ADULT EDUCATION (Hansard, 5 February 1980)

§ Baroness YOUNG
My Lords, my leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ Baroness YOUNG
My Lords, my right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science has recently extended the term of office of the Advisory Council for Adult and Continuing Education, whose remit includes both the review of current practice and the development of future policies and priorities for the education of adults. He awaits with interest the reports on these questions due to be presented to him this autumn.

§ Baroness DAVID
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Is the 1156 noble Baroness aware that Dr. Hoggart, the chairman of that advisory council, and his colleagues think that we are now dangerously near the point where the fundamental structure of the service is being undermined so that it may be very difficult to secure future recovery, and the morale of the people in that service is very low indeed? He said this in a letter to me last week. Is the Minister aware that some authorities have virtually suspended adult education? Humberside, Hampshire, West Glamorgan, Cumbria and Leicestershire are cutting their grants by half, and I have just mentioned what Nottingham is doing. What is the Government's attitude to this? Do they think that these authorities are carrying out their obligations under Section 41 of the 1944 Act?

§ Baroness YOUNG
My Lords, we have accepted that as there have to be cuts in Government expenditure, the education service has to bear its share and the adult education service within that has to bear its share. However, the preliminary returns that we have of the numbers of enrolments of local education authority adult education centres show that there has been an overall reduction of 8 per cent. in the November 1979 figures compared with 1978. Nevertheless there is a total increase on the figures for 1976 and 1977, so there is nothing to suggest that the entire service is crumbling. On the second point about the statutory duty, Section 41 of the Education Act 1944 gives every local education authority the duty of securing, in accordance with the schemes of further education or at county colleges, the provision for its area and adequate facilities for further education, which is defined as full and part-time education for persons over compulsory school age and leisure-time occupations". It does not seem to me that in the present position any local authority can be said to be breaking their statutory obligations.

§ Baroness DAVID
My Lords, would not the Minister agree, though, that there is a need for an overall look at all post-school education? We are going to be in a very different society in the next few years and a completely new look with a broader outlook than that of the old non-vocational adult education is 1157 needed. At the moment we are full of bits and pieces—

Several noble Lords
Question!

§ Baroness DAVID
Would not the Minister, my Lords, think that some quite new and imaginative look should be taken at this area, or is the Department of Education going to leave it to other agencies such as the Manpower Services Commission and the Department of Employment?

§ Baroness YOUNG
The Government, my Lords, recognise the great importance of adult education, and indeed my right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State has, in writing, to the chairman of the Advisory Council, asked him to consider the Council's future work and particularly how it could best proceed and what its functions should be. We believe that this is the right way of proceeding because we like to build on what we have already. As I say, we have undertaken to do this.
The House may like to know that as part of our commitment to the importance of adult education we are increasing the Government funds for the development of a new unit with a wider remit than the Adult Literacy Unit, and are giving this unit half a million pounds rather than the £360,000 it has at present.

§ Lord BROOKS of TREMORFA
My Lords, is the noble Baroness not aware that many local authorities are forcing the adult education sector to bear a disproportionate share of these cuts? Is the Minister further aware that many local authorities, in preparing their educational budgets, have increased the evening class fees very substantially indeed? One particular local authority has increased its fees by 800 per cent. and while, on the surface, the classes will remain, in practice and in fact, many people will not be able to afford these fees and that sector of the educational activities of the local authorities will fall by the wayside.

§ Baroness YOUNG
My Lords, we are aware that in almost every case local education authorities have increased fees for adult education classes. This is all part of the economic restraints which we have had to apply to the education service 1158 as to the other aspects of Government policy. In fact our information is that rates for non-vocational adult educational courses have ranged from 6p per hour to £1 per hour, with an average of about 30p. I recognise that there are great variations within this, but the figures do show that the numbers attending classes are holding up and past experience tends to show that, whereas there is a slight fall-off as the cost of courses goes up, this is very soon made up as people come to a recognition of the new fee as indicating the true worth of the course.

§ Lord DAVIES of LEEK
My Lords, is the Minister aware that those of us who have had long experience of adult education—17 years in my own case—have seen nothing more wonderful than the opening of the minds of adult men and women who had no opportunity whatsoever when they were young? On one great occasion I remember the present Lord Chancellor himself at the height of his powers doing a brilliant course at Oxford University. If it was only to get a Lord Chancellor like that one down once it was worth the money the Government spent!

§ Baroness YOUNG
My Lords, I think I should probably ask my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor to reply to this question. The fact is that the current enrolments in adult education are estimated for this year at 1,883,000 and there are some half a million enrolments for comparable courses at maintained, assisted and grant-aided educational establishments. This hardly shows that this part of the educational system is collapsing, and I hope I have said enough to indicate our great regard for the adult education service and the importance which we attach to it.

§ Lord ALEXANDER of POTTER-HILL
My Lords, would the Minister not agree that, apart from short-term measures, as things are developing and as the nature of industry is emerging, adult education will become the most important sector of the education service in 10 to 15 years' time? Retirement will take place at an earlier age: that is inevitable. Is it not a fact that if there is one sector that has never been taken very seriously in this country it is adult education?

§ Baroness YOUNG
My Lords, I would not accept that adult education has not been taken seriously in this country and I should have thought, from the number of supplementary questions I have had, that all parts of the House would agree with my statement in regard to that.
As to the question whether or not one should have courses for people who are retiring and whether one should have principally retraining courses for adults to equip them for different types of jobs, and all sorts of other courses which are desirable, these are all matters we are hoping the Advisory Council will be looking at in its extended remit as regards the purpose of adult education. I think we really must await its advice on what we should be doing.

§ Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER
My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware of certain experiments in some parts of the country, in which unemployed men with skills organise classes for other unemployed men which will release them from boredom and enable them to use those skills in domestic activities and so on? If she is not aware of these, will she acquaint herself with them or allow me to call her attention to them? Also, will she support that kind of activity taken on their own initiative on the part of the unemployed?

§ Baroness YOUNG
My Lords, we should certainly support any activity such as that. These are really matters that are dealt with at local authority level, but I am quite certain that we would all support any kind of voluntary activity, or activity making use of the talents of people who are not currently in employment.

§ Lord FOOT
My Lords, if other cuts are to be inflicted, may we have an absolute assurance from the noble Baroness that no mortal injury will be done to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor?

§ Baroness YOUNG
My Lords, I think that it would be impossible to injure the Lord Chancellor.

§ Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE
My Lords, since the noble Baroness expressed overwhelming interest 1160 on the part of the Government in adult education, is it perhaps significant that there have been no supplementaries from her side of the House?

§ Baroness YOUNG
My Lords, I take it as a great compliment that my colleagues behind me are satisfied.