Lifelong Learning Convention
Item 1 on our agenda is consideration of the lifelong learning convention. We need to finish discussion of this matter around 10.30 am, when the Minister for Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning will join us. I am sure that all members will want us to maximise and make the best use of our time with Wendy Alexander, from whom we will take evidence on lifelong learning and on individual learning accounts.
Once Gordon Jackson has declared his interests, as the new guy on the block he can give us his impressions of the lifelong learning convention.
Thank you for your welcome, convener. The only interest that I have to declare is my membership of the Faculty of Advocates. I do not think that I have any other relevant interests.
I found the convention good and enjoyed it a great deal. As the new boy on the block, I did not have much idea of what was happening some of the time. I hope that that situation will improve. However, everyone at the convention to whom I spoke thought that the event was extremely valuable.
I took part in two groups. The first related to informal learning and the discussion concentrated on the voluntary sector. I sometimes found it difficult to work out precisely what informal learning was. The more I asked, the more difficult that became, because it was not always clear where informal learning shaded into formal learning.
I received the message from the voluntary sector that in its view the interim report on the committee's lifelong learning inquiry had not properly recognised the work that it is doing. I will not say whether that is a fair judgment, but the sector had the impression that it was being undervalued. Whether voluntary organisations are set up for learning purposes or whether they have another core function, they are extremely important in the context of informal learning. In particular, the voluntary sector felt that its work with disaffected learners—learners with a bad past experience of learning—was not being properly recognised. Such work has a high cost, as it involves a high ratio of teachers to learners. For that reason, the question of funding is important. Voluntary organisations felt that a common funding stream for their core funding was important. That would be better than their having to scrabble about to obtain grants wherever they can find them. The representatives of voluntary organisations to whom I spoke were positive about the convention, but they were dissatisfied that the interim report did not give them proper credit for what they are doing.
The other group in which I took part was entirely different and was concerned with the implementation of the Scottish credit and qualifications framework. Andrew Cubie took part in that group, which also included representatives of teaching organisations, chambers of commerce and business organisations. The message that came across from each of the small groups into which we divided was that people did not yet understand what the SCQF was doing and what it was about. One group said that it needed to understand the SCQF in a non-jargon way. Another group asked, "What is it?" Another group said that what is going on is not at all clear. It was not the man in the street who said that, but people who are in the industry.
Andrew Cubie in particular accepted that the SCQF has a big task in communicating and marketing itself—in getting its message across not just to the organisations that use it, such as businesses and employers, but to the learners. People will want to touch the SCQF in terms of social inclusion. The big message from that group was that, although implementing the SCQF involved many technical problems, the technical people would be able to work them out. It was felt that there was much work to do and that implementing the SCQF demanded good marketing.
Although both my groups raised many questions, they were positive about the report and the convention.
That is helpful.
I will not duplicate what Gordon Jackson has said. My impression was that the participants were positive about the structure of the convention and were encouraging about the shape of the whole report.
I was slightly uneasy about some of the responses that I detected. I floated from workshop to workshop to try to obtain a feel for the opinions of different groupings of people. I received a clear impression that important members of the sector consider that significant aspects of the interim report are sufficiently unspecific for them to require reassurance about what the report means. Many people felt that there would be budget implications, which began to disturb me considerably. We will discuss that in more detail later. On the basis of the feedback, which we have had limited time to assimilate, I want to return to the interim report with a view to considering a fairly radical recast of some aspects.
I will not repeat what has been said. As members are aware, I delivered the introductory part of the convention. Ninety-nine per cent of the comments were positive, but, as Annabel Goldie said, clarification was required on what the report would mean to individual sectors.
Gordon Jackson spoke about the voluntary sector. It was our intention that funding for voluntary organisations would feed into the main learning fund pot, so that such organisations would not have to take part in the never-ending process of bidding for money. That point was made in the evidence that we took, but perhaps we did not clarify it in the report.
Some attendees were looking for what would appear in the final report. I indicated that we were discussing an interim report, which did not have time scales or an implementation plan and which should be taken as it was. Once that concept had been explained, it went down well. People are used to committees producing a final report, whereas ours is very much an interim report. That is as it should be.
We left some areas open to question. For example, if we were to fund entitlement, how much of that funding should follow the student and how much of it should fund the infrastructure? We do not want to destabilise the whole further and higher education sector, so infrastructure policy funding will be necessary. We were asking the convention what the balance should be. It was right to ask that question and not to determine the answer at this stage.
