A new learning and skills landscape? The central role of the Learning and Skills Council

Abstract

This is the first paper from a project which is part of the Economic and Social Research Council's programme of research into 'Teaching and learning'. The project, entitled 'The impact of policy on learning and inclusion in the new leaming and skills sector', explores what impact the efforts to create a single learning and skills system are having on teaching, learning, assessment and inclusion for three marginalized groups of post-16 learners. Drawing primarily on policy documents and 62 in-depth interviews with national, regional and local policy-makers in England, the paper points to a complex, confusing and constantly changing landscape. In particular, it deals with the formation, early years and recent reorganization of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), its roles, relations with government, its rather limited power, its partnerships and likely futures. While the formation of a more unified leaming and skills system is broadly seen as a necessary step in overcoming the fragmentation and inequalities of the previous post-16 sector, interviewees also highlighted problems, some of which may not simply abate with the passing of time. Political expectations of change are high, but the LSC and its partners are expected to carry through 'transformational' strategies without the necessary 'tools for the job'. In addition, some features of the learning and skills sector policy landscape still remain unreformed or need to be reorganized. The LSC and its partners are at the receiving end of a series of policy drivers (e.g. planning, funding, targets, inspection and initiatives) that may have partial or even perverse effects on the groups of marginalized learners we are studying.

Learning Cultures in Further Education

“…Notes 1. It is not strictly true that FE is a separate sector, as the Learning and Skills Council manages both FE colleges and a wide range of private training organizations (Coffield et al, 2005). However, FE is distinctly separate from either schools or universities, and FE colleges have a long identity tradition, which makes them also significantly different from other parts of the Learning and Skills sector.…”

“…Teaching was seen as a matter of developing better techniques and applying them. Learning supposedly entailed identifying each student's learning needs, meeting them within the resource constraints of a large group, and measuring success by a combination of retention rates, formal assessment achievement, and external inspection criteria (see Coffield et al (2005) for a fuller discussion of these issues, in relation to the role of the Learning and Skills Council, the quango tasked by the government with managing FE).…”

Certifying the workforce: economic imperative or failed social policy?

“…The LSC replaced a structure in which further education and training were dealt with separately (largely through the Further Education Funding Council and the local Training and Enterprise Councils or TECs). Analysts of the new structure agree that it is highly focused on national strategic objectives, at the expense of local flexibility (Ramsden et al, 2004;Coffield et al, 2005). In the immediate future this means a continuing interest in basic skills provision and a major emphasis on 'level 2' qualifications.…”

Engaging employers in workplace training – lessons from the English Train to Gain programme

“…The UK education and training sector is in a constant state of flux. The policy space is constantly being re-arranged (Taylor et al, 1997;Hamilton, 2007), transforming the reality and the experience on the ground for practitioners and policy-makers at different levels of the sector (Coffield et al, 2005).…”