly could be useful in the Third World. It seems to me that the Open University's proposals in this report can also serve to encourage thousands of people who are at present happy to sit beside a radio or in front of a television but who have never before been happy to sit in a classroom to give education another go, first by accepting it into their own sitting room and then, in the light of what we hope may be a happier experience, extending it into a classroom in their own locality.

My Lords, turning to the content of the courses and starting with what they describe as "Adult concern", which is covered in paragraph 63 onwards, I should like to support the welcome for this new broad approach which was first voiced in this debate by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham. I agree with him that some of the greatest possibilities are in this field of integration, integration of a specialist subject in which somebody has already been trained and thoroughly grasped, with other specialist academic subjects which relate to it but which were excluded from his initial training; and integration also of continuing education with work experience. The list that is given in Appendix 7 is an interesting one but, I think, hardly broad enough as it stands.

I have said that I welcome things like courses on improving your home—and with both political Parties now dedicated to the idea of a property-owning democracy, that is a useful thing to have. With the great education debate going on, a course on the choice of your child's school is another useful one; but that will be much better if it is adapted to a local situation than if it is put on a national basis. It would be hard to see how you could go very far in helping parents without giving them some insight as to the precise local situation in their own area.

My Lords, "participation" is another interesting group. We could not but agree with the right reverend Prelate that it would be a serious lack if these courses in the technique, for instance, of running a local pressure group did not have something to indicate what was the purpose of it all. One of its purposes is to try to help people contribute to the planning and execution of proposals and schemes for raising the quality of life in their own area, not least in the inner cities—and I hope that Mr. Shore is giving some thoughts to this area.

My Lords, I think that the next significant area is the in-service courses, the scope and possibility of courses either run directly or engineered with the guidance and help of the Open University, covering in-service courses for particular categories of people in the professions, in particular industries, or serving in local government in particular areas. At various stages in people's careers—and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, has just confirmed that this is certainly needed in the profession of the law; but in many others, too—it will be necessary, and it is necessary, if industry is to be efficient and if local government is to be sensitive and if the professions are to be adaptable, that people have the opportunity of receiving further training which they did not get in their degree courses and in their initial professional training. There is need for updating, for integrating and for broadening; and I think that perhaps of all those integration is the most important.

The other aspect which I believe nobody has yet mentioned but which is covered in this report, is that mentioned in paragraph 89 where the very good point is made that the Open University could do much to supplement courses and programmes put out initially by the main broadcasting companies, ITV and BBC; but with people in mind, particularly families, whose curiosity and interest in a particular subject have been aroused by seeing a programme or a series of programmes and who would then like to pursue it in more detail in their own locality. This is the kind of thing which is particularly valuable, attractive and interesting if it can be put forward in a form which can be pursued by the family as a whole.

Finally, I should like to take up a point that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, first introduced into this debate; namely, that a strategy and framework for the development of continuing education is still needed—even if there is not much to put in the tank when we have got it. But I venture to think that the decisions that need to be taken will be all the better for having been delayed until, with the help of this report, we can see more clearly how the Open University's pioneering experience in tele-teaching might be best exploited in continuing education. For that we chiefly owe our thanks to this report.

4.36 p.m.

The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge)

My Lords, may I begin by issuing an unqualified apology to the House, and particularly to my noble friend, for being late for the beginning of this debate. I allowed an hour for a journey which takes 20 minutes but I got involved in a demonstration, I regret to say, against educational cuts; and that is why I failed to be in my place at the right moment. I hope that I may be forgiven for it is not something which is acceptable.

My Lords, everybody has said how grateful we are to my noble friend for raising this debate. I am particularly grateful to her for two or three reasons: first, because I think that the Open University is the only great success that this country has had in the educational field in the last 20 years. I think that we have been singularly lacking in success in education. We have spread it and we may or may not have improved it; but there is very little certainty that we have had any real success. But that this venture is a great success, everybody will agree. I am also grateful that she mentioned Mr. Macleod, Mrs. Thatcher and my late leader and her late leader Sir Harold Wilson, and gave them credit for the immense power which they, Sir Harold particularly, put behind her arm to get this much-opposed and rather difficult concept going. Of course, basically, as the whole House knows, it was (if I may put it in the crudest possible way) "Jenny's baby", and as such benefited enormously and could never have got off the ground without her.