The trade union movement wanted to be represented on the majority of the proposed bodies. Although we would want that to be the case, it would have been improper to indicate membership of the proposed groups. That answers Annabel Goldie's point—some gaps were left because the report is an interim one. We will come back to fill in the gaps.
People asked us to consider skills gaps, to seek a better link with employers and to ensure that all vocational qualifications—whether Scottish vocational qualifications or college courses—have employer involvement. Our recommendation for the technician level higher national certificate and higher national diploma would go a long way towards allaying such concerns.
Like Annabel Goldie, I floated around many workshops. Without exception, everyone said that there was a great need for a national strategy and that such a strategy would be welcomed. That was encouraging. However, people also said that, as many innovations come up from the local level, any national strategy should be balanced with local flexibility.
I took a number of points from the convention. At some stage—not now, as I imagine that the minister is fast approaching—it would be good for us to reflect on the convention's format. One can never win with such things—we needed to publish some kind of document—but I came away from the convention wishing that we had held it earlier in the process. I also wish that we could hold another convention, because several issues were flagged up that we did not resolve. Like colleagues in the various groups that met in the afternoon, I urged people to look at our short timetable, about which I will make a point in a minute.
I sat in on the workshop for modern apprentices, skillseekers and trade unions. The first thing to be said is that a mistake was made in identifying the trade unions simply as learners rather than as learning providers. Thankfully, the men who attended—they were all men—were accommodating in getting the discussion going, but they wanted a different kind of discussion. That brings us back to my point about the need to remember that the affiliates of the Scottish Trades Union Congress are learning providers. We need to reflect on that. A different but similar point arises about the participants from the voluntary sector, whose concerns we all heard loud and clear.
One reason why I mention timetabling is that it was clear that several of the report's key themes are causing not only interest but anxiety. Let me use as an example the principle of entitlement, as I have a particular interest in that. We need to look clearly at what additional evidence and submissions we receive. I picked up that there was a lot of interest in the scope of the entitlement. We should be able to deal right away with a couple of the concerns, such as how the entitlement would interface with secondary years 5 and 6. There were also concerns about possible implications for funding and planning. It is more important that we get the proposals right than that we implement them quickly. My view is that we are setting ourselves a demanding and difficult timetable. We should reflect on that.
I was interested in the clear support for some kind of individual learning account mark 2. I am interested in the evidence that we received from a number of sources about business learning accounts and the trade union learning fund. We should consider how we can bring those together to get individual commitment to skilling and upskilling. We need to consider how we build capacity in the workplace and how we ensure that all social partners are engaged in that task
I was delighted—although members will expect me to say that—about the unanimous support from trade unions, employers and modern apprentices for the success of our delivery on the modern apprentices programme.
On the single funding issue, we come back to the committee's concerns. I was heartened by the various bits of evidence that I picked up. We have already acknowledged that there would be problems in delivering a single funding agency other than in the medium to long term.
Several people mentioned an issue on which we have not focused enough. There is a concern that, by rushing towards a structural solution, we might create barriers against the development of a diversity of learning providers. A single funding agency for higher education and further education might squeeze everybody else out. I was impressed by that strong piece of evidence.
Let me also mention the format. Somehow, there already seems to be a format for such innovative events. I do not think that the plenary sessions worked other than perhaps for scene setting. We heard substantially the same voices at the plenary session. We need to move on from having a format whereby the people who attend simply welcome the report, ask for more money for their sector, say "Thank you very much" and toddle off. The groups into which we broke out were much more useful than that.
At some stage, I would be interested in having a discussion about why the facilitated groups had mixed success. We do not need to discuss the issue in open session, by which I do not mean that we should talk about it in secret—I just think that we should not waste time on it. Sometimes, in a facilitated group, you feel as though you are being human resourced out the door. I would quite like to have had facilitated groups with advocates, by which I do not mean my brethren and sisters. Perhaps we could think about such a format so that we can have sparkier discussions. Everyone was terribly polite; no one came forward to say that they would like not only more money, but more of someone else's money.
Finally, child care was highlighted as an important feature of participation and the social justice agenda. Convener, I know that you are keen to move things along, but I want to ensure that we do not forget the importance of child care if we are going to deliver on those commitments.
As every other member wants to say something, I will go quickly around the table. However, everyone should bear in mind the fact that Wendy Alexander is due to join us at
10.30 am.
I have three quick points. First, as far as the break-out groups were concerned, there was a need for either the MSP or—for future purposes—the facilitator to argue the case on a particular section of the report and to explain why we had said what we had said. Perhaps we should think about that for future events.
