§ Mr. BoswellTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans he has for the continuation of inspections of performance by full-time and part-time education providers in the programme area of basic skills. [154675]
§ Mr. Wicks[holding answer 21 March 2001]The Government attach high priority to improving adults' literacy and numeracy skills. On 1 March, we published our national strategy for achieving this in Skills for Life, which set out how regular monitoring and robust inspection will raise standards among basic skills providers and improve the achievement of learners.
From April 2001 'all' providers of adult literacy and numeracy provision funded by the Learning and Skills Council or a local authority will fall within the general arrangements for inspection by Ofsted and/or the Adult Learning Inspectorate, as defined by the Learning and Skills Act 2000. In addition, we will conduct a review of the quality and inspection criteria is for basic skills provision.