My Lords, my personal interest in this is not an educational one; it is a social service one. It is the value that it had for the sick, the handicapped and, in my particular field of interest, the prisoners. It is having a remarkable effect within prisons. A large number of prisoners are taking degrees in the Open University who could never have done so otherwise. The noble Baroness said that she hoped that noble Lords would read the Venables Report. I can claim to have read it twice, although there are parts of it that I still find difficult to understand fully. We are grateful for the opportunity of discussing it in detail in this House before decisions are finally made in various directions.

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate struck a chord with me when he looked at the list of "adult concern" ventures. It is a curious term; it is what I might describe as educational jargon. Everything in the world concerns adults. I would understand it to mean those things which concern adults rather than children. Certainly, the absence of ethics is noticeable and regrettable. In fact, this is one of the most agreeable subjects that any adult can study. There is so much marvellous writing obtainable on the subject that I hope that the Open University will make it available to its students.

The right reverend Prelate said something about paid educational leave. We are, and always have been, strongly in favour of paid educational leave. There is a good deal of it already. The Govern- ment's attitude is that it should be based on the voluntary principle and collective bargaining between those in Industry, as it always has been. I do not think it is something which requires a direct Government subsidy. I was interested in his suggestion of a multiracial inquiry into faith in general. This seems a difficult thing to do. I was interested that he mentioned it, and I shall read with care in Hansard what he said.

The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, mentioned day release. The trouble about day release is that to do it on any scale is enormously expensive. Everybody wants to see it done, but it is a question of cash, unless employers will stand it. He spoke also of the overall look required in regard to the whole subject. We can look to the Advisory Council—to which I will refer later—to achieve this. He spoke of putting soul and heart in the Department of Education and Science. This is rather rhetorical. The truth is that the public servants who work on these things have just as much soul and heart as anybody in this House. The difficulty is to get past the financial problems which hold us back. I am all for putting soul and heart into everything but my own feeling is that there is a good deal there already.

Lord BEAUMONT of WHITLEY

My Lords, no strictures were intended on civil servants. An institution can lack soul and heart, whereas all the members in it can have lots of both. I am certain that civil servants have lots of soul and heart. I doubt whether the institution has much.

Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE

My Lords, I think we will leave it there. My noble and learned friend pointed out the technical reasons for the importance of continuing education, and it is just as well to state them: what you learned 20 years ago is completely different from the learning of today; and many people want to change from one kind of occupation to another. This is what continuing education of a vocational kind is about; there are plenty of other kinds of continuing education. He said that what we want is the will. My Lords, I think that what we want is money. The will is there, but the money is not always available.

My noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder praised Sir Peter Venables for the only reason that I would not praise him, as a chairman who wrote the minutes in advance. I have worked under chairmen who did that, and that does not involve being a good chairman. Very often it can involve being an extremely bad one. Sir Peter was a brilliant chairman, even though he may have written the minutes in advance. The point which chiefly interested me in my noble friend's speech was his ambition to see the Open University make a contribution to the developing countries. More than one noble Lord has referred to this. This is a very important matter which is clearly mentioned in the report. The fact that the Workers' Educational Association has 167,000 customers shows that the Open University has not worked against it, and in fact works very well with it. He referred, in a phrase that I will refer to later, to the vast unsatisfied hunger for learning, which I believe to be something of which most of us are conscious in this population.

My noble friend Lord Annan brought a very sane and careful view to bear on the cash side of this business. What he said was extremely interesting. I will not get involved in what is spent on his side and what might be spent on the noble Baroness's side, but it is very interesting. It is not only educational reports which try and make their accounts unintelligible; it is true of all accountants, and that is a great pity.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, on making an absolutely nonpolitical speech on an absolutely non-political subject. We do not always get this courtesy, and I am very grateful for it. He said that decisions will have to be delayed until the Open University has had time to consider this report, and this of course is true.