Secondly, we have to flesh out what we are saying. Although I think that entitlement should be central to our final recommendations, when I was reviewing the press cuttings from the day on which we launched the interim report, I found that the issue was hardly mentioned. We have to do more work to explain what we mean by entitlement and how important the issue is.
I agree with much that has been said. However, I should point out that, at a workshop that I attended on informal learning institutions, voluntary sector representatives highlighted the sector's value and asked whether the committee had recognised it. Similarly, the FE and HE sectors claimed that their case had not been adequately picked up. Perhaps we should consider including scene-setting detail in appendices instead of reflecting all opinions in the final report.
I thought that the model was a reasonable success, although we need to pin down its outcomes as far as the reasons for holding the event in the first place are concerned. I came to the evidence-taking sessions late on in the inquiry. However, if good evidence has been taken from a proper spread of witnesses and has been properly processed, we should not expect such a convention to alter the report radically.
That said, I agree with Annabel Goldie. In the sessions that I attended, some fundamental questions were asked that challenged my understanding of where the report was heading. That is not to say that we should fundamentally change the report. As the break-out sessions and the convention itself were very much influenced by representatives of Government agencies, we need to ask whether we are seeking to change the way in which those people think or whether we want established Government thinking to hone our report. That is an important question to ask ourselves as we draw up our conclusions. We need to find out our role as a parliamentary committee in the process and I am not yet certain of the answer to that question.
Some points were raised that might be of passing interest. For example, the committee report seems to have failed to mention Investors in People. Furthermore, as far as I could read, the enterprise agency representatives in particular were making a rather obvious attempt to stress the importance of institutional stability.
Another significant issue was the challenge to the principle of entitlement. People wondered whether the committee's recommendations would stress the need for individuals to show some responsibility and self-reliance and to recognise a return on their personal investment in education. The issue is fundamental and again I am not sure where our report stands on it. Exactly the same holds true of business learning accounts. Several contributors in the sessions that I attended rightly and seriously questioned the uniform funding system.
A strong point was made that an awful lot of the report's arguments seemed to be a triumph of assertion over content. A number of people said that they did not see the logic by which we reached our conclusions. The word "hypocrisy" was used more than once by one person in what I thought were pretty strongly worded comments, although perhaps not unreasonable.
I am not sure about Andrew Wilson's comments—perhaps that is just because I was not in his group; I would welcome hearing more from him later—but I echo the comments that other members have made, some of which I will pick up on.
Brian Fitzpatrick spoke about the format of the day. I agree that we can learn something from it about how we run our business. The interaction in the groups was most beneficial. I also agree that the plenary sessions left a little to be desired, but the event was worth while. The interaction in the working groups was particularly good, because we got the people who were giving evidence to discuss the issues among themselves. I am not sure whether we want to go down the route of having confrontational advocates.
Most of the people in the groups that I was in were positive, although obviously they concentrated on areas that could be improved or that were matters of concern. A great deal of support was expressed for our belief in the importance of parity of esteem, removing barriers to learning, ensuring smooth progression and ensuring that better links are created between further education and higher education. However, concerns were expressed about cost neutrality—particularly about what we meant by that—and about the limits of the credits-based system. As other members have said, there is confusion about what entitlement means. We have gone for a credits-based system, but the confusion was summed up by the fact that someone said that entitlement equals 750 credits—nothing could be further from the truth, as that would create a barrier to learning, not access to learning. There was a great deal of discussion about why the line is drawn at level 8. We must explore those issues in detail.
One of my groups produced several positive suggestions—that was not the case with some of the discussions that I had—on child care as a condition of grant and on the importance of establishing sub-degree qualifications. A useful suggestion was also made about the importance of recognising personal development. That relates not just to the provision of guidance and support through university and college; it is about recognising the role of, for example, student activities and volunteering as part of the educational experience.
The second group that I attended was thought provoking. I will not be able to do justice to all the issues that were raised. The group emphasised the point that Gordon Jackson and Marilyn Livingstone have raised on the voluntary sector's concern that our emphasis on institutions means that we put less emphasis on diversity, the difficulty of access and barriers to learning. David Raffe raised a concern—which I share and was echoed by the group—that we have overemphasised the individual at the expense of the social good of lifelong learning. We must address that point. I have not done justice to all the points that were raised, but I will stop there.
I ask Rhona Brankin and David Mundell to keep their comments brief, as Wendy Alexander is waiting downstairs.
I should declare an interest, as I am currently on unpaid leave of absence from the University of Dundee. Like many of the contributors, I think that the event was a valuable day.