My Lords, when the Open University decided to set-up a committee to advise on the University's contribution to continuing education, it was seen first as a contribution to the debate on recurrent education which was going on all over the Western world. This had various terms: "continuing education" or "education permanente", et cetera. But what it meant, and what it means, is the relatively new idea—new to me, at any rate—that every citizen should be able to resume his education at different stages of his career—as indeed the present Chairman of the Open University himself has done at an age not far short of 77, and as I am proud to say has my driver, who is now 51 and is learning Russian—and with varying degrees of State assistance. It is an interesting conception. Twenty years ago nobody would have thought that if an individual aged 40, 50, 60 or 70 wished to undergo a course of study, he should get State assistance for it; but today that is what happens and it is very interesting.

The Committee was seen as a timely and necessary measure to ensure the soundness and relevance of the University's own development. In early 1975, when the Committee was set up, the University had only completed four full teaching years, but it had already established the quality and potential of its undergraduate programme. It had also gained an international reputation for research into teaching and learning at a distance. It was admirably fulfilling the hopes of its founders, including my noble friend Lady Lee, and of its many well-wishers. It was thus an appropriate moment for the University to take stock and to turn its attention to the wider issues of the well-being of the community generally. It was able to draw on its experience—which had been so successful—of under-graduate courses and its significant and growing programme of shorter "post-experience" courses at university level, commissioned for certain professions such as teachers and social workers, or to provide for special areas of interest such as courses on "computing and computers" or "industrial relations".

Sir Peter Venables was a brilliant chairman, as has been said already; and we must all be grateful to him and his colleagues, and also to the Open University for commissioning this report. The Committee was asked to make recommendations on the nature and scale of the Open University's future contribution to the national development of continuing education and to suggest the plan, resources and structure required for its implementation.

The Committee approached its task by considering the Open University as only one of the many bodies concerned with continuing education. Others included the maintained and non-maintained sectors of higher and further education, libraries, broadcasting authorities and professional institutions. Its thorough working methods and the wide spectrum of opinion taken into account are to be applauded, though one could have wished that a report with such wide implications for the maintained sector of education had included evidence from the local authority associations.

The Venables Report has been widely acclaimed and, while there may be room for differences of opinion on some of its assumptions, I have no doubt that it will be closely studied. The report is primarily a report to the University's Council. While copies of the report have come to my Department for information, they have not as yet been formally submitted with the University Council's own comments. Indeed, the report is still the subject of consultations within the University, nor does the Council expect to complete its consultations on the report until this coming September. Therefore your Lordships will not expect a pronouncement from me today as to what action the Government feel should follow the report.

The interdependence of further and adult education increases as the concept of continuing education grows, and it is no longer easy to make clear-cut distinctions between them. Students attending an evening class in foreign languages, for instance, may have a variety of motives —from pure intellectual satisfaction, through the desire to get more out of holiday travel, to the urgent need to qualify for a better job. And the class itself may meet in a college of further education, a school used as an evening institute or even a village hall.

For all its close interdependence with the wider field of further education, however, adult education does have certain distinguishing features. We must never forget, my Lords, that these students are volunteers, taking part of their own free will, and for a variety of motives, in an enormously varied programme of education, often at their own expense and with no thought of material reward for their efforts.

For this reason, one must regret the very real difficulties which adult education now faces as a result of the inevitable economies forced on local education authorities by the crucial need to contain public expenditure. This financial pressure has been twofold: a reduction in that part of authorities' budgets earmarked for adult education, and an increase in fee levels which, while in absolute terms it cannot be regarded as unreasonable, in terms of proportionate increases has, in some areas, been severe enough to lead to a marked reduction in student numbers. Our first indications are that numbers, which had climbed steadily over the past few years to nearly 3 million in 1975–76, may have declined by some 10 per cent. in the current academic year. These figures are susceptible of more than one explanation, and it is too early to be dogmatic about a trend. Obviously, any falling off is a pity, but adult education, along with other branches of the education service, cannot be exempt from bearing its share—though I would hope not more than its fair share—of the necessary economies which we are subject to at the moment.

The beginning of our present cycle of economic difficulties coincided with the publication of the Russell Report, and I suppose that there has never been a more unfortunate example of timing for a report drawn up in the latter years of a period of educational expansion, and itself confidently looking forward to similar expansion and development in the field of adult education. But if circumstances have inhibited Government from adopting the Russell Report in toto, they have not prevented some significant developments along the lines recommended.