If we have done the hearing evidence part of the exercise correctly, we would expect to get feedback on how the report has been constructed, its conclusions and whether we missed anything out. In some of the sessions that I attended, the feeling was that some areas had either been missed out or needed further development. On the HE sector, concerns were expressed that the report did not include enough about the importance of research. Concerns were also expressed about the perceived impact on the sector—especially the later stages of higher education—of moving towards an integrated funding structure.
It was felt that the report was slightly parochial and that we needed to look beyond Scotland and to be explicit about having examined other ways of providing lifelong learning in other parts of the world. The importance of lifelong learning in a global marketplace was also stressed. That may form the subject of another report, but I think that this report should touch on it.
When we considered quality issues, there was broad support for a more integrated approach. In discussing the possibility of a single framework, we heard that there is a need for flexibility and a light touch. There was strong support for the importance of internal quality improvement systems, as well as for quality assessment systems involving the learner.
I was a little depressed after the opening plenary session, which highlighted one of the biggest challenges that we face: the fact that so many people's views are sectoral. Much of that session involved people saying that they liked the report, but wanted to change the little paragraph about them. I thought that people were not looking at the bigger picture. That improved during the workshops, but I think that the biggest challenge for lifelong learning is to break down barriers of self-interest. No one should believe that that will be easy to achieve.
Overall, however, the day proceeded much more positively. I agree with Tavish Scott and Brian Fitzpatrick: I was disappointed that there were not more unhappy people who wanted to make strong points. In some cases, we teased out of people the fact that they were unhappy. In one of the groups that I attended, I had to encourage the participants to come to a much more robust conclusion than the one that they wanted to come up with, which involved a call for more consultation. Indeed, the call to have a more discursive environment is an important element of feedback.
Many issues came up. For example, most people to whom I spoke did not believe that the proposals would be cost neutral and felt that we were ducking that issue. I do not think that we will get away with that when it comes to the final report. We will have either to demonstrate cost neutrality or not, as the case may be. If it is a "not", I am not sure whether all of us will be able to agree to it.
We need effective mechanics for presenting our proposals. I would prefer to keep to a strict timetable and to keep some issues as discursive topics. If we let the timetable slip, there is a danger that we will not end up with a worthwhile report for the time that will be available to debate it.
I invite Wendy Alexander and her officials to take a seat. I will make my comments on the convention and we will then get started with hearing evidence from the minister.
In the e-mails and other feedback that Simon Watkins and I have received, the general view has been that the opportunity to give feedback on and participate in a committee report was a positive experience. People felt that the Parliament was consulting in a way that no Parliament in the United Kingdom has done before. They were delighted to have the opportunity to make an input.
However, this was the first time that we have held such an event, and some improvements could be made to the format. In the private part of the meeting, we can have a debriefing about the format and discuss what we could do differently when we next hold a similar event.
The fact that the event was held delighted many people, who felt that they were getting an opportunity to have their say. I have informally mentioned to Cathy Jamieson that such an event might be useful for bringing people together in the national education debate. She said that she would consider the outcomes from our convention.
Next week we will circulate to all members the analysis arising from the feedback questionnaires, so that we can find out what the participants thought of the convention. That information will also be made public.
It is clear that we must reconsider several aspects of our report. There was consensus on many points, such as the need to bed in the SCQF and to provide the resources that are required to develop and market it. David Mundell is right that no one believed that the matters that we described as budget neutral would be so. The committee must revisit what it said.
While floating around at the conference, I became aware of two themes on structural change. One was that we should be careful about structural change, as we have not necessarily made the case for it. Questions were asked about whether having one body up to level 8 of the SCQF and another above that was the right structure. We will need to discuss that further.
Another key issue was parity of esteem. All the evidence that we received showed a consensus on the need for parity of esteem, but a useful point that was made in the plenary session was that, taken to a logical conclusion, parity of esteem will have to exist between people who work in higher education and those who work in further education. We must think more about such issues. The purpose of the convention was to raise them.
I have been a wee bit depressed by the evidence throughout the inquiry, as few organisations have presented their vision of lifelong learning. Witnesses have tended to concentrate on their own bit, as David Mundell said, and few organisations have considered the big picture. One or two have done so, but I will not mention names. During the convention, some comments were rather negative. People did not produce fresh ideas that we had not seen. Perhaps we should encourage more of that.
As members know, we have asked people who want to submit supplementary evidence to do so by 1 May. After that, we will review what additional evidence we need to take. I do not doubt that we will have preliminary discussion of that and the time scale when we discuss the report in private later. The convention was useful and I thank the committee.