First, let me take the question of financial support for the adult continuing his education. Older students returning to full-time education after a break are eligible for the mandatory awards which are available for students on first degree and similar courses, just as younger students going straight from school. But there are also special provisions. No parental contribution is required for such students—provided they are either 25 or over or have supported themselves for three years. Moveover, they may qualify for an older student's allowance in recognition of additional commitments which, bearing in mind their age, they may well have taken on in the meantime.

In addition, there have been a number of changes in recent years which demonstrate this Government's determination to do all they can within the financial resources available to ensure that mature people who wish to continue their education have the financial support necessary to do so. For example, the conditions for mandatory awards relating to previous study have been significantly eased for mature students. Awards for under-graduates are no longer dependent on the possession of two A-level passes. It is left to the academic authorities to decide whether a student has reached the standard necessary to take the course. In addition, as recommended in the Russell Report, adult education bursaries, payable by my Department, have been introduced so as to ensure that students at long-term residential adult education colleges have a grant.

So far as discretionary awards are concerned, the local authority associations recommended to their members over two years ago that discretionary awards made to students taking advanced courses, or to students over 19 taking non-advanced courses, should be payable at the same rates as for mandatory awards.

The Russell Report, as your Lordships will recall, also laid stress on the need to remedy the grave evil of adult illiteracy. The Government are glad to have been able to play a part, together with the National Institute of Adult Education, the BBC and the local education authorities, in the adult literacy campaign. Some £3 million over a three-year period have been provided from Government funds for this and the number of students receiving literacy tuition has risen from less than 10,000 in 1975 to more than 100,000 today. The 45,000 volunteer tutors, as well as full-time tutors and organisers, have played a crucial part in the success of this venture.

In March my right honourable friend announced increased grant and more flexible grant arrangements for the Workers' Educational Association. This will enable the Association to shift the emphasis of its work towards certain priority areas—education for the socially and educationally deprived, work in an industrial context and education in the nature and functioning of our political and social system. I feel sure your Lordships would agree on the vital importance of educating people at every level of industry and in all sections of society in the economic and political structure of our industrial and social system. The Government have welcomed the WEA's initiative in this matter, as well as the efforts of the trade unions to increase the provision of education for their members in these, as well as more specialised, industrial fields. It is a measure of my right honourable friend's concern that the initial grant of £400,000 to the TUC (made jointly with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment) is to be continued at a somewhat higher level in the current financial year.

The Russell Committee, like the Venables Committee, also recommended the setting up of a national advisory and development council for adult and continuing education. Only yesterday my honourable friend the Minister of State met representatives of the organisations most closely concerned to discuss the details of the proposal announced by my right honourable friend on 6th April.

The proposed Council, we hope, will provide an effective forum for the collaborative approach to adult education needed in our diverse and decentralised system. It is not, however, as ambitious as that suggested by the Venables Committee, nor will it have at its disposal funds approaching the £20 million per annum which the Committee thinks should be available by 1984—itself a fundamentally different approach from that recommended by the Russell Committee. Indeed, even were funds of that magnitude available—and in present circumstances they could be found only at the expense of existing provision—we, and, I believe, many others, would have grave reservations about channelling all funds for the development of adult and continuing education through one central agency. The Council will advise on matters relating to the provision of education for adults and, in particular, promote co-operation between the various organisations in that field, not only with a view to the best use of the resources now but also to plan a strategy for future development. I think that goes a long way towards meeting the requests made by various noble Lords.

Lord SANDFORD

My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord before he leaves that point? He slightly misunderstood what I was saying at the end of my speech. I was hoping that we should hear today whether or not the Government are going to wait until they have formally received this report before coming to their conclusions that he has just mentioned. I know the noble Lord has just said that his right honourable friend had a meeting yesterday to take the first few tentative steps towards setting up this National Council. But I think that those of us who have been taking part in this debate—certainly, the noble Baroness, Lady Lee—would not want to feel that those tentative steps had reached their conclusion until this report had been fully grasped, comprehended and digested by the Department. Can the noble Lord be a little clearer about that?

Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE

My Lords, my understanding is that my honourable friend the Minister of State is setting up the council. This does not mean that if the Open University's report made a number of recommendations they could not be dealt with at a later stage. But the council will exist, and it is being made to exist now.

There was one passage in the Venables Report which was particularly interesting to me. The provision of public libraries is a field in which I think we have substantial achievements to our credit, and for which I have special responsibility. Even during the past three very difficult years, capital expenditure on libraries has totalled £50 million and although, regrettably, it cannot continue at quite the same rate, it nevertheless represents a major addition to our national resources.

The Venables Committee were concerned that independent students in continuing education should also be able to make use of other library facilities, particularly the libraries of universities, polytechnics and colleges. The report advocates strong support for the integrated development and use of these services, but I must not prejudge the views of the Council of the Open University. Others in recent years, influenced by current financial problems as well as by such matters as the development of the British Library, have called for a re-examination of library services and questions of co-ordination are under consideration by a number of national bodies, including the Standing Conference for National and University Libraries, the Library Association and the Library Advisory Council. In other words, something is already happening along these lines.

There is a long tradition in this country of voluntary, and mainly informal, co-operation between libraries; a great deal is already being done to take advantage of such opportunities. The DES has a part to play in this respect through its responsibility for the British Library, for public libraries provided by local authorities and for libraries in educational institutions, but the main effort must come from those who actually provide the service. In going around libraries this year, I visited three brand new ones; I was interested that two of them claimed an increase in borrowings of over 63 per cent. over the past two years, and the third an increase of some 50 per cent. It seems that if new facilities are provided they will be well used, and I think that this applies to the whole background of this debate.

If it were possible to provide the resources envisaged by the report, I can think of no institution better equipped than the Open University, academically and otherwise, to undertake the tasks envisaged by the Venables Committee. Its distinctive team approach to course preparation, involving collaboration with other institutions; its skill in the preparation, presentation and publication of multimedia courses; and its resources for research into both teaching and learning at a distance are all witness to this. Its methods have never been confined to distance teaching: through its summer schools, post-experience courses, and its regional and local tuition centres it practices the conventional teaching arts, including pastoral aid, and has gained a deep knowledge of the needs and problems of the part-time adult student. It should be remembered that most of its 5,000 part-time tutors and counsellors are drawn from other universities and the maintained sector of further and higher education, so that there is a continuing cross-fertilisation between the Open University and the other educational institutions. Some of the recommendations in the Venables Report are, of course, within the Open University's capacity without reference. I shall not refer to those. It is the ones which require outside help which will have to be considered most deeply.

If I may say a final word on finance, though the Committee acknowledged that a national policy was first required regarding resources, and appreciated the economic difficulties confronting the Government, their report sets out a phased programme for the commitment of additional public money. No commitment can be given by the Government to an expansion of continuing education on the scale envisaged by Venables, which would involve additional expenditure of over £2 million by 1984 on the Open University alone, and some £20 million overall. However, I would remind your Lordships of the very substantial contribution of this Government to the development of continuing education through their commitment to the Open University to the point where it is now an internationally recognised institution and a major addition to our cultural heritage. In addition, there are the funds already being made available through direct grant to the responsible bodies, the increased grant to the Workers' Educational Association, the widening of the students' award regulations, improvements to the library services, and now the launching of the new Advisory Council on Adult and Continuing Education. All these are evidence of the Government's commitment to the concept of continuing education.

This has been a most helpful discussion. The Venables Report contains many extremely good suggestions, and I look forward to the stimulus which it will certainly provide to further thinking and developments in the whole field of adult and continuing education.

5.6 p.m.

Baroness LEE of ASHERIDGE

My Lords, I am deeply appreciative of the contributions that have been made in this debate. I know that we have other colleagues waiting to take over, so I do not wish to take up more of your Lordships' time other than to thank those who have taken part, and to ask our Minister not to be too cautious on the financial side, because where there is a will, there is a way and one can always find the money for some things. What we have to decide is priorities and, obviously, all of us who have taken part in this debate today place the highest possible priority on bringing further educational opportunities within the reach of all. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.